He also took part in the Battle of Passchendaele in late before finishing the war as chief of staff of the 47th 2nd London Division. He then continued in command of the 21st Army Group for the rest of the North West Europe campaign , including the failed attempt to cross the Rhine during Operation Market Garden. When German armoured forces broke through the US lines in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge , Montgomery received command of the northern shoulder of the Bulge.
By the end of the war, troops under Montgomery's command had taken part in the encirclement of the Ruhr Pocket , liberated the Netherlands, and captured much of north-west Germany.
The Rev. Sir Robert died a month after his grandson's birth. Bernard's mother, Maud, was the daughter of Frederic William Canon Farrar , the famous preacher, and was eighteen years younger than her husband. Despite selling off all the farms that were in the townland of Ballynally, on the north-western shores of Lough Foyle , [ 16 ] "there was barely enough to keep up New Park and pay for the blasted summer holiday" i.
It was a financial relief of some magnitude when, in , Henry was made Bishop of Tasmania , then still a British colony , and Bernard spent his formative years there. Bishop Montgomery considered it his duty to spend as much time as possible in the rural areas of Tasmania and was away for up to six months at a time.
While he was away, his wife, still in her mid-twenties, gave her children "constant" beatings, [ 18 ] then ignored them most of the time.
