Thorlifter
Captain
Sorry it's so long, but I thought it was quite facinating......
During World War II, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's decision to stop the Allied invasion of France at the water's edge was contrary to the rule book and anathema to his more tradition-bound contemporaries.
When World War II ended in Europe in May 1945, most Western military leaders and analysts regarded Erwin Rommel as the war's greatest German general. But that was not how most German military leaders felt. Instead, in their memoirs they argued that Rommel was at best an adequate tactician and not a bad leader of small units, that he had been an adequate division commander, but his command of corps, army and army groups was often flawed. Rommel, they asserted, had involved himself too much in the day-to-day details of the tactical fight and not enough in the operational and strategic issues that must concern those at the highest levels of command, and he paid too little attention to matters of intelligence and the enemy's order of battle. Thus, his German critics allege, as the commander of the Afrika Korps, "the Desert Fox" had won some spectacular victories but willfully ignored problems of logistics.
Of course, Rommel was no longer present to defend himself. His peripheral involvement in the July 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler had led the Gestapo to compel the field marshal to take his own life that October. The debate on Rommel's ability was, therefore, left to be fought out among his contemporaries and was picked up by historians who continue this debate to the present day. Much of the criticism of Rommel's suitability for high command is focused around his performance as the commander of Heeresgruppe (Army Group) B and its defense of northwestern Europe against the Anglo-American invasion in June and July 1944.
Rommel's actions in that assignment can perhaps give the best indication of the validity of the charges that the field marshal was not up to positions of great responsibility. They can also provide insights into how German military leaders as a whole approached the strategic and operational problems of World War II and how well they understood the larger issues involved in the war.
Rommel's Glory Years
For Rommel, the first three years of the war were spectacular. He had risen from the obscurity of a mere division command (one among approximately 140) to an army command with the rank of field marshal. His leadership of the 7th Panzer Division during the blitzkrieg in France had contributed considerably to his rapid promotion through the command hierarchy. One recent German account of the invasion of France asserts that Rommel played an even more important role in the breakthrough on the Meuse -- which led to the Allied collapse -- than Heinz Guderian did.
Fresh from the victory in France, in early 1941 the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH -- Army High Command) selected Rommel to command a small corps of German mobile and mechanized troops that was being sent to North Africa to prevent the collapse of the Italian position in Libya. Under strict orders to remain on the defensive once he arrived, Rommel instead hit the ground running and began attacking the British even before his entire force had reached the desert. In a series of spectacular advances, he consistently disobeyed the instructions of not only his titular bosses in Rome, the Italian Comando Supremo, but also his superiors in Berlin, the OKH. Unimpressed by the Afrika Korps' early victories, the chief of the German General Staff, the schoolmasterly Colonel-General Franz Halder, was instead soon moaning that Rommel had gone "mad" in North Africa.
Whatever the criticisms issuing from the OKH, Rommel's performance was brilliant. His mission was to keep the British out of Libya and to restore the Italian position in North Africa. He more than accomplished this. His masterstroke came in June 1942 when his outnumbered Afrika Korps wrecked the British Eighth Army on the Gazala Line immediately to the east of Benghazi. He then pursued his beaten foe all the way back to El Alamein, the Eighth Army's last defensive position in Egypt before the Nile.
Along the way, he also took the fortress port of Tobruk. Some historians have criticized Rommel for not halting after his victory at Gazala so that German and Italian airborne and amphibious forces could assault Malta. However, given the performance of Italian forces up to that point in the war, Rommel had reason to be dubious about the success of such an operation -- and he was probably correct. Certainly Hitler agreed with him. Rommel sensed that he had the enemy on the run, and that this was the moment of opportunity that could lead to the fall of Egypt. Impressed with what he had accomplished thus far, Hitler promoted Rommel -- who had been only a major general at the start of the war -- to field marshal on June 22, 1942. But things were about to change.
In August 1942 the British finally discovered a field commander, Lt. Gen. Bernard Law Montgomery, who would fight the Eighth Army in accordance with its actual abilities. More important for the men of this badly battered force, he would provide its units leadership with a capital "L." As he told the British and Commonwealth soldiers defending the Alma Halfa Ridge in September 1942, "they would stay there alive, or they would stay there dead." They stayed. The Afrika Korps was brought to a halt, and by the end of September, Rommel was suffering from exhaustion and a bout of jaundice that finally forced him to return to Germany for treatment.
Thus, Rommel was not even in North Africa when Montgomery's opening blows in the second Battle of El Alamein fell on Axis positions in October. Not yet fully recovered, the Afrika Korps commander rushed back to the front, but by the time he arrived those in charge had already lost the battle. For the first time in North Africa, the Germans were up against a commander willing and able to take advantage of the overwhelming ground and air superiority the British possessed.
Rommel recognized that the Axis now faced a much different situation in North Africa, and he attempted to make the situation clear to Hitler and military leaders in Rome and Berlin. All he received in return were obdurate orders to hold fast. That he did, and as a result he came close to losing what was left of the Afrika Korps. At the last, he ordered his forces to pull out, a move that marked the point when his relations with the Führer began their rapid decline. When Anglo-American forces landed in Morocco and Algeria -- Operation Torch -- in November, Rommel urged the OKH to pull Axis forces out of North Africa entirely. Allied air and naval superiority, he told them, was such that German and Italian forces would inevitably go down to defeat. By this point, he had a very clear idea of what the Anglo-American naval, air and logistical superiority meant for German military power.
Interregnum
Upon his return to Tunisia, Rommel discovered that the German commander on the scene, Colonel-General Jürgen von Arnim, basically held an independent command -- a mark of how low his own fortunes had fallen since the previous summer. He believed -- quite rightly in retrospect -- that there existed a window of opportunity to strike a significant blow at the Americans in central Tunisia before Montgomery's forces arrived in the south. But Arnim was loath to lend his armor to support Rommel's conception -- after all the field marshal was not a general staff officer like himself. The result was a limited offensive in February 1943 that inflicted a significant, but not lasting, defeat on the Americans at Kasserine Pass.
In a perverse sort of way, the drubbing the Americans received at Kasserine Pass may have been beneficial. Recovering much more quickly than the Eighth Army had from its setbacks, the Americans learned from the defeat. Much of the transformation was driven by Maj. Gen. George S. Patton's tough-minded leadership. Many senior British commanders, particularly Field Marshal Alan Brooke and Lt. Gen. Harold Alexander, regarded Kasserine Pass as proof that the U.S. Army was not a competent military force. They would hold to that judgment throughout the war. Rommel, on the other hand, did not make the same mistake. Instead, unlike Hitler and other German generals, he recognized how quickly the Americans had recovered from defeat and learned from it. He also did not underestimate their capabilities.
During World War II, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's decision to stop the Allied invasion of France at the water's edge was contrary to the rule book and anathema to his more tradition-bound contemporaries.
When World War II ended in Europe in May 1945, most Western military leaders and analysts regarded Erwin Rommel as the war's greatest German general. But that was not how most German military leaders felt. Instead, in their memoirs they argued that Rommel was at best an adequate tactician and not a bad leader of small units, that he had been an adequate division commander, but his command of corps, army and army groups was often flawed. Rommel, they asserted, had involved himself too much in the day-to-day details of the tactical fight and not enough in the operational and strategic issues that must concern those at the highest levels of command, and he paid too little attention to matters of intelligence and the enemy's order of battle. Thus, his German critics allege, as the commander of the Afrika Korps, "the Desert Fox" had won some spectacular victories but willfully ignored problems of logistics.
Of course, Rommel was no longer present to defend himself. His peripheral involvement in the July 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler had led the Gestapo to compel the field marshal to take his own life that October. The debate on Rommel's ability was, therefore, left to be fought out among his contemporaries and was picked up by historians who continue this debate to the present day. Much of the criticism of Rommel's suitability for high command is focused around his performance as the commander of Heeresgruppe (Army Group) B and its defense of northwestern Europe against the Anglo-American invasion in June and July 1944.
Rommel's actions in that assignment can perhaps give the best indication of the validity of the charges that the field marshal was not up to positions of great responsibility. They can also provide insights into how German military leaders as a whole approached the strategic and operational problems of World War II and how well they understood the larger issues involved in the war.
Rommel's Glory Years
For Rommel, the first three years of the war were spectacular. He had risen from the obscurity of a mere division command (one among approximately 140) to an army command with the rank of field marshal. His leadership of the 7th Panzer Division during the blitzkrieg in France had contributed considerably to his rapid promotion through the command hierarchy. One recent German account of the invasion of France asserts that Rommel played an even more important role in the breakthrough on the Meuse -- which led to the Allied collapse -- than Heinz Guderian did.
Fresh from the victory in France, in early 1941 the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH -- Army High Command) selected Rommel to command a small corps of German mobile and mechanized troops that was being sent to North Africa to prevent the collapse of the Italian position in Libya. Under strict orders to remain on the defensive once he arrived, Rommel instead hit the ground running and began attacking the British even before his entire force had reached the desert. In a series of spectacular advances, he consistently disobeyed the instructions of not only his titular bosses in Rome, the Italian Comando Supremo, but also his superiors in Berlin, the OKH. Unimpressed by the Afrika Korps' early victories, the chief of the German General Staff, the schoolmasterly Colonel-General Franz Halder, was instead soon moaning that Rommel had gone "mad" in North Africa.
Whatever the criticisms issuing from the OKH, Rommel's performance was brilliant. His mission was to keep the British out of Libya and to restore the Italian position in North Africa. He more than accomplished this. His masterstroke came in June 1942 when his outnumbered Afrika Korps wrecked the British Eighth Army on the Gazala Line immediately to the east of Benghazi. He then pursued his beaten foe all the way back to El Alamein, the Eighth Army's last defensive position in Egypt before the Nile.
Along the way, he also took the fortress port of Tobruk. Some historians have criticized Rommel for not halting after his victory at Gazala so that German and Italian airborne and amphibious forces could assault Malta. However, given the performance of Italian forces up to that point in the war, Rommel had reason to be dubious about the success of such an operation -- and he was probably correct. Certainly Hitler agreed with him. Rommel sensed that he had the enemy on the run, and that this was the moment of opportunity that could lead to the fall of Egypt. Impressed with what he had accomplished thus far, Hitler promoted Rommel -- who had been only a major general at the start of the war -- to field marshal on June 22, 1942. But things were about to change.
In August 1942 the British finally discovered a field commander, Lt. Gen. Bernard Law Montgomery, who would fight the Eighth Army in accordance with its actual abilities. More important for the men of this badly battered force, he would provide its units leadership with a capital "L." As he told the British and Commonwealth soldiers defending the Alma Halfa Ridge in September 1942, "they would stay there alive, or they would stay there dead." They stayed. The Afrika Korps was brought to a halt, and by the end of September, Rommel was suffering from exhaustion and a bout of jaundice that finally forced him to return to Germany for treatment.
Thus, Rommel was not even in North Africa when Montgomery's opening blows in the second Battle of El Alamein fell on Axis positions in October. Not yet fully recovered, the Afrika Korps commander rushed back to the front, but by the time he arrived those in charge had already lost the battle. For the first time in North Africa, the Germans were up against a commander willing and able to take advantage of the overwhelming ground and air superiority the British possessed.
Rommel recognized that the Axis now faced a much different situation in North Africa, and he attempted to make the situation clear to Hitler and military leaders in Rome and Berlin. All he received in return were obdurate orders to hold fast. That he did, and as a result he came close to losing what was left of the Afrika Korps. At the last, he ordered his forces to pull out, a move that marked the point when his relations with the Führer began their rapid decline. When Anglo-American forces landed in Morocco and Algeria -- Operation Torch -- in November, Rommel urged the OKH to pull Axis forces out of North Africa entirely. Allied air and naval superiority, he told them, was such that German and Italian forces would inevitably go down to defeat. By this point, he had a very clear idea of what the Anglo-American naval, air and logistical superiority meant for German military power.
Interregnum
Upon his return to Tunisia, Rommel discovered that the German commander on the scene, Colonel-General Jürgen von Arnim, basically held an independent command -- a mark of how low his own fortunes had fallen since the previous summer. He believed -- quite rightly in retrospect -- that there existed a window of opportunity to strike a significant blow at the Americans in central Tunisia before Montgomery's forces arrived in the south. But Arnim was loath to lend his armor to support Rommel's conception -- after all the field marshal was not a general staff officer like himself. The result was a limited offensive in February 1943 that inflicted a significant, but not lasting, defeat on the Americans at Kasserine Pass.
In a perverse sort of way, the drubbing the Americans received at Kasserine Pass may have been beneficial. Recovering much more quickly than the Eighth Army had from its setbacks, the Americans learned from the defeat. Much of the transformation was driven by Maj. Gen. George S. Patton's tough-minded leadership. Many senior British commanders, particularly Field Marshal Alan Brooke and Lt. Gen. Harold Alexander, regarded Kasserine Pass as proof that the U.S. Army was not a competent military force. They would hold to that judgment throughout the war. Rommel, on the other hand, did not make the same mistake. Instead, unlike Hitler and other German generals, he recognized how quickly the Americans had recovered from defeat and learned from it. He also did not underestimate their capabilities.
