There battle of Caporetto was fought in an included area between Friuli and Veneto from 24 October to 12 November 1917. He pitted the army of the Kingdom of Italy against the forces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany. The Austro-German attack overwhelmed the Italian lines in several places, including the town of Caporetto (now Kobarid, in Slovenia), which gave its name to the battle, and forced the supreme command, led by Luigi Cadorna, to order the general retreat. The army retreated until Piave riverfollowed by hundreds of thousands of civilian refugees. The defeat, caused by the mistakes of the generals, had profound political consequences, which would also have an influence in the post-war period and in the rise of fascism. Despite Caporetto, however, the Italian army emerged victorious in the First World War.
The First World War and Italy
In the First World War the Italian army was deployed against the Austro-Hungarian army along the entire border between the two countries and, in particular, in the area near the Isonzo riverwhich flows from the Alps into the Adriatic. As on the other fronts, the war was fought especially in the trenches. The armies faced each other at close range, placing themselves in holes dug in the ground. To attack, the soldiers came out of their trench and, under machine gun fire, tried to reach the enemy trench. In each attack, a few hundred meters of ground was conquered, at the cost of thousands (if not tens of thousands) of deaths.
Between 1915 and 1917 Italian troops had attacked the Austrians in eleven battles of the Isonzowhich, despite having allowed the conquest of Gorizia, had allowed us to advance a few kilometres. The Austrian army, for its part, was also busy on other fronts and did not have great offensive capabilities, despite having launched an attack in Trentino in 1916.
The planning of the attack on Caporetto
With the eleventh battle of the Isonzo, fought from 17 to 31 August 1917, the Royal Army had advanced a few kilometers and had brought the enemy forces to their limits. In the Austrian high command, led by Field Marshal Conradconcern arose that the Italians might break through the front and conquer the city of Trieste, the main port of the Empire. For this reason, the command decided to ask for help from the ally, Germanywhich had a very efficient army, but considered the Italian front to be of little importance. The aim of the Austrians was to attack first, with the support of Germany, and make the Italians retreat. In September, after sending a general to carry out an inspection, the German high command agreed to commit its troops.
The Austro-German attack on Caporetto
The Germans sent their troops to the Italian front. The command of the Royal Army, led by the general Luigi Cadornawas informed of the enemy’s movements and arranged a defensive line, which however proved to be completely inadequate. The attack began at 2.00 on October 24th with an artillery bombardment, carried out both with gas grenades and with “ordinary” bombs, along a rather long front, defended by General Luigi Capello’s 2nd Army. After the bombing, theadvanced of the infantrywhich managed to break through the front in several places. Caporetto is the place where the main breakthrough took place.
The Italian troops, poorly deployed by the commands, could not withstand the impact and began to retreat. After two days, Cadorna realized that the breakthrough was more serious than it seemed and he ordered the retreat of the entire armyincluding the 3rd Army, deployed further south, which risked being encircled. The army, according to Cadorna’s orders, should have lined up behind the Tagliamento riveralmost one hundred kilometers away, and a vast sector of the national territory had to be abandoned, including the city of Udine, seat of the supreme command.
The Caporetto route
After the first few days, the battle turned into a disorderly escape. As they retreated, the soldiers of the Royal Army destroyed warehouses, shops and crops. Most of the inhabitants, who became refugees. The landscapes took on a ghostly appearance. Furthermore, the Tagliamento did not prove to be an effective barrier to the Austro-German advance. The route continued until Piave riverwhere on 12 November what remained of the Italian army managed to establish a defensive line, taking advantage of the fact that the Austro-German army was exhausted and unable to continue the advance. Thus the battle ended.
The consequences of the Battle of Caporetto
Caporetto was one national tragedy: in a war in which it advanced or retreated a few kilometers at a time, the Royal Army had been forced to retreat from a vast portion of the national territory, ceding the whole of Friuli and part of the Veneto to the enemy.
Over the course of the battle, the Italian army lost approx 50,000 men dead and woundedand almost 300,000 soldiers were captured (many of them died during captivity). There were over 500,000 civilian refugees. On a political level, when the battle was still ongoing the government, chaired by Paolo Boselli, resigned and was replaced by an executive led by Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. Cadorna was also replaced and the general was appointed in his place Armando Diaz.
The defeat had been caused by the strategic errors of the generals, in particular of Cadorna, Capello and Pietro Badoglio, who commanded one of the corps of the 2nd army. Nonetheless, the high command and a part of the political class they accused the soldiers of retreating without fighting because they had accepted the pacifist propaganda of the socialists and other political movements. It was an unfounded thesis, but the belief spread among many political forces that a “strong government” was necessary, that is, a dictatorship, capable of eliminating Parliament and all non-nationalist political forces.
Caporetto, however, did not prevent Italy from exiting victorious from the war: the Royal Army repelled an Austrian offensive in June 1918 in the so-called battle of the solstice and in the following month of October, taking advantage of the successes of the allies on the western front, he managed to counterattack and defeat the Austrians in battle of Vittorio Venetowhich represented the end of the war.
