Official reviews of the first month, ending June 23, of Italy's war
with Austria-Hungary are still lacking.[4] On May 24 it was officially
reported in London that Italy had given her adhesion to the agreement,
already signed by the allied powers, not to conclude a separate peace.
Active war operations were begun by Austria on the same day; bombs
were dropped on Venice and five other Adriatic ports, shelled from air
and some from sea. The attackers were driven off.
[Footnote 4: In an Associated Press dispatch from Rome (via Paris) on
June 23 one of the chief Generals in the Italian War Office was
reported to have summarized the first month of the campaign about as
follows:
One month ago the Italians invaded Austrian territory,
uprooted the yellow and black poles bearing the Austrian
eagle, and occupied the enemy positions along a front of 500
miles. An Austrian squadron bombarded the Italian coast on
the Adriatic, and Austrian aeroplanes dropped eleven bombs
on Venice.
During this month the Italians overran the whole of Friuli.
The capture of Tolmino and Goritz, the two Austrian
strongholds, is considered imminent, which would open the
way to Trieste; while in the Alpine region in the province
of Trent they have conquered peaks and passes, from which
the picked Austro-Hungarian troops have been unable to
dislodge them.
Austrian activity has been chiefly displayed in bombarding
the Italian Adriatic towns.
From Vienna (via London) on June 23 the following Austro-Hungarian
official résumé of the operations of the first month of war along the
Italian frontier was issued:
During the first month of the war the Italians have gained
no great success. Our troops in the southwest maintain their
positions as in the beginning, on or near the frontier.
On the Isonzo front in the fortified frontier district from
Flitsch to Malborgeth, on the Carinthian ridge, and on all
the fronts of Tyrol, all enemy attempts at an advance have
collapsed with heavy losses.]
The rapid advance of the Italian armies which invaded Austria on the
east had by May 27 carried part of the forces across the Isonzo River
to Monfalcone, sixteen miles northwest of Trieste. Another force
penetrated further to the north in the Crownland of Goritz and
Gradisca. On June 4 the censored news from Udine, Italy, reported that
encounters with the enemy thus far had been merely outpost skirmishes,
but had allowed Italy to occupy advantageous positions in Austrian
territory. The first important battle of the Italian campaign, for the
possession of Tolmino, was reported on June 7.
A general Italian advance took place on June 7 across the Isonzo River
from Caporetto to the sea, a distance of about forty miles. On June 12
reports from the Trentino indicated an Italian advance on Rovereto in
Tyrol, thirteen miles southwest of Trent, and upon Mori, near by.
Monfalcone was taken by the Italians on June 10--the first serious
blow against Trieste--as Monfalcone is a railway junction and its
electrical works operate the light and power of Trieste. In the
extreme north, on the threshold of the Carnic Alps, after three days'
fighting it was reported on June 10 that the Italians had swept the
Austrians from Monte Croce and possessed themselves of Freikofel. The
Austrian city of Gradisca was reported taken on June 11, as indicated
in an official statement signed by Lieut. Gen. Count Cadorna, Chief of
Staff of the Italian Army. The defenses of Goritz were shelled by the
Italian artillery on June 13, and on June 14 the Italian eastern army
had pushed forward along the Gulf of Trieste toward the town of
Nabresina, nine miles from Trieste.
[Illustration: LIEUT. GEN. COUNT CADORNA