And what about Monty?

Field Marshal Montgomery was a man who inspired extremes of emotion. After my recent BBC2 programme on El Alamein I received letters from veterans who thought him, on the one hand, "an unpleasant little man" and, on the other, the greatest British general of the war. While historical opinion has been scarcely less divided, Nigel Hamilton's ground-breaking threepart study (1981-86) skilfully argued the case for Montgomery, and went far to portray him warts and all. Professor Hamilton tells us that he was induced to embark upon this new work because of fresh documentation that has come to light since his earlier biography, and because he was now prepared to confront Montgomery's sexuality: "I wasn't ready, as a young biographer, to enter these dark waters."

He now plunges into them with gusto, and detects in Montgomery "a homosocial bond with his men on a scale unequalled in British history: a bond that could, I am certain-only have been created by a man who loved men - young men - beyond all else." Hamilton makes much of Montgomery's relationship with his domineering mother. When Field Marshal Carver went to see Montgomery in his last weeks, he found him unable to do anything but think. Carver asked if he thought about Alamein or Normandy, and he replied: "No. I think about my mother, and how beastly she was to me."

Montgomery broke away to marry, but on the tragic death of his wife he "reverted to type in terms of his fear of women, and his exclusive tenderness to men and boys".

While there is no suggestion that this assumed a physical form, it is a strong thread running throughout the book. The word homosocial makes the first of its many entries in the preface, and its final appearance on the last page of the text.

I felt increasingly uneasy about this. Not because a man's sexuality should not concern his biographer, but because much of it contributes little to our understanding of Montgomery the general, and it is his generalship that makes Montgomery an important figure. Soldiering, with its physical proximity and shared endeavour, generates powerful bonds between men whose brotherly love does not necessarily have a homosexual implication. Kipling wrote of emotions which are indeed "passing the love of women", and many readers will know precisely what he meant. Field Marshal Bill Slim aroused extraordinary affection among the men who served under him - the bonds between the officers and men of 14th Army were no less robust than those in 8th Army - yet there was no sexual ambivalence to Slim.

As a writer downhearted by patchy reviews, I regret the way that this is turning out, but the further I go, the more my disappointment grows. Hamilton's treatment of the historical context sometimes seems perverse. Two decades of writing on the First World War seems to have whistled past his ears and left him unscathed.

While he acknowledges the wise Malcolm Brown in the introduction, there is little evidence that he has considered Brown's views on the Somme, Brian Bond's on Haig, Paddy Griffith's on the development of British tactics or Tim Travers' on the British Army. This is Hamlet with the Prince of Denmark but without much of his supporting cast. Senior French and Belgian commanders of 1940 were "not only as incompetent in command as Gort, but cowards into the bargain". Too old, yes; out of touch with the battle, that too; but cowards?

Hamilton is no kinder to some contemporaries, dismissing " college historians of Cambridge" and "armchair military writers". The former comment implies academic superiority unjustified by this work, and the latter is an accusation which can surely only decently be used by someone whose military experience has taken him well beyond the confines of study and archive.

There is much of real value in this book which carping about sexuality and context cannot obscure. Montgomery's work as corps and army commander in the UK in 1940-42 receives proper attention, and the run-up to Alamein and the battle itself are covered wonderfully well. Hamilton is right to stress that Alamein was no foregone conclusion: it was indeed "a battle of commanders' wills as much as of tactics". But I wish I had not had to dig as deep to find these jewels.

While there was room for a singlevolume biography encapsulating the best of Hamilton's earlier tour de force, new material and, indeed, judicious comments on sexuality, to give us the allegedly Full Monty in more than 800 pages, and get only to 1942, seems a contradiction in terms.