Field-Marshal Erwin Rommel, whose death was announced by the German wire- less yesterday, was an able general, whose spell of success in Africa enabled German propaganda to build him up as a militarv figure second only to Hitler himself. This exaggerated reputa- tion was exploded in the battle of El Alamein, but Rommel's conduct of the Axis retreat to Tunisia proved beyond doubt his professional competence. Ruthless and resourceful, Rommel had been connected with the Nazi Party since its inception, and was completely identified with its fortunes; his death will be as much a political as a military blow to the enemy. Erwin Rommel was bom in 1891 and was educated at Tubingen University. In the 1914-18 war his career was one of extraordi- nary distinction for a voung and very junior officer. He started off as an ensign in the 124th Infantry Regiment, first came to notice for a brilliant exploit on the French front, and afterwards won the order " Pour Ic M;ritc "- for one of his rank the equivalent of the Victoria Cross-for his skill, leadership. and personal bravery in Italy. After the war he taught at the Dresden Military Academy before joining the National-Socialist Party. lie becamc a storm-troop leader, attached to Hittcr's bodyguard. and organized the cam- paign of terror in Coburg (in which Socialists and Communists were killed) which Hitler described in " Mein Kampf " as the turning- point of his career. GANGSTER METHODS Rommel's qualities of leadership-and per- haps also his taste for the methods of ad gangster in civil war-brought him the per- sonal favour of Hitler. He took part in the occupation of Austria, the Sudetenland. and Czechoslovakia. In the present war he served in the Polish campaign and in 1940 com- manded a Panzer division in Francc. He re- ceived the Knight's Cross for his part in break- ing the French front in the region of Mau- beuge, and it is believed to have been his division which reached the sea at St. Valery-en- Caux and cut off the British 51st Division. When Hitler realized that he would have to go to the support of his Italian allies in North Africa or see them driven right out of the continent, he entrusted Rommel with the organization of the Afrika Korps. This force was extremely well trained and equipped, and on heing transported to Libya it won an instant success against the depleted and relatively ill- armed British forces. In April, 1941, General Wavell was forced to abandon Benghazi. Ad- vancing with extreme rapidity, Rommel drove his opponent across the Egyptian frontier and laid siege to the isolated garrison which had been dropped in Tobruk. A long period of comparative lull followed. Rommel-the real commander-in-chief of the Axis forces, though he had a nominal Italian superior-was building up a strong force. but vas alvays short of certain essential supplies. His attacks against Tobruk were fruitless, but he was contemplating one on a bigger scale when he was attacked on November 18. 1941, by the British Eighth Army. The long and extremely confused battle which followed went against Rommel, though the German armoured tactics were, at least to begin with, superior to the British, and the German armour was very much better in quality. By sheer per- sistence and pluck the British, in spite of almost catastrophic losses in tanks, wore'down the enemy. or perhaps rather the enemy's com- mander. By the end of December, 1941, he had retreated headlong to Jedabia. leaving his forces on the frontier to be mopped up. In all he had lost 20.000 prisoners, but be had saved the personnel of his two crack armoured divisions, which was what he chiefly cared about. Having received some reinforcements in tanks. he succeeded in pushing the Eighth Army back to the line Gazala-Bir Hakeim, some 40 miles west of Tobruk. BACK AT TOBRUK This campaign had gone against Rotpmel on balance, but he made up for it in a re- sounding victory in May and June. 1942. Out- flanking and rolling up the Eighth Army's position from the sottth, he drove it back in fierce tighting to the frontier, then suddenly turned upon Tobruk, left isolated once agaitin, and carried it by storm. The British were un- able to call a halt until they reached El Alamein, 80 miles east of Alexandria. They had lost 50.000 men and vast quantities of mzaterial, and were no longer sttre of even being able to hold Egypt. Rommel had been aided by superior material. notably in tanks, but his tactics had been masterly. However, he made no headway in his attacks on the El Alamein line; in fact, the Eighth Army began to launch local counter-offensives. So the stage was set for the final trial, one of the most vital in the war. Rommel's last attack, begun on August 31. failed after sharp fighting. And then. in the last week of October and the first week of November General Mont- gomery inflicted a heavy defeat upon the Axis forces. Rommel was in hospital in Germany when the offensive began, but hurried back to his post. He succeeded in extricating once more a large proportion of his best German forces. leaving the rest and the Italians to their fate. Though outmanoeuvred in the battle, he conducted the long retreat to Tunisia with skill. But his African career ended with an- other disaster. His last attack on the Eighth Army at Medenine in March. 1943; was a com- plete failure, and he then returned home. leaving not pnly the troops which he had led back across North Africa but also those which had been landed in Tunisia to meet their in- evitable end. His first European appointment after his re- turn. on completing further hospital treatment, was apparently an inspecto'ship of the western coast defences. But before the allies landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944, he had been made commander of an army group defending the Low Countries and Fr'nce north of the Biscay coast. He was wholly unable to prevent the landing, which took the Germans largely by surprise, but he made vigorous efforts to con- fine the allied holding by means of armoured divisions which he concentrated from all points. The Germans have announced that it was on July 17 that he sustained the injuries from which he itas now died. Rommel was undoubtedly a tactician of genius, but with some weaknesses. Restless. arrogant, and difficult to work with, neglectful of the administrative side of the forces which he commanded. he was too apt to repeat him- self. But he brought tO modern large-scale warfare -the methods of bluff and ambush which had begun to appear unattainable in present-day conditions. This strange figure, master of tank warfare without knowing any- thing about a tank or even understanding the inside of a car, was in fact full of contradic- tions. Disliked by those with whom he came in contact, he yet exereised an amazing in- fluence over the troops from whom he exacted so much. Brutal in speech and sometimes in action, he treated British wounded prisoners in Africa with consideration. Boundless in darin,g it would seem that his nerve was liable to break suddenly. He will be remembered as a brilliant though uncertain and uneven com- mander in ihe - field rather than as a com- mander-in-chief. SOLDIER AND NAZI ROMMEL IN SUCCESS AND FAILURE A MASTERLY TACTICIAN
General George S. Patton. Junior, com- mander of the United States Fifteenth Army, whose death is announced on another page, was one of the most brilliant and successful leaders whom the war produced. It was he who led the Atmerican attack on Casablanca, forged his way through to effect a juncture with the Eighth Army near Gafsa, commanded the Seventh Army in Sicily, and then swept at the head of the Third from Brittany to Metz and onwards. George Smith Patton, a cavalryman by training and instinct, became a tank expert. Brave, thrustful. and determined in action. he .as a remarkable personality, wvho taught his men both to fear and to admire him. At the same time he was a serious and thought- ful soldier. He was an early advocate of the employment of armour in swiftly moving masses to exploit the break-through, and was finally able, with the help of American methods of mass-production, to realize his theories in practice. A great athilete in his earlier days, he had also a taste for philosophiy, literature, and poetry. He was the son of a California pioncer, and was born at San Gabriel, in that State, on November 11. 1885. lSoldiering was in his blood. for bie was the great -gandson ol General Hugh Mercer, w,ho served under Washington, and his grand- father died in the Civil War. It was natural, therefore, that he should find his way to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated in 1909. Afte'r great achievements on the track at West Point he was to be placed fifth in the cross-country run of the Modern Pentathlon (in the main a military event) at the Olympic Games of 1912. He was also to be known as a fine horseman anti showv rider and a crack pistol slot. He developed a flamboyant and emotional character. for which his men found expression in the sobriquet " Old Blood and-Guts," but he was a born military leader. Commissioned in the cavalry, Patiton served first at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. A little later lte went to France to stu(ly the sabre ihere and afiei his return served aIs N-laster of ihc Sword at the Mbounted Service School at Fort Riley, Kansas. In 1916 he was aide-de-camp to General Pershing ont the punitive expedition into Mexico. Then. vhenl America entered thle 1914-18 w:ar he, by that timc a captaini, wetit on Pershing's staff to France, where, in November. 1917, he wvas detailed to the Tank Corps and attended a couise at the Frencih Tank School and he wvas present whleni the Britishi tanks were launched at Cambrai. After this he organized the American Tank Centre at Latxgres and later the 304th Brigade of the Tank Corps, whicih he commanded with much distinction in the St. Mihiel offensive of September. 1918. Having been transferred with his brigade to the Meuse-Argonne sector he was wvotinled on the first day of the offen- sive, for his services he was awarded the D.S.C. and D.S.M. and at the time of the Armistice was a temporary colonel. Returning to the United States in earty 1919, Patton in 1920 was given command as a permanent captain of a squadron of the 3rd Cavalrv at Fort Myer. Then he was detailed to the general staff corp s and served for fotir years at the headquarters of lihe First Corps area at Boston and in th[le 1lviiaia Islands. After fotir more year-s at \V-'asUngton he was ortlered to Forn Mycr. uhtitc, as a permCanent lietteUnant-colonel, he retlMtliCeI Oil dItty weith thC 3rd Cavalry Ulntil 1N35. Pallion receivetl commnll;ld of tili 2ti(i ArmoLireNd D)ivision in October. 1940. wilt tic temrporary rank of brigadiet-general. becotning in the next year commnnindingg gencral ot tite First Armoured Corps. While he was thus employed Pattoni learned that thev might bc rettiired in North Alrica. He there- lore set tin a largc tleselL traininlg ceutre in Californiia. wthere lie tuilt tip a coordinated striking loice. At last his opportutiitv came and as commander of tie Western Task Force lie and his men succeedetl in iheir swvift cdesceilt in occupyingt Casablanca. I-e himself halld a narrow escape, for the landing ci-aft whicih was to take Ihini ashore was shatiered. Later, when lthe American Second Corps were it diflicultics at Kasserine Pass. Patton was sent to retrieve the sittiationl and, withl timely British aid, niot on ly did so btit cairried it oti to Gafsa, near wihich it made contact with the Eightlt Atmy, ThILs it was that lie vas chosen to command the Seventh Army in the itivasion of Sicily. It was while lie was visiting a field hospital in that island that, suspecting a soldier of being a malingerer, he struck him. The incident was reported and Genetal Eisenhower made it clear that stcli conduct could not be tolerated; but Patton, wtho made generous apology, was far too valuable a man to lose wvhen haid fighting lay ahead, and a little later he was nominiated to the permanent rank of major-general. In April. 1944,-he arrived in the Ettropean theatre of operations, and he took command of the Third Army, whicih went into action in Fiance on August 1. With it he cut off the Brittany peninstila, played his part in the trap- ping of tilc Geimans. and drove on to Paris. In October he had another of his nar row escapes wheni a heavy shell landed near him but failed to explode. Driving on relentiessly towaards the German - frontier, it fell to Patton to reconqtler Metz, and it recogni- tion of this victorv lie receivcd the Bronze Star. His next outstanding performanice 'as in late Dccember when thlc Tlhird Army tdrove in to relieve the First and helped to hold Bastogne. He was famous for the speed of his, operations; but. surpassing him- self on this occasion, he surprised the Germans, and slowed down and cventually checked the advance of. Rundstedt's southein column. One of his most striking feats was when in the advance to tile Rhine, he moved towards that fiver with his right flank on the Moselle. The Germans were apparently expecting him to force a crossing of the Rhine, but instead he suddenly crossed the Mosellc near the confluence, taking the enemy on the wrong foot " and completelv smashing up his array. In Germany hiis armoured divisions made the deepest advances of all, penctrating in the end into Czechoslovakia. A German staff officer, captured in the final stages, reported that his general.had asked him each morning as a first question what was the latest news about Patton. In April this vear President Truman nomi- nated Patton to be a full general. The Third Army occupied Bavaria last July, and in September Patton was ordered to appear before General Eisenhower to report on his steward- sliip of Bavaria. The summonis was a result of Patton'$ stateienits to a Press conference that Nazi politics are just like a Republican and Democratic election in the United States," and that he saw no need for the de- Nazification programme in the occupation of Germany. In October General Eisenhower announced ihat General Pattoti had been re- moved from the command of the Third Army and had been tranlsferred to the command of the Fifteenth Army, a skeleton force. Patton, in spite of many idiosyncrasics. which included the free use of a cavalryman s tongue- You have never lived until you have been bawied out by General Patton his men used to say-was a fundamentally scrious soldier, offensively minded and bent on the single object of defeating his enemy. He affected a smart and sometimes striking tumr- out, and was insistent that those under him should also maintain a smart and soldierly appearance.
Marshal of the Soviet Union Konstantin Konstantinovich Rok- ossovsky, K.C.B., top Soviet war- time general and postwar Defence Minister of Poland, died in Mos- cow on Saturday at the age of 71. His military career spanned two regimes in Russia, the Tsarist and the Soviet. In the span of 30 years, from 1914 to 1944, he rose from cavalry- man in the Imperial Dragoons to Marshal of the Soviet Union. At the outbreak of the Soviet-German War. in 1941. he represented not only the survivors of Stalin's military purge of the mid 1930s but also the pro- mising formation commanders who wcre about to be put to the acid test. From the outset he displayed ability and personal courage, and Went on to join that relatively small group of senior Soviet commanders with whose names the growing Soviet successes came to be associated: Moscow 1941, Stalingrad 1942, Kursk 1943. Bvelorussia 1944 and the final triumphs of 1945. His wartime career was the foundation of his reputation. while his postwar acti- vity was linked more with the phase of the Stalinist domination of east- ern Europe, in particular Poland. His career as a "p6litical soldier" came to an abrupt end in 1956; with the disrlacement of Marshal Zhukov in 1957 his own service began to draw to a close and ended in an extended phase of semi-retirement, a respected veteran of Stalin's great Wvar. In spite of widespread and offici- ally fostered stories about his "Polish origins". Rokossovskv wvas born in 1896 in Velikiye Luki: his father was a railway worker, and the young Rokossovsky went to wvork as a stone-cutter in his youth. At the outbreak of the 1914-18 War he was called up to the Imperial Russian Army. Tall and well-built, he was assigned for this reason to the Dragoons, serving with the 5th Dragoon Regiment, and thereby beginning his long connexion wvith the cavalry. an extended irtroduction to his work with mobile forces. At the time of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution and the disinte- gration of the Imperial Russian Army. he attained the rank of junior N.C.O.; in October, 1917. Rokos- sovsky joined the pro-Bolshevik para-military organization. the -Red Guard. and entered the Red Army when it was formally established in 1918. Rokossovsky's membership of the Communist Party dated back to 1919. by which time he was a section commander with the 30th Cavalry Division on the Eastern Front. operating against Admiral Kolchak. For the remainder of the period of the Russian Civil War, RokosseLvsky continued to serve in the eastern theatre. against Admiral Koichak in Siberia. against Ataman Semenov's forces and finallv in Outer Mongolia against the troops of Baron Ungern-Sternberg. BY this time lie was a regimental commnander. At the close of the Civil War. Rokossovsky continued to serve with the Red Army as a regular officer (or " commander ". the term *'officer-" being as yet rigor- ously eschewed) and proceeded. in the company of many more Civil War veterans, to undergo formal military education, attending the Frunze Military Academy and the " Higher Red Bainer Cavalry Courses" in Leningrad. With the activation and reinforcement of the Special Far Eastern Army (O.D.V.A.) for operations in 1929 against the Chinese, promoted by the dispute over Soviet rights in the Chinese Eastern Railway, Rokossov- sky was sent back to the Soviet Far East where he assumed command of an independent cavalry brigade, and with which he fought in the brief operations in November. 1929. in the area of Manchouli. He remained with the Special Far Eastern Army, commanded by Blyukher, and by 1932 commanded the 5th Cavalry Division which was stationed in the valley of the Dauriya. At this time the Soviet Far Eastern forces were experimenting with tanks and Rokossovskv is reported to have had his first experience of them. When. in 1938, the military purge finally broke over the Soviet Far Eastern command. Rokossovsky w'as a corps commander: he was arrested. extremely roughly handled and his "case" investi"ated. (Accordinct to the most exact Soviet account. Rokos- sovskv did not "confess" and the "case ". while being further probed bv the NKVD. was finally dropped.) He was " rehabilitated " and returned in the winter of 1938-39 to command a mobile formation in the west. which subsequently took part in the " liberating drive" into Byelorussia and eastern Poland in September, 1939. In June. 1940. with the restor- ation of formal senior ranks into the Soviet command. Rokossovsky be-' came a major-general and was wosted to the Kiev Special Military District where he assumed command of the 9th mechanized Corps. which he helped to form and train. With this formation. he fought in the first engagements of the Soviet- German War (Great Patriotic War), proving himsclf from the outset a competent commander and a cool head. lie was transferred in August. 1941, to the crucial Western Front. wvhere he commanded the 16th Army covering the Minsk-Moscow high- way. For the remainder oi 1941 lie fought on this front. first in the defensive battles before Moscow and then in the successful Soviet counter- stroke which saved the capital. These successes identified him with the rapidly rising Soviet commanders whose abilitv was proved. In the spring of 1942. Rokossovsky w%ent to thc Bryansk front. and in October to the Don front. which was vitallv associated with the successful Stalin- grad counter-offensive: in January, 1943, together with Voronov. he signed the ultimatum to Field Marshal Paulus and the encircled German Sixth Army. During the gigantic battles of 1943, where the German offensive against Kursk was broken. he commanded the central front (Kursk-Orel). Diuring the next great period of Soviet success and advance (the " ten decisive blows " of 1944i. Rokos- sovsky took command of the Ist Bvclorussian Front for Operation Bagration, the plan tO destroy the German Army
