Page "Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein" Paragraph 7

After the First World War Montgomery commanded the 17th Battalion the Royal Fusiliers, a battalion in the British Army of the Rhine, before reverting to his substantive rank of captain ( brevet major ) in November 1919.

He then attended the army's Staff College, Camberley, before being appointed Brigade Major in the 17th Infantry Brigade in January 1921.

The brigade was stationed in County Cork carrying out counter-insurgency operations during the final stages of the Irish War of Independence.

Montgomery came to the conclusion that the conflict could not be won without harsh measures, and that self-government was the only feasible solution ; in 1923, after the establishment of the Irish Free State and during the Irish Civil War, Montgomery wrote to Colonel Arthur Percival of the Essex Regiment: