Triumphant Fox: Erwin Rommel and the Rise of the Afrika Korps (Stackpole Military History Series)

Describes the Desert Fox's preparation for military greatness, his rise to prominence, and his early campaigns in Africa. Recounts the first battles of Germany's notorious Afrika Korps. A military historian examines the strategic cunning of Erwin Rommel’s first campaign in North Africa during WWII. The legend of “The Desert Fox,” German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, was forged in the North African desert conflicts of World War II. It was here, as commander of Germany’s Afrika Korps, that Rommel ignored orders from German High Command and launched his infamous West Desert campaign into Cyrenaica, now eastern Libya. Driving his exhausted Panzer forces with his indomitable will, Rommel swept through North Africa, where he brought the British Eighth Army to the brink of defeat. Although ultimately curtailed by supply shortages and logistics problems, Rommel nearly claimed the entire region for Hitler. In this stirring account of Rommel’s first campaign, Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr. takes the reader into his subject's strategy, mindset and viewpoints.

Describes the Desert Fox's preparation for military greatness, his rise to prominence, and his early campaigns in AfricaRecounts the first battles of Germany's notorious Afrika Korps

Gen. Erwin Rommel arrived in Africa's Western Desert in February 1941 to head the elite German Afrika Korps in its efforts to bolster its battered Italian allies. Disobeying orders to remain on the defensive, Rommel attacked, nearly pushed the numerically superior British out of Libya, and besieged the critical port of Tobruk. Unable to capture it, Rommel's forces defeated two British attempts to relieve the garrison before being forced to withdraw at the end of 1941. Seasoned by months of desert warfare, Rommel stood ready to achieve his greatest successes in 1942, a story told in Rommel's Desert War (978-0-8117-3413-4).

Gen. Erwin Rommel arrived in Africa's Western Desert in February 1941 to lead the elite German Afrika Korps in its efforts to support the battered Italians. Disobeying orders to remain on the defensive, Rommel attacked, nearly pushed the numerically superior British out of Libya, and besieged the critical port of Tobruk.