(July 13, 1942)

Among military men Erwin Rommel is now variously appraised as: 1) a bold and brilliant desert commander who makes mistakes like any other; 2) the best armored-force general of World War II; 3) one of the great military commanders of modern times. The outcome of the battle for Egypt and the Middle East may well settle Rommel's place in history.

Whatever his place, he is such a man as some of the commanders Napoleon assembled around him in his youth: tough, untutored, plebeian, successful.

Rommel never tells his men that the British are pushovers. He tells them that the British are tough--and that they, the thin, hard young elite of Germany, must be tougher.

As a successful man, Rommel is vain, arrogant and autocratic, for when he makes war nowadays he takes all the responsibility, all the blame, all the glory. When things go awry in battle, he flies into volcanic rages that produce results. He showers everyone around him with a stream of vituperation, usually beginning with "Schweinehunde!"

At other times Rommel is polite but ironic. In the order of the day with which he started this campaign he referred to King Vittorio Emanuele as the "Emperor of Abyssinia."

His men as well as his officers, fear and look up to him. Dashing about by car and motorcycle in the forward zones of action, he sees his men and they see him. Sometimes they have to bear the lash of his wrath, but they admire him. They have coined a new word: they say that a fallen British stronghold is gerommelt.