Quote:
Originally Posted by Pro_Consul
These successes of Rommel's were not accidents and they happened when he was commanding multi-divisional, multi-national forces with inferior numbers, inferior quality of weapons and inadequate supplies. And nothing I have read to date shows any factual explanation for these successes that holds up logically except for those that acknowledge Rommel was possessed of a genius for rapid mobile warfare. The argument that they were reckless gambles comes across as gross exaggeration of the simple fact that he was willing to accept risks so long as the survival of his army was not threatened by them. And the arguments that he was only a capable commander at the divison level are completely shredded by the fact that his greatest victories came when commanding an entire army.
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Rommel was an excellent general, but it should be remembered that he was only sent to North Africa to prevent the total collapse of the Italian army in the theater. North Africa was an unimportant sideshow for Germany, but due to Rommel's success's it led to Germany diverting valuable resources from the battle on the Eastern front at a time when the battle was still in the balance, and eventually led to Germany suffering a defeat of Stalingrad proportions.