Infantry Attacks

Infantry Attacks is a tactical memoir written by the renowned German general Erwin Rommel based on his combat experience in World War I, originally published in German as Infanterie greift an in 1937. Following the sequence of battlefields where the author fought, the book recounts the mobile warfare in Belgium and northern France in 1914, trench warfare in the Argonne and the Vosges highlands, the fighting in Romania and the Carpathian Mountains in 1916–1917, and the 1917 Tolmein offensive and the pursuit across the Tagliamento and Piave rivers. Each battle is laid out in detail in chronological order: terrain, forces, fire support arrangements, assault routes, unexpected developments, and the commander's on-the-spot decisions, accompanied by tactical sketches drawn by the author himself, allowing readers to retrace every attack and defense. Rommel's core emphasis is repeatedly on "attack": supporting infantry advances with heavy fire, suppressing the enemy with fire when outnumbered, valuing reconnaissance, security, fortification, and infantry-artillery coordination, and skillfully using deception and psychological pressure to break the enemy's will. After publication the book drew the attention of the German military and became a widely used infantry tactics textbook in Western military academies; the United States used an abridged edition, Attacks!, as an Army training text, and General Patton was a famous reader. For researchers it is first-hand memoir material on the tactical details of World War I; for general readers it is also a tightly paced, uniquely angled battlefield record.