Rommel at Isonzo

In 1918, at the 12th Battle of the Isonzo, then-lieutenant Erwin Rommel, commanding a small detachment of three companies of light infantry, targeted the critical vulnerability of his Italian opposition : a key mountain pass used as a main supply route. The capture of this pass broke the Italians will to fight and caused the collapse of the northern part of their entire front, which consisted of thousands of well-positioned troops. To reach the pass, Rommel identified gaps in each of three defensive lines, bypassed enemy strong points, and attacked Italian defenders from the rear.

Under heavy rainfall, Rommel s detachment quickly penetrated the artillery -devastated first line and advanced up a steep slope until his lead elements encountered heavy machine gun fire. Instead of attacking through this well-fortified position, he chose to attack the Italian second line from a less obvious direction ”a steep gully to his left.

Figure 4.1: Rommel s Attack on Isonzo, 1918

At the top of the gully, he dispatched an eight-man patrol down a hidden path . The patrol, resembling Italians returning from the front, slipped through the enemy line and silently captured a dugout full of defenders huddling away from the rain. Pouring through the opening created by the patrol, Rommel s force then defeated the remainder of the defensive positions in the second line by attacking them from the rear.

Arriving at the heavily defended third line, Rommel decided to conduct an independent attack eleven hundred meters west of the main German fighting force. Once again, he dispatched numerous patrols in search of weaknesses in the Italian defense. A small team led by one of his junior officers eventually discovered an opening, and Rommel directed the remainder of his force through it. At this point he had the option to attack Italian positions in the third line or bypass them. Within striking distance of his ultimate objective, he decided to bypass.

Leading his exhausted troops deeper into the Italians vulnerable rear area, he reached the mountain pass shortly thereafter. In just 52 hours, Rommel s force had captured 150 Italian officers, 9,000 soldiers, and 81 heavy guns, while incurring casualties of 6 dead and 30 wounded.

Leadership Lessons

Rommel employed a top-down, bottom-up approach to targeting critical vulnerabilities, and his capture of the mountain pass illustrates the powerful psychological impact of this first guiding principle of maneuver warfare .

From the top down, he was relentless in his pursuit of the mountain pass ”the Italians Achilles heel ”and he never lost sight of his ultimate objective. He pushed his heavily laden troops, each carrying an eighty- pound pack at high altitude, to their physical limits for fifty-two continuous hours and did not stop until his detachment captured the mountain pass. Importantly, knowing that capturing the pass would ensure victory, he made these extreme demands at the right time for the right reason.

From the bottom up, he relied heavily on subordinates to lead him to his opponent s critical vulnerability. The identification of gaps in the Italians defense ”critical vulnerabilities at the subordinates level ”enabled him to move his forces through enemy lines with minimal contact and reach the mountain pass via the path of least resistance. Finally, once the Italians realized that they had been isolated from their supply lines, they began to believe that defeat was imminent and lost the will to continue fighting.