e, Patton's delivering his famousspeech to the Third Army delivered on June 4, 1944. In the movie, during the openingspeech, Patton also makes the statement, "No bastard ever won a war by dying for hiscountry, you win it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country!". Heactually made this statement in 1941 at Fort Benning, Georgia to a small group of troopsin training. Obviously the statement was memorable enough for the writers of the movieto include it into the opening scene. When Patton is wearing the uniform of a four stargeneral and has decorations that were awarded to him by various European countries. However, in reality, at this point in time, he was still a lieutenant general and thedecorations were awarded to him after the war. Patton is shown in Morocco, where in1941 he was the commander of the 2nd Armored Division. He was assigned to seizeCassablanca, which he did. He went to the headquarters of Admiral Michelier with pearlhandled pistols and a tommy gun and impressed the Sultan of Morocco. One of thebeginning scenes inthe movie shows Patton being presented with the order of OuissanAlaouite. The citation actually says the memorable line in the movie, "The lions in theirdens tremble at his approach." The changes in North Africa began on August 31, 1942,when Rommel attacked through the southern flank of the British line west ofEl-'Alamein. General Bernard Law Montgomery fought with Patton, and forced Rommelinto a retreat. Throughout the movie, Rommel and Patton are seen as major adversaries. Three American, three British, and one Canadian divisions landed on Sicily on July 10,1943. One of these divisions was General Patton's army. They pushed across the islandand overcame the last Axis opposition on August 17. The movie does not mention,however, that Mussolini had been stripped of power on July 25, and the Italiangovernment had entered into negotiations that ended in an armistice on September 8.The mo...
