Books in Brief: The Trail of the Fox

The Trail of the Fox, by David Irving (Dutton, 496 pp., $15). Following close on the heels of Irving’s controversial Hitler’s War, this biography of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is a return to the high level of scholarship the British historian had established with his previous volumes on the Second World War. Having successfully unearthed a myriad of new sources, he characterizes the Desert Fox as a “twentieth century Hannibal.” Rommel was also, however, an often fallible commander who could be “dogmatic, reluctant to heed professional and superior advice, brash, immodest, and oversensitive to rebuke.” Although his aggressiveness catapulted him to triumph after triumph in Africa, and in fact lured him to dangerously overextend his supply lines into Egypt, still Rommel was, in defeat, prone to excessive caution and pessimism. Yet, despite his doubts about the likelihood of the ultimate victory of the Axis armies, Rommel was nonetheless a professional soldier who treasured and valued loyalty and duty above all else. His fatal complicity in the July 1944 Hitler assassination conspiracy, says Irving—in the course of describing Rommel’s chief of staff, General Hans Speidel, as a combination Judas-Barabbas figure—was tangential and innocent, the Field Marshal being an unknowing pawn in the plotters’ inept game. Irving’s discovery of new research material is surpassed only by the sleekness and eloquence of his prose. The Trail of the Fox avoids the pitfalls of most military histories and provides readable, intelligent, and fascinating commentary on its subject.

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David A. Pietrusza

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The Trail of the Fox, by David Irving (Dutton, 496 pp., $15). Following close on the heels of Irving’s controversial Hitler’s War, this biography of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is a return to the high level of scholarship the British historian had established with his previous volumes on the Second World War. Having successfully unearthed a myriad of new sources, he characterizes the Desert Fox as a “twentieth century Hannibal.” Rommel was also, however, an often fallible commander who could be “dogmatic, reluctant to heed professional and superior advice, brash, immodest, and oversensitive to rebuke.” Although his aggressiveness catapulted him to triumph after triumph in Africa, and in fact lured him to dangerously overextend his supply lines into Egypt, still Rommel was, in defeat, prone to excessive caution and pessimism. Yet, despite his doubts about the likelihood of the ultimate victory of the Axis armies, Rommel was nonetheless a professional soldier who treasured and valued loyalty and duty above all else. His fatal complicity in the July 1944 Hitler assassination conspiracy, says Irving—in the course of describing Rommel’s chief of staff, General Hans Speidel, as a combination Judas-Barabbas figure—was tangential and innocent, the Field Marshal being an unknowing pawn in the plotters’ inept game. Irving’s discovery of new research material is surpassed only by the sleekness and eloquence of his prose. The Trail of the Fox avoids the pitfalls of most military histories and provides readable, intelligent, and fascinating commentary on its subject.