Leclerc learnt a great deal about how to handle and supply a force advancing across the desert, and was rewarded with the British Distinguished Service Order. He began planning a far more ambitious advance into Libya. This was delayed by a year due to "Generalfeldmarschall" Erwin Rommel's defeat of the British Eighth Army in the Battle of Gazala, and the subsequent German and Italian advance into Egypt. Leclerc was promoted to "Général de brigade" in August 1941, and pinned two metal stars captured from the Italians on his "kepi".