Italian Front 1915 1917 By Abe Gisele and

Italian Front 1915 -1917 By Abe, Gisele. and Alycia

Fifth Battle of Isonzo ● Italian Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna was under pressure from French Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre to help out the Germans from their attack on Verdun. ● Italian Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna launched the Fifth Battle of Isonzo on March 11, 1916 ● One of the least costly battles and very short lived ● Halted right before it was about to begin because of poor weather conditions in March 17, 1916 ● Held a 350 to 100 advantage in infantry battalions and a 1, 400 to 467 advantage

Tenth Battle of Isonzo ● The first nine Battles of Isonzo were unsuccessful and took 18 months to fight. ● These battles were conducted by Italian Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna, who didn’t like the idea of of Germany intervening to help their ailing Austro-Hungarian ally on the Italian Front. ● Cadorna discussed with France’s Ferdinand Foch that in the case of an emergency, Britain and France would come to Italy’s aid against the German and Austro-Hungary powers. ● The Italians deployed a force of their own, 38 divisions, against Austro-Hungary’s 14. Cadorna set his force to return to the Carso and set an infantry advance along a 40 km front. ● However, there was a large Austro-Hungarian counter-offensive on June 3, and it reclaimed almost all lost ground, so when Cadorna called off the battle of June 8, barely any territory was gained.

Eleventh Battle of Isonzo ● Launched on 19 August 1917 and was the last initiative by the Isonzo River by the Italians and Luigi Cadorna. ● Cadorna summoned 51 divisions and 52, 000 guns the aim was the Carso and around the Italian bridgehead at Gorizia. ● There were gains on the Italian coastal zone and in the north 10 km of ground were taken from the Austro-Hungarians by Luigi Capello’s Second Army. The advance was actually executed and succeeded so well that the army outran its artillery and supply lines, which prevented the further advancing of the Italian army, which could have finally broke the Austro-Hungarian army. ● No more attempts were made along the Isonzo and all eleven battles were delivered by Cadorna.

12 th Battle of Isonzo ● ● ● ● ● Took place on October 24 at 2 am Austria-hungary opened an artillery attack with poison gas near Bovec Italian defence trenches were overrun on the 24 of October by Austria- Hungary Italians were forced to retreat to the Tagliamento River On October 27 1917 the 1 st Isonzo army attacked a successful barrage against Italy 888 days of warfare 10, 000 dead 30, 000 wounded 265, 000 captured 3, 152 artillery pieces

Importance of the Italian Front ● The Italian Front helped occupy the Austro-Hungarian forces and even succeeded in pushing them back for a time. ● However, Italian involvement in the war was a mistake. 650, 000+ soldiers were killed, and more than a million were gravely wounded. Italy was severely bankrupted, and its national debt soared up to 85 billion. More than half of a million civilians died as well.