Italian Alpini seize Monte Nero (Mount Krn) from the Austro-Hungarians, June 16, 1915. From the painting 'Avanti Savoia' by A.D. Campestrini.
Image text: Reverse:A.D. Campestrini - 'Avanti Savoia'La conquista del Monte Nero - Giugno 1915A.D. Campestrini - Forward Savoy!The conquest of Monte Nero [Mount Black] - June 1915Logo: M.P.M.Proprietà artistica riservata.Artistic ownership reserved.
1898 map of Petrograd, the Russian capital, Kronstadt Bay, and the Russian naval base of Kronstadt, from a German atlas. Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on Kronstadt Bay, an extension of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. Kronstadt was an important naval base. North and east of central Petrograd was the Vyborg district, site of many factories and housing for workers.
Image text:
Sculpture of a dead artillery man from The Royal Artillery Memorial, London, England. © 2013 by John M. Shea
Image text: Egypt, France, Flanders, Italy1914 † 1919A Royal Fellowship
"The Italians had done much better further north. Krn [Monte Nero] itself, which soars like a shark's fin 2,000 metres above Caporetto, was taken in a daring pre-dawn attack by the 3rd Regiment of Alpini on 16 June [1915], with their boots swaddled in sacks of straw to reduce noise. It was a glorious success, the first of the war, presaging others that never materialized." ((1), more)
"The tide had turned. On 9 and 13 June, Conrad returned two extra divisions that had recently arrived from the Eastern Front. By now the outcome of the offensive was clear. On 16 June, he stopped the Punishment Expedition." ((2), more)
"On June 16 when the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets met in Petrograd under the presidency of Chkheidze, the delegates (248 Mensheviks, 285 Social Revolutionaries and 105 Bolsheviks) gave their approval for a new offensive against Germany and Austria. The Bolsheviks of course voted against the resolution, but they were shouted down, and Lenin in particular was met with jeers." ((3), more)
"On Sunday morning, June 16th [1918], I opened the Observer, which appeared to be chiefly concerned with the new offensive—for the moment at a standstill—in the Noyon-Montdidier sector of the Western Front, and instantly saw at the head of a column the paragraph for which I had looked so long and so fearfully:"ITALIAN FRONT ABLAZEGUN DUELS FROM MOUNTAIN TO SEABAD OPENING OF AN OFFENSIVE"" ((4), more)
(1) The Entente Allies hoped Italy's May 23, 1915 entry into the war against an Austria-Hungary which had been defeated by Serbia and badly wounded by Russia in 1914 would quickly drive Germany's ally from the war. But with the Serbian front quiet through June 1915, and Russia retreating before the German and Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, Italy was able to mount an effective defense against Italy. The capture of Krn on June 16, 1915, was a bright moment in Italy's initial war effort. The song Monte Nero — Black Mountain — commemorating the battle, beginsSpunta l'alba del quindici giugno comincia il fuoco l'artiglieria Terzo Alpini è sulla via Monte Nero a conquistar Terzo Alpini è sulla via Monte Nero a conquistarDay breaks on June 15;The artillery fire begins.The Third Alpini is on the wayTo conquer Monte Nero.Third Alpini is on the wayTo conquer Monte Nero.The song ends with a mountain red with blood, the loss of the narrator's 20-year-old friends, and a colonel weeping at the slaughter.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, pp. 72, 73, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(2) His Eastern Front collapsing before Russian General Alexsei Brusilov's offensive (launched on June 4), Austro-Hungarian Commander-in-Chief Conrad von Hötzendorf halted his month-old Asiago Offensive against Italy on June 16, 1916. Begun from the Trentino on May 15, 1916, the offensive surprised the Italians and threatened to drive them from the mountains to the Italian plain, potentially isolating the bulk of the Italian army in the country's northeast. The Italians had been reinforcing their line and slowing the Austro-Hungarian advance even before Brusilov's attack.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 166, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(3) Russian Minister of War Alexander Kerensky returned to Petrograd on June 14, 1917 after a three-week tour of the Russian Front to attend the All-Russian Congress of Soviet and Front Line Organizations. Since the February Revolution, the Russian army, which had suffered mutiny, enormous numbers of desertions, and incidents of officers being killed by their men, was beginning to stabilize as the Congress began, with increased support for the Provisional Government and for waging war against Germany and Austria-Hungary. Vladimir Lenin was utterly opposed to the war. Many other Bolsheviks supported the war, but not the offensive that would soon begin.
The Russian Revolution by Alan Moorehead, page 199, copyright © 1958 by Time, Inc., publisher: Carroll and Graf, publication date: 1989
(4) Excerpt from Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth. Brittain served in the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), and left the French front to care for her mother. After the Italian disaster of the Battle of Caporetto, the French and British sent troops to Italy to help prevent another collapse. Brittain's brother Edward, serving with the Royal Artillery, was among them. The Germans hoped to tie down these troops on the Italian Front, and prevent them and Italian troops from being sent to the Western Front where their Noyon-Montdidier Offensive had just been suspended. Brittain knew the code in which the war was reported: "The loss of a 'few small positions,' however quickly recaptured, meant—as it always did in dispatches—that the defenders were taken by surprise and the enemy offensive had temporarily succeeded." It would be nearly two weeks before she would receive word her brother had been killed on June 15 in that opening assault.
Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900–1925 by Vera Brittain, pp. 435–436, copyright © Vera Brittain, 1933, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 1978, originally 1933
