Rommel'

s Rules
of
Desert
Warfare

The Rommel Papers pg 197-201

Of all the theaters of operations, it was probabaly in North
Afrika that the war took on its most advanched form. The
protagonists on both sides were fully motorized formations, for
whose employment the flat and obstruction-free desert offered
hitherto undreamed-of possiblities. It was the only theatre where
the principles of moterised and tank warfare, as they had been
taught theoretically before the war, could be applied to the full-and
further developed. It was the only theater where the pure tank
battle between major formations was fought. Even though the
struggle may have occasionally hardened into static warfare, it
remained-at any rate in its most important stages (i.e in 1941-42
during the Cunningham-Ritchie offensive, and in the summer of
1942-Marmarica battles, capture of Tobruk)-based on the principles
of complete mobility.
In military practice , this was entirely new, for our offensives in
Poland and the West had been against opponents who, in all their
operations, had still had to take account of their non-motorised
infantry divisions and had thus had to suffer the disastrous
limitation in their freedom of tactical decision which thus imposes,
especially in the retreat. Often they had been forced into actions
quite unsuited for the object of holding up our advance. After our
break-through in Franch, the enemy infantry divisions had simply
been overrun and outflanked by the out motorised forces. Once
this had happened they had had no choice but to allow their
operational reserves to be worn away by our assault groups, often
in tactically unfavorable postions, in an endeavour to gain time for
the retreat of their infantry.
Non-motorised infantry divisions are only of value against a
motorised and armoured enemy when occupying prepared
postions. If these postions are pierced or outflanked, a withdrawal
will leave them helpless victoms of the motorised enemy, with
nothing else to do but hold on in their postions to the last round.
They cause terrible difficulties in a general retreat-for, as I have
indicated, one has to commit one's motorised formations merely to
gain time for them. I was forced to go through this myself during
the Axis retreat form Cryrenica in the winter of 1941-42, when the
whole of the Italian Infantry and a considerable part of the German,
including the majority of what was to become 90th light Division,
were without vehicles and had either to be carried by a shuttle
service of lorries, or to march. It was only the gallantry of my
armour that enabled the retreat of the Italo-German infantry to be
covered, for our fully motorised enemy was in hot pursuit.
Similarly, Graziani's failure can be attributed mainly to the fact that
the greater part of the Italian Army was delivered up helpless and
non-motorised in the open desert to the weaker but fully motorised
British formations, while the Italian motorised forces, although too