THE DEFEAT AND RECOVERY OF ITALY
None of the surprises of the World War brought such sudden and stunning
dismay to the Entente Allies as the news of the Italian disaster
beginning October 24, 1917, and terminating in mid-November. It is a
story in which propaganda was an important factor. It taught the Allies
the dangers lying in fraternization between opposing armies.
During the summer of 1917 the second Italian Army was confronted by
Austrian regiments composed largely of war-weary Socialists. During
that summer skillful German propagandists operating from Spain had
sown the seeds of pacificism throughout Italy. This was made easy by
the distress then existing particularly in the villages where food was
scanty and complaints against the conduct of the war were numerous. The
propaganda extended from the civilian population to the army, and
its channel was directed mainly toward the Second Army encamped along
the Isonzo River.
[Illustration: THREE MESSENGERS OF DESTRUCTION FOR TRIESTE
This remarkable photograph was taken from one French airplane just
as another had released three aerial torpedoes in a combined bombing
and observation raid on Trieste, the great Austrian naval base. The
photograph itself, showing details of enemy activity on the
waterfront, was of considerable value to the intelligence division of
the Italian army.]
As a consequence of the pacifists’ preachments both by words of mouth
and document, the Second Army was ready for the friendly approaches
that came from the front lines of the Austrians only a few hundred
yards away. Daily communication was established and at night the
opposing soldiers fraternized generally. The Russian doctrine that an
end of the fighting would come if the soldiers agreed to do no more
shooting, spread throughout the Italian trenches.
This was all part of a plan carefully mapped out by the German High
Command. When the infection had spread, the fraternizing Austrian
troops were withdrawn from the front trenches and German shock troops
took their places.
[Illustration: AREA OF THE FLOW AND EBB OF ITALY’S MILITARY SUCCESS
From the Carso plateau to the Piave line.]
On October 24th these troops attacked in force. The Italians in the
front line, mistaking them for the friendly Austrians, waved a
greeting. German machine guns and rifles replied with a deadly fire,
and the great flanking movement commenced. So well had the Germans
played their game the Italians lost more than 250,000 prisoners and
2,300 guns in the first week. The attack began in the Julian Alps and
continued along the Isonzo southwestward into the plain of Venice. The
Italian positions at Tolmino and Plezzo were captured and the whole
Italian force was compelled to retreat along a seventy-mile front from
the Carnic Alps to the sea. The most important point gained by the
enemy in its early assault was the village of Caporetto on the Upper
Isonzo where General Cadorna held a great series of dams which could
have drained the Isonzo River dry within twelve hours.
The Italian retreat at places degenerated into a rout and it was not
until the Italians, reinforced by French and British, reached the Piave
River, that a stand was finally made. The defeat cost Cadorna his
command, and he was succeeded by General Armando Diaz, whose brilliant
strategy during the remainder of the war marked him as a national hero
and one of the outstanding military geniuses of the war.
The order for a general retreat was issued on October 27th. Poison gas
shells rained blindness and death upon the retreating Italians and upon
the heroic rear-guards. The city of Udine and its environs were emptied
of their inhabitants; and Goritzia, which had been wrested after a
desperate effort from the Austrians, was retaken on October 28th.
That the entire Italian army escaped the fate that had come to the
Russians at the Masurian Lakes was due mainly to the Third Army
commanded by the Duke of Aosta. During the long running fight, it faced
about from time to time and drove the Germans back in bloody encounters.
By November 10th the Italian forces had come to the hastily prepared
entrenchments on the west bank of the Piave River. The Austrians and
the Germans dug in on the east bank of the stream from the village of
Susegana in the Alpine foothills to the Adriatic Sea.
Here a long-drawn-out battle was fought, resulting in enormous losses
to the Germans and Austrians. By this time reinforcements had come up
from the French front and every attempt by the enemy to gain ground met
a bloody check. The hardest fighting was on the Asiago Plateau. There,
although the Italians were greatly outnumbered, the concentration of
their artillery in the hills overlooking the great field completely
dominated the situation.
A factor that was of the utmost value in checking the Austrians was the
system of lagoon defenses running from the lower Piave to the Gulf of
Venice.
From November 13th, when the Austrians in crossing the lower Piave in
their headlong rush to Venice were suddenly checked by the Italian
lagoon defenses, the entire Gulf of Venice, with its endless canals
and marshes, with islands disappearing and reappearing with the tide,
was the scene of a continuous battle. A correspondent described the
fighting as absolutely without precedent. The Teutons were desperately
trying to turn the Italian right wing by working their way around
the northern limits of the Venetian Gulf. The Italians inundated the
region and sealed all the entrances into the gulf by mine fields. The
gulf, therefore, was converted into an isolated sea. Over this inland
waterway the conflict raged bitterly. The Italians had a “lagoon fleet”
ranging from the swiftest of motor boats, armed with machine guns,
small cannon, and torpedo tubes, to huge, cumbersome, flat-bottomed
British monitors, mounting the biggest guns.
The Italian vessels navigated secret channels dug in the bottom of the
shallow lagoons. Only the Italian war pilots knew these courses. Even
gondolas straying out of the channels were instantly and hopelessly
stranded. Not only this, but as the muddy flats and marshy islands
did not permit of artillery emplacements the Italians developed an
immense fleet of floating batteries. The guns ranged from three-inch
fieldpieces to great fifteen-inch monsters. Each was camouflaged to
represent a tiny island, a garden patch, or a houseboat. Floating on
the glasslike surface of the lagoons, the guns fired a few shots and
then changed position, making it utterly impossible for the enemy to
locate them. The entire auxiliary service of supplying this floating
army was adapted to meet the lagoon warfare. Munition dumps were on
boats, constantly moved about to prevent the enemy spotting them.
Gondolas and motor boats replaced the automobile supply lorries
customary in land warfare. Instead of motor ambulances, motor boats
carried off the dead and wounded. Hydro-airplanes replaced ordinary
fighting aircraft.
Along the northern limit of the Venetian Gulf, where the Austrians,
having filtered into the Piave Delta, sought to cross both the Sile and
the Piave, the enemy each night hooked up pontoons. At daybreak every
morning one end of a huge pontoon structure was anchored to the east
bank of the Piave and the other flung out to the strong current, which
soon stretched the makeshift bridge across.
The moment this happened, the enemy infantry madly dashed across.
Simultaneously the Italian floating batteries opened a terrific fire.
Practically every morning the Austrians tried the trick, and every
morning they failed, with heavy losses, to effect a crossing. At last
they gave up the attempt as hopeless, and the armies remained locked on
the Piave for several months.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.