(_Photo from Paul Thompson_)]
The Italian advance was checked--but not until June 16, more than
three weeks after the beginning of the war--by an elaborate system of
intrenchments prepared by the Austrians along the Isonzo River. On
June 17 the Italians in the Trentino had arrived at the town of Mori,
where their forces were blocked by the fortifications between that
town and Rovereto. On June 18 a dispatch of The Associated Press from
Rome reported that the Austrians had then so strengthened their forces
that they were taking the offensive both from Mori and Rovereto
against the Italians, who were encamped at Brentanico at the foot of
Mount Altissimo, at Serravale, situated in the Lagardina Valley, and
also in the Arsa Valley. Tolmino, on Austria's battlefront to the
north of Goritz, was being heavily fortified by the Austrians with a
garrison of some 30,000 men, this place being considered indispensable
to their operations as the key to the Isonzo Valley. On June 20, the
fourth week of the war, was reported by General Cadorna as marking a
brilliant victory at Plava. But on the following day reports from Rome
indicated that the Italians were encountering strong and
better-organized resistance from the Austrians. On June 22 dispatches
from the Italian front to Berlin declared that serious reverses had
been experienced by the Italians in their attempts to storm the
Austro-Hungarian line along the Isonzo River.
Two things have puzzled the public: First, the status of Germany in
regard to Italy declaring war against Austria-Hungary, arraying
herself on the side of the Entente powers, and pledging herself, in
turn, as each of them had done, not to make a separate peace with the
enemy, and, second, the apparent weakness of the Austrian defensive in
the Trentino and on the eastern frontier of Venetia.
Diplomatic relations between Rome and Berlin have been severed, but
neither Chancellery has yet (June 23) found the other guilty of an
aggression sufficiently grave to warrant a declaration of war. There
is nothing astonishing in this situation. A similar situation obtained
between Paris and Vienna and London and Vienna long after a state of
war existed between Germany and Russia, France, and England.
The Italian plan of campaign apparently consists (1) in neutralizing
the Trentino by capturing or "covering" her defenses and cutting her
two lines of communication with Austria proper--the railway which runs
south from Innsbruck and that which runs southwest from Vienna and
joins the former at Franzensfeste, and (2) in a movement in force from
the eastern frontier, with Trieste captured or "covered" on the right
flank, in the direction of the Austrian fortress of Klagenfurt and
Vienna, only 170 miles northeast from the present base of
operations--a distance equal to that from New York City to Cape Cod.
The initial weakness of the Austrian defensive, which will doubtless
be strengthened as troops can be spared from the seat of war in
Galicia, is due to the fact that the invaded regions are normally
defended by the Fourteenth and Third Army Corps, which were, in
August, sent with two reserve corps to defend the Austrian line in
Galicia. To fill the casualties in these corps the drain on the
population has been great, so that when Italy began her invasion the
defenses of the country were chiefly in the hands of the hastily
mobilized youths below the military age of 19 and men above the
military age of 42.
During the last six months, when Vienna gradually came to realize that
war with Italy was inevitable, the Austro-Hungarian military
authorities enrolled a new army of men who had already seen military
service, but, for various reasons, had not been availed of in the
present war. They were men of an unusually high mental and physical
standard and had received additional training under German officers.
Their ages were from 35 to 40, and they numbered from 700,000 to
800,000. On the desire of the German War Office this new army, which
should have been sent to the Italian frontiers, was diverted to
Galicia toward the last of April, and since then has been the backbone
of the Teutonic drive against Russia in that region.
Below are given a sketch of the Alpine frontier by G.H. Perris,
appearing in The London Chronicle of May 29; Colonel Murray's article
on Italy's armed strength, and the speeches of mutual defiance uttered
by the German Imperial Chancellor in the Reichstag on May 28 and the
Italian Premier at the Capitol in Rome on June 2.