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Italy's armed forces at the ready in a 1915 postcard. In the foreground the artillery, infantry, an Alpine soldier (in feathered hat), and a Bersaglieri (in plumed headgear). Behind them are a bugler and lancer; in the distance marines and colonial troops. The Italian navy is off shore, an airship and planes overhead. On the reverse are the lyrics of a patriotic Italian March by Angelo Balladori, lyrics by Enrico Mercatali. It ends with a call to the brothers of Trento and Trieste, Austro-Hungarian territory with large ethnic Italian populations.
Wooden cigarette box carved by Г. САВИНСКИ (?; G. Savinskiy), a Russian POW. The Grim Reaper strides across a field of skulls on the cover. The base includes an intricate carving of the years of war years, '1914' and, turning it 90 degrees, '1918.'
From a series on the Great War, a 1916 map on the the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo, Italian commander Luigi Cadorna's offensive in August of the same year. The Italians crossed much of the Isonzo, and took Gorizia. The Austro-Hungarians continued to hold high ground to the east. © The Great War
'The first tread-way bridge built across the Isonzo river' is in the background, a destroyed bridge in the foreground, and another under construction. Austrian and German soldiers watch POWs — most likely Italian — draw carts, and cut and trim logs. 'In the background our trenches', and dozens of horse-drawn wagons waiting to cross the tread-way bridge. (The quotations are from a handwritten note on the reverse; translation Thomas Faust.)
I've killed many Germans, but never women or children. Original French watercolor by John on blank field postcard. In the background are indolent Russian soldiers and Vladimir Lenin, in the foreground stands what may be a Romanian soldier who is telling the Russians, 'You call me savage. I killed a lot of Boches [Germans], but never women or children!'
"During the morning of the 25th, an image of disaster emerged from the information reaching the Supreme Command: breakthroughs all along the front; morale collapsing; thousands of men making their way to the rear. The first towns west of the mountains were already threatened. Defence on the hoof was not working. Cadorna's best if not only chance of avoiding catastrophe was to pull back the Second Army to a line far enough west to regroup before the enemy reached them. Capello advised a general retreat to the River Torre or the Tagliamento. When Cadorna disagreed, Capello took himself off to hospital in Padua. Next morning, he offered to return; Cadorna declined: he had enough on his plate without an ailing and probably sulking Capello. Where the two men saw eye to eye was in blaming many regiments for not doing their duty." ((1), more)
"Everywhere we saw traces of death; it was almost as though there wasn't a living soul anywhere in this wasteland. Here, behind a disheveled hedge, lay a group of men, their bodies covered with the fresh soil that the explosion had dropped on them after killing them; there were two runners lying by a crater, from which the acrid fumes of explosive were still bubbling up. In another place, we found many bodies in a small area: either a group of stretcher-bearers or an errant platoon of reservists that had been found by the center of a ball of fire, and met their end. We would surface in these deadly places, take in their secrets at a glance, and disappear again into the smoke." ((2), more)
"The momentum of the Austro-German offensive rapidly increased. Before morning of the 25th [October 1917], the Italians had been driven back to their boundary line and were preparing to evacuate the Bainsizza Plateau. More than 30,000 prisoners had been taken by the Germans.By the 26th, the Austro-Germans, with stunning rapidity, had expelled the Italians from the Carso Plateau and were within sight of the Plain of Venice; the number of prisoners had now increased to 60,000 and the captured guns to 450. On the 27th, the German troops had forced their way into the burning town of Cividale on the Venetian Plain.The whole Italian front, from the Alps to the Adriatic, was now wavering." ((3), more)
"At the Battle of Caporetto, within the space of four days, the forces of the Central Powers had virtually destroyed the Italian Second Army and had then pursued the retreating Italians nearly 80 miles to the Piave river. They were now at the gates of Venice. . . .Around 280,000 Italians were taken prisoner and a further 250,000 deserted. Some 30,000 were wounded, with the comparatively small number of 10,000 killed. In material terms the Italians lost 3,150 artillery pieces, 1,700 mortars and 3,000 machine-guns. Wrecked trucks, ambulances, weapons and dead horses littered the battlefields. And the effects of the defeat were not confined to the military as some 400,000 civilian refugees took to the roads." ((4), more)
"The Committee met again at 13 Bolotnaya Street in the Vyborg district on 16 October, this time with representatives from Moscow, and a Military Revolutionary Committee was formed. Once again the cautious Kamenev and Zinoviev demonstrated how unsure they were that Lenin's plans could work but again the vote went his way, with 4 members abstaining, 19 in favour and 2 against. All that remained now was the planning and the selection of the right moment.There was no doubt that the workers had rushed to the Bolshevik cause — the party had steadfastly refused to sully itself by any collaboration with Kerensky's government. When Lenin had arrived back in Petrograd in April the Bolsheviks, with a membership of just 10,000, could not have hoped to control anything, but following the failure of Kornilov's plans, the party's membership had soared to 300,000. At the time of the February revolution, there were 300 Soviets — by October there were 900." ((5), more)
(1) After suspending the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo on September 12, 1917, Italian commander in chief Luigi Cadorna, concluded that his army was in no condition to resume the offensive until spring, and that the Austro-Hungarian forces arrayed against him would not attack. Although he told his commanders to put their forces on the defensive, General Luigi Capello, commander of the Second Army, did not do so, hoping to launch a further attack. On October 24, German and Austro-Hungarian forces launched the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, the Battle of Caporetto, using 'Hutier tactics' first used in the German capture of Riga in Russia. German General Oskar von Hutier trained his troops for specialized actions: initial infiltration and advance by small groups bypassing enemy strong points, specialized groups to neutralize those defenses including machine gun nests and artillery positions, and 'mopping up' forces to consolidate the advance. Capello's Second Army found the enemy both before and behind it, and began to collapse.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 311, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(2) German Lieutenant Ernst Jünger on the battlefield over which the Third Battle of Ypres was fought. The Canadian Corps attacked on October 26, 1917, advancing 500 yards, and German wounded coming to the rear were making 'exaggerated and unclear statements about a British advance' (p. 197). Jünger was sent to get clear information, noted the new front line on his map, and returned under artillery and machine gun fire, encountering more wounded as he returned across the battlefield he describes. The Canadians suffered 3,400 casualties in the attack. The British Third Battle of Ypres was the German Second Battle of Flanders.
Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger, page 198, copyright © 1920, 1961, Translation © Michael Hoffman, 2003, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: 2003
(3) In eleven Battles of the Isonzo from June 23, 1915 to September 12, 1917 the Italian army under the command of Luigi Cadorna had crossed the border into Austria-Hungary, crossed the Isonzo River, and taken plateaus and mountain peaks, only to look on more peaks beyond. Though they had nearly broken the defending forces, they had done so at great cost to themselves. When German and Austro-Hungarian forces attacked on October 24, 1917 in their first offensive of the Isonzo, the Italian Second Army, and then the entire front, collapsed.
King's Complete History of the World War by W.C. King, pp. 344–345, copyright © 1922, by W.C. King, publisher: The History Associates, publication date: 1922
(4) In eleven Battles of the Isonzo from June 23, 1915 to September 12, 1917 the Italian army under the command of Luigi Cadorna had crossed the border into Austria-Hungary, crossed the Isonzo River, and taken plateaus and mountain peaks, only to look on more peaks beyond. The Eleventh Battle nearly broke the Austro-Hungarian defenders. When joint German and Austro-Hungarian forces (the two empires at the core of the Central Powers) attacked on October 24, 1917 in their first offensive of the Isonzo, the Italian Second Army, and then the entire front collapsed. The mountain war that had been fought since 1915, with the Italians perpetually attacking defenders who held higher ground, was suddenly ended and brought to Italy's northeastern plain, within reach of the Adriatic port and prize of Venice.
Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign: The Italian Front 1915–1918 by John MacDonald with Željko Cimprić, page 172, copyright © John MacDonald, 2011, 2015, publisher: Pen and Sword Books, publication date: 2011
(5) The Bolshevik Central Committee met on October 29, 1917 (October 16 Old Style) to debate whether to seize power. Vyborg was a working-class district on the north side of the Russian capital of Petrograd. Alexander Kerensky had been in the government since the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas in the February Revolution, as Justice Minister, War Minister, and finally Prime Minister. He supported continuing the war, and had assumed near-dictitorial powers in defending the revolution against General Lavr Kornilov, a defense in which the government armed the Bolsheviks who would soon overthrow them. Soviets, councils of workers and soldiers representing cities, towns, military units, and factories, had been formed on the first day of the revolution following a pattern that dated to the revolution of 1905. Vladimir Lenin consistently supported ending the war, a position he sometimes held virtually alone.
1917: Russia's Year of Revolution by Roy Bainton, page 157, copyright © Roy Bainton 2005, publisher: Carroll and Graf Publishers, publication date: 2005
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