Depends on if I am planning on defending a fortification or attacking one. In a defensive battle, I’d take Rommel, in offensive battle, Patton.
The movie doesn’t do Patton justice, he was a very complex man, and one thing to his plus, was that he had no problem adopting plans that worked. He didn’t care whos method was used to win, if Rommel pulled a good manuver, you can believe it went into Patton’s book to be modified and used later. Something a lot of generals had/have a problem with.
I was under the impression that Rommel vaguely knew about plans to kill Hitler and was generally approving but had no direct part in them.
Anyway, this is too vague a question. What size of a unit are we talking about commanding? In what circumstances? Where?
I’ll take a superior strategist over a superior tactican. Which means I will take… Zhukov.
Rommel did have a big part in the invasion of France, so let’s not say he retreated all the time, hmm?
I pick Patton. He may have been a prick, and I wouldn’t use him except on focused assignments lest he try to win by himself, but at least he was fighting on the right side - an essential quality, I think, in a general.
From my own understanding, ROmmel didn’t know about the plans to kill the big “H”. He was out of Berlin and merely had the bad luck to be a fiend of the guy who did try to kill Hitler. So the Nazi’s gave him some poison pills and said “take this or we go after your family…”
I read this somewhere but am unsure of the source or it’s veracity so someone confirm:
Didn’t Patton upon flanking (or outmaneuvering) Rommel unbutton his tank, stick out his head and say something along the lines of “Rommel you magnificent bastard, I read your book!”
In the movie Patton he (Patton) did say this in his first major engagement with Rommel. However, Patton was standing at an observer’s post and not in a tank. Later, the movie has it that Patton gets word that Rommel was not at the battle in question but was back in Berlin with an ear infection (or some such thing). This pissed Patton off as he very much wanted to believe he kicked Rommel’s butt in that battle rather than some sub-commander (took the shine off his victory in his opinion).
[sub]NOTE: I say all the above understanding full well the dangers of taking Hollywood’s version of historical events. That said that line somehow smacks of authenticity even if the movie version didn’t have him say it in the right place or time. [/sub]
Patton and Rommel had a series of near-misses, but I don’t think they ever really faced each other in a capacity that can be used as a reasonable head-to-head comparison.
By the time the Americans closed against Axis troops in Tunisia, I think that Rommel had essentially been pulled from the theatre, somewhere around May, 1943, first for physical ailments and then because it was plainly apparent that North Africa was going to be lost to the Allies. Rommel was stationed in Northern Italy while Patton was invading Sicily. Then Patton was sidelined for the slapping incident, and Rommel was transferred to the West.
During the beginning of Normandy, Patton spent the initial part of the invasion in Southern England threatening the Pas-de-Calais with his fake army. Rommel was serverely injured on July 17, 1944. Patton commenced Operation Cobra, the breakout of the Cotentin, on July 25. Rommel never really commanded thereafter, and was dead by October.
I’d like to do a detailed comparison of the careers of the two, but I haven’t the time. Perhaps someone else can flesh this out and check my facts. Going from memory:
World War I
Rommel: Extensive combat experience throughout the war on all major fronts, I think. I know for certain that he was effective in executing the storm-trooper style of penetration and bypass of strongpoints exhibited by the Wurtemburg Mountain Battalion, and personally commanded a highly successful assault which won him the Pour le Merite.
Patton: Commanded part (maybe all?) of the fledgling American Tank Corps. Was “shot through the ass” (I think that’s his own words) in one of his very first engagements, although he had time to chat with Douglas MacArthur on the battlefield.
Interwar
Both suffered from lack of promotion in the interwar years, so that at the outset of hostilities for their respective countries, I think that both of them were of fairly junior command rank (both brigadiers, perhaps?). Both spent a fair amount of time training young troops–Rommel ran a cadet school and Patton a tank tactics school. Both were outspoken proponents of the offensive capability of tanks on the battlefield. Rommel actually wrote about it, and by most accounts, Patton was well aware of Rommel as an author before he (Patton) ever fought in WWII.
WWII
Both were promoted quickly after the commencement of hostilities for their respective countries. Both executed about three major campaigns, I think. Rommel: France, North Africa, Normandy. Patton: North Africa, Sicily, France and Germany. Only Rommel had what could be considered independent command. Both sat out considerable portions of the war, Rommel due to ill health and injuries and non-combat assignments; Patton due to ill behavior, politics, and non-combat assignments.
Both were arguably held in higher regard by their enemies than by their allies during the war. The Germans purportedly considered Patton the Allies’ best commander while Montgomery and Bradley had personal reservations about him. The Allies had a very high regard for Rommel while some of Rommel’s superiors thought him to be too young, rash, and inexperienced for the level of command he attained (“Marshal Bubi”).
I don’t know. Does that look like an accurate comparison to you? I’d sort of like to get it right for the purposes of this conversation, so tear it apart if you see anything wrong with it.
Oh, and as an interesting side-note about the film, author Carlos D’Este actually used the film as a biographical source!
Somewhere in Patton: A Genius for War D’Este points out that scriptwriter Francis Ford Coppola insisted that the script be run past a number of Patton’s staff people and other eyewitnesses, and those sources actually provided (apparently authentic) details which had not been included in any book prior to the making of the film.
I still wouldn’t trust the thing as an accurate historical source, but it’s probably one of the few instances where Hollywood actually added at least some information to the historical record rather than distorting it.
I’m nowhere near qualified to vouch for what you wrote one way or the other but it sure looks good to me. I’d be fascinated to hear your assessment of the two men as tactical commanders.
My personal impression (just impression) is that Rommel was more of a finesse guy and Patton was more of a brute force guy. The earlier comparison of Rommel to Lee and Patton to Grant was pretty good.
Of course, perhaps Patton was a brute force guy because that was the necessary tactic he needed to employ given the equipment he had*. In other circumstances he might have been more of a finesse guy…I couldn’t really say.
[sub]*–IIRC Allied commanders had a loose rule of thumb that it took four Sherman tanks to kill one Panzer (V). Thus, brute force overwhelming the German Panzer divisions was perhaps the only tactic worth using. Fortunately the King Tiger (Panzer VI) never really mad a difference (less than 500 built and it had maintenance issues). I read a story written by a Sherman tank gunner that recollected a King Tiger popping out of some woods and nailing two Shermans lickety-split. The remaining Shermans fired on the King Tiger and the gunner said they (several tanks…not one) hit the Tiger five times. The King Tiger then drove itself off the battlefield (retreated) not much worse for wear. There are accounts of other tanks ramming a Tiger as the only way they knew to stop one. In short, the Sherman sucked and the Panzer was fantastic.[/sub]
as smiling bandit first pointed out, patton had the charisma(?) to earn the complete trust and respect of his army. i think in the end that would bring the victory.
I think this is correct. I’ve searched around and I can’t find any reference to Patton and Rommel being directly opposed in any way that would allow a comparison based on that.
I would take either of them as a tactical commander. I’m far from qualified to judge the abilities of generals but my impression is that Rommel was a more well-rounded military leader. For example, he strengthened the coastal defenses in France after he was given a command there and apparently did well with the assets he was given. I have trouble seeing Patton doing a bang-up job on what was at bottom an engineering project.
I know that Omar Bradley didn’t think much of Patton as a planner and organizer. This view of Bradley’s might be a little tainted because I got the distinct impression from his book A General’s Life that he didn’t like Patton as a person. Bradley recounted a story of his first meeting with him during which Patton mocked Gen. Terry Allen, 1[sup]st[/sup] Infantry Division commander, and virtually accused Allen of a degree of cowardice in the presence of members of the division. Bradley’s comment was that this didn’t look like effective leadership to him.
Bradley also had some headaches as a result of Patton’s assaulting two hospitalized enlisted men. I think Bradley might have brought some of this on himself by not passing word of the first case on up to higher headquarters.
I don’t think all of this statement is true. Patton might have had the “trust” by I’m not sure about “respect.” The 1[sup]st[/sup] Infantry Division was part of Patton’s 7[sup]th[/sup] Army in the invasion of Sicily. It was one of the division’s enlisted men that Patton slapped. When a report the incident finally reached Med Theater headquarters, Patton was forced to apologize to the division which sat in stony silence through his speech and then left without acknowledging that Patton was even there. The saying in the 3[sup]rd[/sup] Army about “Blood and Guts” was - Yeah, his guts and our blood.
Wasn’t the Pz-VI just the plain old Tiger? They were certainly devastating enough; five Tigers decimated an entire British armoured column (4th County of London Yeomanry) in mid-June 1944. Having said that, they were better defensive than offensive weapons – speed and mechanical reliability being weaknesses – and I’m not sure Patton would have been able to use them that effectively in an offensive role.
Tough call, but I would go with Rommel myself. IMO, he was a better tactician, and was very effective, especially considering that he was forced to do, and put up with, a lot of stupid things by Adolph. He tried to get Adolph to step down very early on in the war, as he knew that the war was lost and that Germany should cut it’s losses and throw in the towel before the country was destroyed. That played a big part in him being forced to commit suicide after the assassination attempt, and it is correct that he was not directly involved in it.
Patton was a rather brilliant tactician also, but to me he was more driven by hatred and ego than cause and purpose, and had Eisenhower not pulled in his reins a couple of times, there would have been fairly significant problems as Patton had some trouble, again IMO, in differentiating between the “the big picture” and “the ideal”.
Switch the two around. Had Rommel had the logistical and leadership advantages of the US, He would have been absolutely unstoppable, as well as being a great second mind in the entire war, not just his own. Had Patton been forced to endure the conditions of working under the Furor’s dream, I doubt he would have been as effective as Rommel was, spending too much time throwing tantrums, and getting the suicide order very quickly. Both were great men, without doubt, but I’ve always held Rommel in slightly higher regard as a commander, tactician, and warrior.
Monty was a politician in a tank.
As a side note, for some very good reading on Patton, Bradley and Monty, pick up Citizen Soldiers, by Ambrose. Wonderful book about the ETO.
I would be a little wary of Ambrose’ writings. It seems to me that he goes in for “hero worship.” I heard him on BOOK TV make a claim that I’m quite sure was bogus. Discussing his book The Wild Blue about the B-24 group at Cerignola, Italy he made the statement that everyone who went on missions volunteered for them. If you were assigned to a mission and felt you didn’t want to make this particular one you would be dropped from the roster for that mission.
I don’t know whether he misspoke or really thought that but you absolutely cannot run a combat outfit in that manner. It is true that all pilots, bombardiers and navigators in WWII volunteered for that job. However, having once raised you hand, you went where and when you were told. There is enough silly mythology surrounding WWII without professional historians adding to it.
This statement made me wonder just how careful Ambrose is in his writing. After all, he writes an awful lot of books to be able to fact-check every supposed fact in them.
Mmm. And Monty wasn’t a bad military leader; he had strengths and weaknesses, but did not have a good public image towards the end of the war (something he contributed to, obviously).
No, they were designed for different roles and with different ideals.
In creating the Sherman, the Allies counted on superior numbers and manufacturing. Granted, Germany had been an industrial power, but German factories had many problems with the constant bombardments by the Allies. Thus, Allied command correctly figured they could get by with a huge number of light tanks. And it worked quite well. Panzers were made quite nicely, but they kept getting beaten, and beaten badly, because of the larger number of Sherman’s swarming them.
Different situation, different tactics. The Soviets used the same idea, albeit in a different manner, and with far higher casualties.
It’s true that comparing the Sherman and (say) the Pz-VI is not really fair, but the Sherman did suffer many weaknesses, some of which were known early on and could have been remedied – namely, the lack of a powerful main gun. German panzer units certainly inflicted as many (if not more) “beatings” on Allied units.
I’m aware of that, but there isn’t much of his opinion/interpretation in this particular book. A very good read regardless of a personal opinion of the author. Lots of personal accounts by both U.S. and German soldiers that really “take you there”.
My opinion of Rommel and Patton was made long before reading that book. They have both always fascinated me, even as a child because of their “legendary” status.
No offense intended. I’m quite touchy about the BS that is spread around regarding WWII - like for example that thing called The Greatest Generation. We aren’t all that great, and never were.