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Folding postcard relief map looking north from the River Aisne to the Oise Canal, from Compiègne to Soissons, and from Noyon to St. Gobain, France. A hand drawn arrow indicates Pimprez, marked with an 'X'.
Map of the Trentino, part of "Italia Irredenta," unredeemed Italy: Venezia Tridentina (Trentino and Alto Adige)
On May 23, 1915 Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, its former ally as a member of the Triple Alliance. Clasping the hands of the German and Austro-Hungarian emperors Wilhelm II and Franz Josef, Italy's king Victor Emmanuel III conceals the tattered document behind his back.
Sculpture of a dead artillery man from The Royal Artillery Memorial, London, England. © 2013 by John M. Shea
Allied Commanders Henri Philippe Pétain, Douglas Haig, Ferdinand Foch, and John J. Pershing. Foch was Allied Commander in Chief, the other men commanders of the French Army, the British Expeditionary Force, and the American Expeditionary Force respectively. From The Memoirs of Marshall Foch by Marshall Foch.
". . . on the following day, June 12th, two or three German divisions delivered a vigorous assault north of the Villers-Cotterets Forest. Cutry and Dommiers were captured, and the French troops driven back on Cœuvres and Saint-Pierre-Aigle; but this turned out to be a purely local operation and was not followed up.On June 13th quiet once more reigned on the whole of the French front." ((1), more)
"Conrad had received information from a deserter that the Italians knew the exact time and date of the planned attack on the Asiago, so he launched his attack on 13 June, two days earlier than scheduled. The opening bombardment of mixed poison gas and high-explosive shells caught the Italians by surprise, and the accuracy of the barrage heavily damaged the defensive fortifications. There were heavy casualties among troops caught in the open.At 7.30am the attacking Sturmtruppen swarmed across the Piave and made deep in-roads across the high pastures of the Asiago Plateau until they were brought to a halt by British artillery hidden along the edge of a wood. Attack after attack was thwarted by resolute defence from Italian, British and French machine-guns and artillery. Conrad committed his remaining reserves, but his troops were suffering terrible casualties and they were running out of ammunition. As on the lower Piave, the Habsburg Army was forced to retreat to the east bank of the river." ((2), more)
"Soldiers! For months and months, resisting victoriously amidst the glaciers and the snows, accomplishing faithfully your duty in the tempests of Winter, you have looked down upon the sunny plain of Italy. The time to go down into it has come. Like a whirlwind, you will overthrow the false and perjured ally of the past, as well as the friends she has called to her help. You will prove to the world that nobody can resist your heroism.Your fathers, your grandfathers, and your ancestors, have fought and conquered the same enemy with the same spirit.I am sure you will not fall below them, and even that you will rise above them. Heart and soul with you, I shall follow your movements, which will be an irresistible rush towards victory. Confiding firmly in you, I cry to you: 'Overthrow everything before you.'" ((3), more)
"The offensive was launched with equal fury along an unbroken line of attack stretching from the Asiago front opposite the British, right round by Grappa, the Montello, and the course of the Piave down to the sea. At dawn on June 15th it began along this great stretch of ground with a bombardment of terrible efficiency. Some of the British officers told me they had never seen better shooting or a hotter barrage in France. The result was that early that morning the Austrians carried with little resistance almost the whole front line of the Allies from Asiago to the marshes at the Piave mouth.But their success in the mountains was short lived. The British, furious at losing any ground to the Austrians, drove them out again with fearful slaughter, and pursued them into their own lines, where all resistance ceased. The reactions of the French and Italians on the mountain front was also very rapid." ((4), 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"" ((5), more)
(1) The fourth of Germany's five 1918 offensives, the Noyon-Montdidier Offensive, began on June 9 on a twenty-five-kilometer front in an attempt to build on the success of the Aisne (Blücher) Offensive begun May 27. But the French were not surprised as they had been in May, and Allied Commander-in-Chief Ferdinand Foch, from whose Memoirs our quotation is taken, had reserves ready for the first opportunity that appeared. General Émile Fayolle commanded the reserves with General Charles Mangin reporting to him. Mangin attacked on June 11, and the Germans counterattacked on the 12th. Cœuvres and Saint-Pierre-Aigle are west-southwest of Soissons.
The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, page 330, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931
(2) The Austro-Hungarian Piave Offensive Piave Offensive was fought across Trentino and the Asiago Plateau, and along the Piave River to the floodplain and mouth of the Piave River on the Adriatic Sea. Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf commanded the northern armies in the mountains. After the Italian disaster of the Battle of Caporetto the French and British sent troops to Italy to help prevent another collapse. Other sources make no mention of the early start to the offensive on June 13, but reference only June 15 as the first day.
Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign: The Italian Front 1915–1918 by John MacDonald with Željko Cimprić, pp. 181–182, copyright © John MacDonald, 2011, 2015, publisher: Pen and Sword Books, publication date: 2011
(3) Austro-Hungarian General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf's Official Address of June 14, 1918 on the eve of the Second Battle of the Piave. Prior to the war, Italy had been a member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, but had determined that the latter's war on Serbia was not a defensive action requiring support. Less than a later Italy turned on her former ally, declaring war on Austria-Hungary on May , 1915. Hence 'false and perjured ally of the past.' Conrad may have followed their movements on a map, but little more.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. VI, 1918, pp. 214–215, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(4) Excerpt from the account by British historian G. M. Trevelyan of the Austro-Hungarian Piave Offensive fought across Trentino and along the Piave River to the floodplain and mouth of the Piave River. After the Italian disaster of the Battle of Caporetto the French and British sent troops to Italy to help prevent another collapse. 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 fourth of five 1918 offensives had just been suspended. During the war, Trevelyan commanded a British Red Cross unit on the Italian Front.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. VI, 1918, p. 224, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(5) 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
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