British Army during the Second World War the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Alan Cunningham. Over time the Eighth Army would be commanded by Neil Ritchie, Claude Auchinleck, Bernard Montgomery, Oliver Leese and Richard McCreery. In the early years of the war Eighth Army suffered from poor leadership and repeated reversals of fortune until the Second Battle of El Alamein when it advanced across Libya into Tunisia and joined the First Army in the 18th Army Group. The Eighth Army, under 15th Army Group command, later took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily, the Allied invasion of Italy and the Italian Campaign, where progress was slow and
Correlli Barnett the Italians from Cyrenaica in late 1940, and Field-Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck (whom he called "The Victor of Alamein"), who forced Rommel to a halt at the First Battle of El Alamein, only to be dismissed by Winston Churchill for his pains. He pointed out that Montgomery enjoyed massive superiority of men and materiel at the Second Battle of El Alamein, and described him as an "emotional cripple", a description, he noted in subsequent editions, borne out "in rich detail" by the Nigel Hamilton biography. However, Barnett's conclusions are attacked by Field Marshal Michael Carver in his book 'Dilemmas of