This Day in WWI History (Future “Desert Fox” Rommel Makes Mark in France)

January 29, 1915—Evidencing the daring that would make him one of the most feared commanders in another European war a quarter-century later, 23-year-old German lieutenant Erwin Rommel led his company on a raid in the Argonne region of France.

I’m one of those people who are fascinated by what famous men and women were like before they achieved renown—you know, a “Before They Were Stars” perspective.

(Several years ago, as a Christmas gift, I even received a combination book-video package on this very theme. You’d never believe the trash John Travolta and Tom Hanks were forced to do in their early days! Let me put it this way—if they could find and destroy that early footage, they would.)

Haven’t you always been curious about what Clark Gable did before he became “The King” of Hollywood…how Lou Gehrig bided his time at Columbia before getting the chance to play for the Yankees…why George S. Patton tramped over every inch of ground he could while fighting in France in the First World War?

Patton knew very well what he was about—preparing the way for future glory, if not in this war, then in the next that he was certain would come.

Young Rommel had the same thirst for glory, but unlike the far more colorful and controversial American, there was nothing predestined about his profession—no mystical belief that, courtesy of reincarnation, he’d been a great warrior in another life, nor a deep family tradition of military service (a prior Patton had fought for the South at the Battle of Gettysburg). Mathematics teaching, not the military, was his father’s profession.

Yet from an early age, Adolf Hitler’s future “Desert Fox” wanted to join the Kaiser’s Imperial Army. At age 18, he volunteered as an officer-cadet, and was a lieutenant by the time war broke out five years later.

In the fall of 1914, Rommel was not much older than the 35,000 German university and technical college students who had volunteered for the army, many of whom would die in November at what came to be called the Kindermord (the Massacre of the Innocents). He could be forgiven for wondering what kept him alive when so many others had died—particularly since he himself had been wounded during the fighting in France.

By late January of the following year, recovered from that wound (the first of three he sustained in the Great War), Rommel was ready for his next mission. He threw himself into it with a will. His exploits would provide his regiment much-needed encouragement at a time when they had begun to realize they were engaged in an increasingly futile stalemate on the Western Front.

There was nothing physically prepossessing about Rommel: he was five feet eight inches, with brown hair and eyes and a slender, if moderately muscled, build. But he was about to attract attention in his battalion for his leadership.

If you want an idea of what I’m talking about, then consider this reminiscence by Major General Friedrich von Mellenthin, who served under Rommel as a lieutenant colonel in the Afrika Corps:

“Between Rommel and his troops was that mutual understanding which cannot be explained and analyzed, but which is the gift of the gods. The Afrika Corps followed Rommel wherever he led, however hard he drove them…the men knew that Rommel was the last man to spare Rommel.”

For a leader to command respect—particularly in wartime—he needs to show that he will make the same supreme effort he demands of others. Rommel did this and more in this mission.

Maybe the lieutenant had already learned that the kind of frontal assault he’d seen already was not going to work in this situation, either. In any case, he pulled off something very different on this occasion: sneaking with his men out of the trenches, using cover, before falling on the French front lines.

Planning the assault was one thing; achieving it, something else entirely. Here’s what the operation required of Rommel:

* He crept through the French wire first, urging his men to follow;

* He crawled back when they stood still, despite his repeated order to advance;

* He said if they didn’t move, he’d shoot the commander of his lead platoon.

Now his infantry company was ready, and it promptly stunned the French defenders by capturing four blockhouses that were used to house artillery positions.

Then he faced a crisis. Receiving an order to withdraw because his battalion was unable to provide support, he found his company surrounded. What to do?

As he understood it, Rommel could a) keep shooting until his ammunition was exhausted, then surrender; b) obey his order to the letter and withdraw immediately, risking the lives of half his men; or c) hit the enemy at a vulnerable point, then take advantage of the confusion to withdraw. Rommel chose c), extricating his men with minimal casualties.

In Knight’s Cross, biographer David Fraser summed up the philosophy that Rommel was already implementing in this engagement:

“Rommel believed that in battle success goes to the commander who seizes opportunity and exploits it; and that only he, rather than his superior, can perceive opportunity in time. His military philosophy, therefore, was one of encouraging, to the maximum, independence of judgment and action within an overall plan; and it was an independence which he exhibited from the first days of combat until the very end.”

For his actions in the Argonne, Rommel won Germany’s famed Iron Cross, the first officer in his regiment to be so honored. He would serve with similar distinction later in the war on the Romanian and Italian fronts. A slogan soon became popular: "Where Rommel is, there is the front."

In a strong element of symmetry, Rommel likewise made his mark first in WWII in France, when, heading up the Seventh Panzer Division, he perfected, on a grand scale, with mechanized units unavailable in World War I, his own method of fighting: lead from the front, evaluate the situation firsthand, then move on the double, using surprise and firepower to take the battle to the enemy.

Though his success led to his promotion to field marshal—and the campaigns that made him world-famous in North Africa—Rommel soon grew annoyed by Hitler’s tactics. While some of his own generals questioned his penchant for risk-taking,he thought it was insane to fight to the last death, and strongly urged Hitler to think of alternatives.

Though he did not participate in the planned July 1944 plot to kill Hitler, Rommel had advance knowledge of it and had been mentioned as a possibility to head post-Reich Germany if the assassination attempt succeeded, since he was respected by the Allies for stressing professionalism instead of brutality.

Rommel’s decades-long attempt to balance independence of action with obedience had at last foundered. Hitler, discovering his knowledge of the assassination conspiracy, offered him the choice of suicide or a public trial that could shred his reputation and endanger his family. Rommel opted for death at his own hand, downing the pills he was given on an automobile ride, bringing to an end a remarkable career.