IN FEBRUARY 1943, in their first fight with the Germans, American soldiers in North Africa were pushed back fifty miles by Rommel's Afrika Korps and nearly annihilated. Only the German decision not to pursue them allowed the Americans to maintain a foothold in the area. General Eisenhower, the supreme commander, knew he needed a new leader on the ground, one who could raise the severely damaged morale of his troops. He handed the job to a new man: Lieutenant General George Patton. Charismatic, irreverent, impulsive, and inspiring, Patton possessed a massive ego and the ambition to match. But he could motivate men to fight. He had just two weeks to whip his dispirited troops into shape, then throw them into battle against the Wehrmacht's terrifying Panzers, the speedy and powerful German tanks that U.S. forces had never defeated. Patton, who believed he had fought as a Roman legionnaire in a previous life, relished the challenge to turn the tide of America's fledgling war against Hitler-and the chance to earn a fourth star.