E.A. Montague, an Olympian at the front lines
When E.A. Montague died in 1948, the legendary Daily Mail journalist Alexander Clifford got right to the point in a tribute piece written for his friend’s longtime employer, The Guardian.
There is no doubt in my mind that Evelyn Montague was the most important correspondent of this war. His name was, of necessity, not so well known to the general public as some others. But among his own colleagues no one was rated higher.
His outstanding quality was his unswerving integrity. He was uncompromisingly honest in his work. He would not tolerate any glossing over or any artistic licence or any deviation from strict accuracy on even the smallest detail. He set a very austere standard of reporting. He was always concerned to get as much of his material at first hand as possible. And it goes without saying that he abhorred armchair strategy and criticism.
Montague’s newspaper roots ran deep. His maternal grandfather, C.P. Scott, was editor of The Guardian for more than 57 years, and his father, Charles Edward Montague, was a writer for the Manchester-based paper.
Evelyn Aubrey Montague was born March 20, 1900, in Lancashire. Despite his family legacy in the press, it was his athletic prowess that first put him on the public stage. He rose to prominence as a distance runner while attending Oxford, excelling in high-profile competitions against rival Cambridge.
Montague won the three-mile at the British Olympic trials in 1920 but declined the opportunity to compete in the 5,000 meters at the Antwerp Games. He would represent Britain four years later in Paris, though, running in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
He ran fourth behind the eventual medalists for a good portion of the race — that’s him on the far right of the picture below — before fading late to finish sixth. (His exploits are portrayed in the Oscar-winning 1981 film “Chariots of Fire,” which refers to him as Aubrey Montague.)
Though he continued running competitively on occasion for a few more years, Montague soon entered the family business. Not surprisingly, he found a niche covering athletics (track and field) and would do so for The Guardian for years to come.
Among his assignments was the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he swooned over Jesse Owens after the American’s victory in the 100 meters:
“He is beyond question the greatest sprinter of modern times — not merely the fastest but incomparably the most beautiful. There never was a runner who showed so little sign of effort. He seemed to float along the track like water.”
Montague was still writing about races three years later when world events prompted him to switch gears. A little over a month after Germany invaded Poland, The Guardian announced Montague had been accredited as a war correspondent and would soon be leaving for France. His first story, chronicling his trip across the channel to the front, appeared in the newspaper on Oct. 14.
Devious are the journeyings of a war correspondent in search of a war. Mine began two days ago and involved a night voyage in a troopship, another night in a Paris hotel, and many hours of driving through a lovely and still inviolate countryside. Somewhere to the east of me a British force of more than 150,000 men is in line, ready to take the strain if the enemy decides to attack. But the attack has not come yet, and the country through which I have passed is still unscarred.
Meaningful attacks, of course, would not come for months; the British would label the period the “Phoney War.” Montague had to crank out stories regardless and did so through the end of 1939.
His final dispatch from “Somewhere in France” appeared in the Jan. 1, 1940 Guardian and reflected the numbing inertia of his time with the troops.
The British Expeditionary Force has now been here for nearly four months, and for the last month of that time a section of the force has been in contact with the enemy; yet its total casualties so far are no more than any fair-sized English town might suffer from road accidents in a week. An enemy attack in force was expected in mid-October and another just after Armistice Day, but neither of them took place. One does not know why those attacks were withheld.
Montague returned to France in late April and was still on hand when Germany launched its offensive into Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg on May 10. He entered Belgium with British troops the following day and got his first real taste of war, witnessing a German bombing raid up close.
The situation would of course deteriorate quickly over the next week and by May 20 he was back in France with worrying news for the readers back home, cloaked in euphemisms that undoubtedly riled him based on Clifford’s tribute mentioned above. He led a brief dispatch with word of the “readjustment of the Allied line” — or, retreat — which occurred “in good order and without being unduly embarrassed by the enemy.”
Montague returned to England the following day, and would do his best to cover what became the escape from Dunkirk from there. Ten days later, he helped shape the enduring narrative of the evacuation as a triumph with this lead:
In the grey chill of dawn to-day in a South-eastern port war correspondents watched with incredulous joy the happening of a miracle. By every canon of military science the B.E.F. has been doomed for the last four or five days. Completely out-numbered, out-gunned, out-planed, all but surrounded, it had seemed certain to be cut off from its last channel of escape. Yet for several hours this morning we saw ship after ship come into harbour and discharge thousands of British soldiers safe and sound on British soil.
What will happen to the rearguard is still uncertain, but it is certain already that the majority of the Force will be saved.
Montague would go on to write memorably about the Battle of Britain and would accompany the British First Army into North Africa in November 1942. He was in Tunisia four months later when his wife, Norah, died unexpectedly. After flying home for a few weeks, he was back at the front by April 1.
Montague landed in Sicily in mid-July, then made the jump to the mainland Sept. 3, but his health had been deteriorating for months, to the point that his friends begged him to go home.
That month, wrote Guardian colleague Cyril Ray, “I had to help to lift him out of his jeep — he was heartbreakingly light for his size. There had been fighting at Foggia and he had refused to leave it unreported while his relief was on the way, though all his colleagues were eager to cover (for) him and he could hardly walk.”
Montague would file his final dispatch from the front lines on the 27th and head for England — this time for good.
“He was always a most charming and stimulating companion to live and travel with,” wrote Clifford, “and when he had to leave Italy there was no one who was not sincerely sorry to see him go.”
He eventually was diagnosed with tuberculosis and confined to his bed for months. Aside from a handful of book reviews, he wouldn’t have another byline until May 1945, when he penned some analysis pieces after Germany’s surrender. He was named London editor of The Guardian on Jan. 1, 1946, but had to step away about three months later due to his illness.
Montague never fully recovered and died in a sanatorium on Jan. 30, 1948.