Customer Reviews

Foxes of the Desert

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3 star:		(1)
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Unlike most other books about the North African war, this book is a superb account from the German perspective. One wonders what might have been if Hitler hadn't been so stubborn, or if Malta had fallen. It gives the insider view of the famed Afrika Korps, and is a gripping tale ( just like a war thriller ) of the campaign. This is a must read for all enthusiasts of military non-fiction. One would also do well to reread The Destert Fox after reading this book - it would definately lend a new perspective to Rommel's biography.

Unfortunately the copy I have is old, and has started coming to pieces. The price of the hardcover edition is rather high. It would be good if a cheaper, softcover edition is available.

I must say that after reading several very dry battle and war Histories ('Assault on Moscow', by Werner Haupt comes to mind)this book was very appreciated. Whereas the current (ie. the last ten or fifteen years) trend is to throw in a few personal accounts of a battle by someone who was there in order to make the book a bit more interesting, Mr. Carell worked/works from these accounts much more heavily. Because of this, his story of the African campaign is much more readable than the vast majority out there. I must say though that the book is somewhat dated and perhaps also a bit jaded in some aspects. For instance he gives only slight credit to the French resistance of the American landings in Algieria in Nov.42 when in reality the French in this case were generally loyal to their German allies and fought as tenaciously as humanly possible. Finally there is the question of Carells sympathies. The simple fact is that Paul Carell was known as Paul Karl Schmitt during WWII and was a writer for Joseph Goebbels, even covering a 'Jewish action' in Hungary towards the end of the war. which can be verified quite easily with a working knowledge of German and just about any search engine. Overall, even with Carell's quite unsavory background admitted, I must say that I very much enjoyed this book.

Mr Carell always writes an engaging story and this one begins in late 1940 when the British during their offensive inflict a series of major defeats on the Italians. This forces Hitler, in order to keep Mussolini in the war, to come to his aid by sending Rommel and the Africa Korp to Africa beginning in Feb 1941. The coverage continues with the major events of the war up to the Axis surrender in May 1943.
With Churchill over confident with the African victories in Africa, he sends forces from Africa to Crete and Greece and dilutes the British strength. Rommel is determine to attack the British while the British are weak and in so doing, garners a number of victories for the Axis. Further coverage of Sollum, Malta, Benghazi, Bir Hacheim, Tobruk several times, Alam Halfa, Alamein, Operation Torch and Medenine which is Rommel's last battle before going back to Germany. Back in Berlin, Rommel tries to persuade Hitler to leave North Africa but was unsuccessful. And the book closes with Arnim's surrender only two months later. Hitler loses 250,000 men for a worthless piece of property. With those men stationed in Sicily and Italy, the Allies would have had a much harder time with the invasions.
The book only has a few simple maps. The photos, though not many, are good. There is a decent Index to help you locate people and places.
Its not comprehensive but as an overview, its very good. If you're a casual reader, it may be all you need to read of the North Africa campaign. If you're an enthusaist, it will help point you to the key events or people for your further research.

This book covers Rommel and the exploits of his Afrika Korps and Panzer Armee Afrika in Libya and Tunisia and is one of the best ever on the battles won and lost there.

The narrative is involving, and soldiers and generals come alive in Carrell's words.

A must buy.

There is no dearth of books on Rommel and his legendary Deutsche Aftika Korps. Author is a doyen among World War II historians . The story narrated here is strictly from the German standpoint.

Desert was an ideal place to fight.From western frontier of Egypt there stretched westward to the Tunisian border `Great Sand Sea'. Flat open spaces of desert , punctuated a mass of sand dunes ,offered an ideal terrain for tanks to manoeuvre. Rommel called desert as `tactician's paradise and quarter master's hell'.He opened campaign with a bang which sent British forces reeling. British Supreme Commander in Middle East Lord Wavell - and in fact no one from Western Desert Force - anticipated such a quick resumption of hostilities after Italians were routed at Bedda Fomm. Unfortunately for British Rommel was not a text book `General'.His ways of waging war must be construed as unorthodox. He even chose not to disclose his intentions to German High Command. Had he done so English would have known thanks to their ability to read German Enigma ciphers.

Most Anglo Americans hold Rommel in awe though there were other exceptional leaders like Cruewell,Nehring ,Bayerlein. Respect stems from the fact Rommel openly courted danger and escaped death. Unlike British commanders who were often sulking behind Desert Fox led from the front. He shared dangers along with his fellow soldiers.So his stature grew. Author is an admirer of Rommel and makes no bones of this fact. According to Carrel, if not for shortage in supplies and bad luck Afrika Korps would have evicted British from Egypt and captured Middle East with its rich oil reserves.

Yes, Rommel carved fame in the `hall of war'. But we must view him objectively; bold and daring but impulsive and rash. Gazala battles could have turned into a disaster. Elite panzer divisions were stranded behind enemy lines and somehow Rommel managed to retrieve the situation by restoring line of communications. Biggest flaw in his strategy was inadequate appreciation of logistics in modern war. So much so when Afrika Korps reached El Alamein sector it had almost shot its bolt. Paucity of ammunition and fuel supplies constrained the ability of panzer units to manoeuvre besides it increasingly coming under attack from RAF based in Alexandria, Cairo. Correct course would have been revert to defensive posture after fall of Tobruk on June 21, 1942 as advocated by Marshal Albert Kesselring . Take Malta, build overwhelming strength and simultaneously cut British lines of supply before storming the final barrier which barred the road to victory in North Africa.

Rommel's reputation as great panzer tactician partially shaped by his access to Speicial Intelligence.His mobile, highly-efficient radio listening posts plucked almost everything British were transmitting in the ether ranging from casual battle field chat, tank to tank calls, HQ chat, supply depot reports. Then Rommel also read radio cipher messages sent to Washington by US military attache in Cairo intercepted and deciphered by Italian/German intelligence. Some reports were even better than Enigma decrypts.

Nonetheless,Rommel for nearly 2 years posed nightmare for the Allies. How can we explain his astonishing series of victories? It must be attributed to German superiority in combined arm tactics.

Some sections of the book look outdated .Author frequently refers to the work of a traitor. As a result Rommel's top secret operational plans became known to his opponents. The theme permeates through out the book. Failure of his first attempt to storm Tobruk ,frequent disruption of supples to Afrika Korps, defeat of Alam Halfa offensive ,failure of spoiling attack to stop Montgomery from piercing Mareth line have all been imputed to treason. Author argues some senior officers of Italian Navy were in touch with American intelligence.To butttress this point he has drawn information from Adm Ellis Zacharias book ` Secret Missions'. Today we know that no traitors were involved thanks to de classification of hitherto confidential archival material. Author did not have privilege to know Allies were reading German radio messages. Details about Allied World War II SIGINT remained classified for a long time.

Author has enlivened the account by giving facts on Abwehr's espionage mission in Egypt - Operation Condor - which involved a former officer of Austro Hungarian army Laslo von Almaszy. Germans had the foresight to realise soon they were bound to loose the ability to read cipher messages of US military attache. To plug this hole agents were infiltrated to serve as `eyes and ears of Afrika Korps. There was Fifth Column actively working to undermine British rule in Egypt. Some disgruntled members of Egyptian officer corps were prepared to welcome Germans with open arms. To add cream, the conspirators had in their ranks the famous belly dancer Hekmat Fahmi who was an important source of information for Abwehr. Details were sensational ,read for the first time .

The book is definitely a military classic, one of the earliest works on Desert War. Published in the late 50s still in print which means it has continued to retain popularity among readers. Ever since its publication there has been explosion in literature on North African campaign.Some new authors have been able to shed fresh light on the subject. Frontiers of knowledge always continue to expand. However passage of time has not diminished the lustre of this book.

This was the last of Carell's books for me to read, so finishing it was bittersweet. Once again Herr Carell has produced a masterful historical piece laced with many eyewitness accounts that keep it interesting to read. Overall coverage is good, especially from the german point of view. This campaign was always a relatively small time sideshow to the germans due to their preoccupation with the Ost Front. Logistics eventually won the campaign for the allies, though Afrika Korps fought with great daring and elan for over 2 years, giving the Brits the fits! Small unit actions are covered as well as the more strategic picture. I recommend this book to persons wanting a thourough review of this excing and exotic campaign and devotees of Herr Carell. It is,of course, somewhat slanted to the German point of view. This should not dissuade you from enjoying this wonderful African campaign overview.

Although this book is fine for the layman who wants to learn something about the North African campaign of 1941-43 it is not good for the scholars or anyone who wants to study the battles in that theater in greater depth. Carell uses many personal histories to color his account but he often loses the great picture. I would recommend instead Mitcham's book "Rommel's Greatest Victory", Heckmann's "Rommel's War in Africa", Irving's "The Trail of the Fox", Massignani's "Rommel's North Africa Campaign" or even the excellent Time-Life volume "Afrikakorps" from the "Third Reich" series.

This is the first of Paul Carrell's books I have read. I liked the information and stories contained therein, however, I only give this four stars because Herr Carrell's writing style, especially in the first third of the book, I found very distracting. He has a tendency of re-emphasizing things multiple times in multiple subsequent paragraphs, which takes up room, but adds no real content to the chapter(s). He will repeatedly illustrate a point about a person, or subject, over and over, in a sentence, in a paragraph, in a follow-up sentence (yes, I got it the first time, thanks; no, really, I did :-/ ). He also on occassion goes off on tangents about things, discussing at length these topics as they applied elsewhere in the war, or earlier in history (e.g., traitors and betrayal) before obliquely coming to the point as to how it might be a concern of/to the DAK or British. He might have saved a bit of room here and there by being more focused on these points.

Now, these aspects aside, there are a lot of good stories contained within the books. I don't have access to the materials Herr Carrell does, so I can't say how much is literary license exaggeration and how much is actual events clothed in a story-telling narrative (Paul Carrell's real name is Karl Schmidt, a well-known German propaganda writer during WWII, so take the stories to what level you will). However, I still enjoyed the stories within the book (Rommel's passing visit of a New Zealand field hospital, Lieutenant-General Bayerlein's account of his and General Cruwell being surrounded by British tanks while in a captured British armoured car, and being mistaken for being Brits not Germans), and appreciate the information given as it helped me flesh out details that I had not known about from other books on the subject of the war in North Africa (i.e., the tonnage of shipping Germany lost to the RAF trying to resupply Rommel) or learn something entirely new (i.e., the Oasis Companies).

In addition, he does have a few pages of photos from the war in North Africa that I had not yet seen elsewhere (not that I have every North Africa WWII book, mind you!). Some of them were quite cool.

If you can get past or through Carrell's writing style, and not be distracted by his tangents and repeat emphasis items, you should be able to at the very least enjoy the stories contained within. And maybe learn a tidbit or two about something from that part of the war you didn't know before.