Rommel's Year of Victory

by Lucas, James Sidney; Caesar, Kurt

• ISBN13: 9781853673023
• ISBN10: 1853673021
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-04-01
• Publisher: Stackpole Books

Summary

The German offensive in North Africa, coupling the prowess of Rommel, The Desert Fox, with the superb elan of the German Afrika Korps, is widely regarded as one of the most astonishing military achievements of World War II. Rommel had been sent to Libya in February 1941 to bail out the Italian Army, whose short-lived invasion of Egypt in the fall of 1940 had been repulsed by the British. His ability to adapt his troops to desert warfare is a textbook example of training and tactics in harsh conditions. German war artist Kurt Caesar traveled with the Afrika Korps and illustrated the campaign with evocative and detailed drawings. Rommel's Year of Victory combines these illustrations with a new, gripping narrative by James Lucas that captures the day-to-day life of the German soldier in the desert. James Lucas served as an infantryman in the Tunisian campaign in World War II. He is an acknowledged expert on the German military history of the period, as well as a widely published military author.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	7	(2)
Preface	9	(2)
Barrie Pitt
Foreword	11	(2)
Erwin Rommel
Chronology	13	(2)
Prologue	15	(2)
The Historical Background	17	(12)
Strategy	29	(4)
The Battlefield	33	(6)
German Orders of Battle	39	(7)
Rommel and the Other German Commanders in Africa	46	(13)
The First Campaign -- March to April 1941	59	(18)
The Second Campaign -- April to May 1941	77	(14)
The Third Campaign -- June 1941	91	(22)
The Fourth Campaign -- November 1941 to February 1942	113	(46)
The Fifth Campaign -- May to November 1942	159