Which is about it. John English's is poor because of an embarassing tendency to skew sources to fit his "each one is in the shadow of..." idea. He doesn''t problematize much. Ignoring Patton is also a weakness.Tom from Cornwall wrote: ↑03 Nov 2022, 21:57Good point, there aren't that many comparative biographies though - I've got John English's "Patton's Peers" and Douglas Delaney's "Corps Commanders" - should go back and re-read them. I'll look into Hürter's book - thanks for that suggestion.
Delaney is way better, because he does to look for something not obvious.
Stephen Hart's Colossal Cracks also includes a long piece on the Montgomery-Crerar and Montgomery-Dempsey relationships. It's close to a comparative biography.
Then, there is Taffee's Marshall and his Generals, backed with remarkable research. However, his common thread seems to identify who was the "best general": that's poor history.
Other than generals, there are cross-biographies of SS officers not serving in field units (Allgemeine-SS): Michael Wildt's An Uncompromising Generation and Christian Ingrao's Believe and Destroy. These are much more analytical and thoughtful than what gets written on generals.
Hence I thought his book on Lorraine was betterRe Patton and the Bulge - I need to re-read John Rickard's "Advance and Destroy". IIRC he was more complimentary about Patton in that book than in his earlier book about Patton in Lorraine.