In World War II, a large number of famous generals emerged in the major battlefields, and to this day when we talk about these names, we still have to admire their military talents, such as Barton, Eisenhower, Montgomery, Zhukov, Rommel, Xue Yue, Sun Liren, Li Zongren and so on. Among them, Rommel can be described as a figure who has turned the tide of the tide and supported the general of the building, but he is supporting the Italian army that has been ridiculed.
Before Rommel reached North Africa, the overwhelmingly superior Italian army had been beaten by the British and almost unable to gain a foothold in North Africa. In order to save Mussolini's junta from collapse, Hitler had to send a small army to reinforce, and the commander of this force, who chose Rommel, the commander of the 7th Panzer Division, who had just made a splash in the French campaign, thus fulfilled the myth of the "Desert Fox" behind Rommel.
North Africa's sphere of influence had long been divided by the Western powers, with Libya controlled by Italy and Egypt a traditional British colony, and when Nazi Germany swept through the Anglo-French coalition in Western Europe, Mussolini, who was bent on restoring the former glory of the Roman Empire, could not hold back and officially declared war on Britain and France on June 10, 1940. However, the weak Italian army of more than 20 divisions was never able to break through the southern french border, although there were only 6 divisions of French troops there, which seriously injured Mussolini.
Mussolini
However, in the North African battlefield across the Mediterranean, the first shot of the war was actually fired by the British. Now that the two sides were at war, a regimental-sized Battle Group of the British Army crossed the Lierean border on 14 June and attacked several Italian strongholds, and although the scale of the battle was small, Mussolini was greatly enraged, and it was seriously necessary to regain face on the European continent and begin to send more troops to North Africa to prepare to crush the British and even occupy Egypt in one fell swoop. When France announced its surrender on 25 June and Italy was able to mobilize its best troops to reinforce the 10th Army in Libya, Mussolini was satisfied and urged the Italian commander, Marshal Graziani, to launch an offensive.
The Italian 10th Army, with 10 main divisions of about 300,000 troops, invaded Egypt on September 8, 1940, with a rumored posture, because they faced only 36,000 Commonwealth troops. However, the ill-equipped, poorly trained, and incompetent Italian 10th Army stopped and went, and in less than 70 days it fled under the maneuvering offensive of the British army, the British army captured the important Libyan port of Tobruk, and at the same time used the 7th Panzer Division to detour to intercept the retreating Italian troops, in the Battle of Bidafmen, the defeated Italian troops all surrendered, except for 7,000 people who fled back to Tripoli, 130,000 people entered the Allied prisoner-of-war camp.
Rommel
Faced with the dilemma of losing North Africa, the desperate Mussolini had to ask Hitler for help, who was secretly preparing for the war against the Soviet Union, and decided to send a small armored unit to North Africa to "pull the brothers". On February 6, 1941, the German High Command ordered the implementation of "Operation Sunflower", that is, the formation of the "German African Army" to join the North African Theater, the initial strength of the 5th Light Division (later the famous 21st Panzer Division) and the 15th Panzer Division, nominated by Hitler, in France to rest in Rommel promoted to lieutenant general appointment as commander, arrived on February 16 to take over the command.
The morale of the Italian army in Libya was very low, most of the officers bundled up their luggage rolls and prepared to return home as soon as possible, Rommel scoffed, determined not to wait for the main force of the German army to arrive, that is, with a German tank regiment and an Italian infantry division as the backbone, taking advantage of the Opportunity of the British Army's change of defense and slack, suddenly launched a counterattack, with the strong support of the Luftwaffe, Rommel advanced 450 miles in one breath with bold offensive action, and when the two German divisions all arrived at the battlefield, the British army collapsed.
Hitler and the Italian High Command gave Rommel orders only to stabilize the front and did not expect him to turn defeat into victory, but tactician Rommel quickly spied the weaknesses of the British army, commanded three German divisions and two Italian divisions to launch a continuous offensive, turned the "panzer reconnaissance operation" into a full-scale offensive, did not give the British any respite, and by the end of March 1941 had completely expelled the British from Libya, leaving only a lone Fortress of Tobruck. Within a few months, Rommel led the German African Army to completely reverse the situation in North Africa, and in January 1942, when the German army recaptured Cyrenaica, Rommel was promoted to general of infantry and became the commander of the upgraded "African Panzer Corps".
In this way, despite the persuasion of the Italian high command, Rommel used flexible and mobile tactics to turn the situation on the North African battlefield from passive to active, repeatedly winning with less and more weak victories over the strong, and was able to make full use of the terrain and climatic characteristics of the North African desert to fight, and became famous for a while, and was known as the "desert fox".
Despite Churchill's declaration that "it would be inconceivable to abandon the Fortress of Tobruk" and that he had sent a large number of reinforcements to the area by sea, in June 1942 Rommel still led an army to conquer Tobruk, and Hitler was immediately promoted to field marshal at the age of 51. It was not until May 1943, with the arrival of American troops in North Africa, that the German and Italian armies that had already been wiped out were completely wiped out, and Rommel had already been transferred back to China.
In July 1943, the U.S.-British Allies began the Sicilian Campaign, targeting italy properly, and Rommel and his African Army delayed this time for two years.