Defining moment

The Blue Max

Rommel’s exploits in the First World War are often forgotten in the wake of actions in the second. Leading his battalion against the Italians in the Alps, Rommel and his small group of 150 soldiers made strategic use of the terrain to surprise and captured 10,000 Italians. This move, along with the fact that he only lost six of his men in the process, earned him one of Prussia’s highest awards, the Pour le Mérite, or ‘Blue Max’.

October 1917