Now this question could be very easily summed up with the answer no, but a more long winded answer. It changed to maybe, and after doing a lot more reading prior to posting I can with absolute certainty say, it defiantly didn’t help, if not provide our favourite German general a few sleepless nights.

See I personally don’t believe Rommel was the sort of man to hold grudges, from what I’ve read there was always a stigma of pride that followed him around. I don’t think he’d hold anything against the Italians initially, it was below him. See it wasn’t as if the Italians had let Germany down before, at Caporetto Rommel would have seen the fierce fighting of the Italian army, and what they where willing to go up against, even if it had resulted in quite the humiliating defeat.

It’s to this end I believe initially at least there were no hard feelings per say. But fast forward to 1941 and things are a bit different. And I imagine this is where you got the idea for your question.

First let’s take a step back and have a look around the time period, first look at Rommel, he’s a truly amazing general, he’s got a fantastic record of not so old victories (Poland, Belgium and France), and better yet his German soldiers under his command are nothing short of spectacular.

Now as we all know Rommel was assigned to North Africa in 41, but the real statistic to remember is fighting in Africa kicked off in 1940 with the declaration of war from Italy, fighting quickly broke out, and after a few border scraps involving incursions across the boarder from both sides, the British managed to get the first serious punch in with Operation Compass, this caused the Italian 10th army to be destroyed. Key word there is destroyed, this was when Rommel and his men had to be deployed, Italy had just had a fatal blow delt to it this early in the conflict. It must have smelt a lot similar to Germany’s allies in WW1, Austria-Hungary, who had a horrible track record of loosing major fights that should have been in the Germans eyes, a fair fight at the least.

Now think how’d you feel if you were in that position, you’d been dragged out of your home in Germany to go fight for someone else’s territory because they were arguably to incompetent to defend it properly (or at least that’s how I interpreted the German high command was feeling), you’d be outraged, but maybe you’d be able to see past that, maybe you’d be able to see it was an honest mistake by the leadership, something you were going to put right.

But it wasn’t was it Rommel, no sir, you were put under the command of the same cabinet that lost the Italian 10th. And you were not happy we’re you Rommel...

Rommel was ordered to take up a defensive position around Sirte, but Rommel very quickly made a counter case the war should be taken to the British, and went about doing it even though he had orders to stay put.

Now question answerer, this is the point I think it’s very clear Rommel is indeed ‘having issues’ with his Italian allies, but not because he fought against them in WW1, he may think they are a weak army due to WW1, but not have anything against them racially or as a people, no.

I believe Rommel had issues with the Italians because to him, they are another Austria Hungary, another ally who is quickly becoming dead weight, and Rommel only had one experience with fighting along side dead weight, and that’s doing the heavy lifting. First at Caporetto now in Africa.

His actions are extremely similar to WW1, he took the resources and men he had, pushed them to the limit and beyond and got amazing results, all because he knew he was the only man and army unit among these ‘allies’ capable of doing it.

Now popular to contrary belief Germany actually had very little forces in Africa, Rommel was the German commander, but very few axis presence was German, Italy made the bulk of it, and Rommel’s achievements were largely accomplishable due to the Italian manpower available to him, although asking for reinforcements almost constantly with one of his famous quotes being about how he’d have preferred another panzer battalion rather than his promotion to field marshal.

It was to this end that my conclusion is as follows: Rommel as you have said did have issues with the Italians although he never said it, (or if he did I’ve never seen it) and sadly never lived to write about it. But from his actions, we can tell he must have thought the Italian command was out of touch, inadequate and in dier need of his leadership. I don’t believe he had a big issue with the average Italian solider, they were brothers in arms even if he had some biases due to his crushing victories over them in WW1.

The real issue as with most generals in WW2 lies with who was telling them what to do.

Notes : this was quite a fun one actually, cracked out quite a few books of my own rather than trawling through the web looking for half decent sources.

A personal recommendation of one of these books for everything tank and North Africa related is : The tanks the history of the royal tank regiment Vol 2. by Captain B.H. Liddell Hart

You’d be surprised how many maps that man can cram into a book...