I’m sure many of you have heard of Infantry Attacks, a book by Erwin Rommel in the interwar era. It is about Rommel’s experiences in World War 1 as a mountain infantry commander mainly in Romania and Italy, but he also fought in France for the first year of the war, as part of a regular infantry unit. Throughout the book, especially in Romania and Italy, Rommel assumed higher and higher commands, ending in the command of the Rommel detachment of the Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion. This also doubles as a military textbook, with the English translator and the US army writing an introduction at the start of the book. I finished it and it is a great book.
One of the highlights is the Tolmien offensive in Italy, where the Rommel detachment of the Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion destroyed five Italian regiments and took 9000 prisoners in three days, the most successful of Rommel’s career.
I highly recommend it, but it’s quite a long and complicated book. It really shows you Rommel’s power as a commander. A sequel, Tank Attacks, was planned but never completed, due to Rommel’s suicide in 1944. It was meant to be based on Rommel’s experiences in North Africa. What was written can be found in the Rommel Papers. I just don’t recommend it because it was edited by Liddell Hart, a British general who edited the works to make it seem like Rommel was his “pupil”, and that Liddell Hart taught Rommel what he knew. It was also edited by one of Rommel’s staff in North Africa, and his wife and son.
If you have read this book, what are your thoughts on it? Thank you!
