Italian Front (World War I) in the context of "Ernest Hemingway"

The British Second Army was a Field Army active during the First and Second World Wars. During the First World War the army was active on the Western Front throughout most of the war and later active in Italy. During the Second World War the army was the main British contribution to the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944 and advance across Europe.

The Battle of Asiago, also known as Südtirol Offensive or Battle of the Plateaux (in Italian: Battaglia degli Altipiani), wrongly nicknamed Strafexpedition " (German for "punitive expedition"; this name has no reference in official Austrian documentation of the time and it is considered to be of popular origin), began with a major offensive launched on 15 May 1916 by the Austro-Hungarians on the territory of Vicentine Alps in the Italian Front of World War I. It was an "unexpected" attack that took place in the Asiago plateau (province of Vicenza, in northeast Italy, then at the border between the Kingdom of Italy and Austria-Hungary) after the Fifth Battle of the Isonzo (March 1916). The Austro-Hungarian offensive, initially successful, was followed by an Italian counter-offensive reconquering much of the lost ground and Asiago.

Commemorating this battle and the soldiers killed in World War I is the Asiago War Memorial (province of Vicenza, Veneto, northeast Italy).

Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel (pronounced [ˈɛɐviːn ˈʁɔməl] ; 15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944), known as The Desert Fox (German: Wüstenfuchs, pronounced [ˈvyːstn̩ˌfʊks] ), was a German Generalfeldmarschall (field marshal) during World War II. He served in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany, as well as in the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic, and Imperial German Army of the German Empire.

Rommel was a highly decorated officer in World War I and awarded the Pour le Mérite for his actions on the Italian Front. In 1937, he published his classic book on military tactics, Infantry Attacks, drawing on his experiences in that war. In World War II, he commanded the 7th Panzer Division during the 1940 invasion of France. His leadership of German and Italian forces in the North African campaign established his reputation as one of the ablest tank commanders of the war, and earned him the nickname der Wüstenfuchs, "the Desert Fox". Among his British adversaries he had a reputation for chivalry, and his phrase "war without hate" has been uncritically used to describe the North African campaign. Other historians have rejected the phrase as a myth, citing crimes against North African Jewish populations. Others note there is no clear evidence Rommel was involved in or aware of these crimes. He later commanded the German forces opposing the Allied cross-channel invasion of Normandy in June 1944.