FIRST ENGAGEMENTS
Owing to the nature of the scene of hostilities the first days of the Austro-Italian campaign brought a series of engagements between small groups of combatants. Artillery played a large part, and here the Austrians, with their big guns already in carefully studied positions, had a decided advantage. Viewed as a whole only does the campaign at this stage take on an importance and dignity that ranks with the great battles on other fronts of the Great War. Never before had two great powers fought in territory so absolutely ill adapted to the movement of large bodies of troops. For the same reason the story attains a picturesqueness absent from the dreary plains of Galicia and Poland and Flanders. Austrians, Hungarians and Italians fought in a land known throughout the world to tourists for its grandeur of scenery, its towering, snow-clad peaks, and idyllic lakes and valleys. It was warfare where the best soldier was the man most able to surmount the natural difficulties and take advantage of the natural protection of the ground. The official statements of the Italian and Austrian war offices told of feats of mountaineering, and of hand-to-hand struggles, of drippingbayonets and of combatants locked in last embrace with hands clutching each other's throats.
On both sides of the boundary were thousands of men who had spent their lives exploring the trackless mountainsides, climbing with ropes and ice axes and staves. Both nations had encouraged the formation of Alpine clubs.
Soon after midnight on May 23, 1915, the Alpini and Bersaglieri of the Italian army, supported by a few battalions of first line troops and gendarmes, crossed the mountain frontier. Soon the peaks resounded with the popping of rifle fire and the louder detonations of the Austrian mountain guns. Along the whole Trentino front that night a hundred skirmishes drove back the Austrian outpost. Only a few thousand men in all were engaged. The Italian cyclist sharpshooters advanced swiftly up the steep mountain roads until greeted by musketry fire. Then they sought shelter, pushing forward from rock to rock and from tree to tree. Often the light infantry and Alpini foot soldiers were able to skirt the enemy's posts and catch them in the rear.
By May 26, 1915, all Italy was thrilled by the news that all the lower passes of the Dolomites were won and breaches made at Tonale Pass along the northwest and in the Carnic and Julian Alps along the northeast front. Among the points occupied were the Montozzo Pass, 9,585 feet high, Ponte Caffaro, running into southwestern Trentino, the ridge of Monte Baldo, extending northward fifteen miles toward Arco and Roverto in southern Trentino, some of the heights looking westward toward Trento, all the valleys in the labyrinth of the Dolomites, and several footholds in the Alps of Carinthia. The eastern army was well inside Austrian territory, its left at Caporetto on the Isonzo just under Monte Nero, its center looking down on Gorizia from the heights between Indria and the Isonzo, and its right between Cormons and Terzo. Losses on both sides were surprisingly small considering the extent of territory covered by the fighting. The Austrians, after slight resistance, withdrew into their fortresses and waited behind their guns, grimly conscious that the real struggle was still before them.
Then, through the holes pierced by the mountain troops, the Italian engineers began to move forward their artillery and building emplacements and constructing trenches. Skirmishing on the mountain frontier continued until the end of May, 1915. By that time Italian forces attacking Trentino had crossed the Lessini Mountains north of Verona, captured the Austrian town of Ala on the Adige, and penetrated nearly ten miles into Austrian territory. They held high ground on the south commanding the forts of Roverto, and had begun to bring up their heavy guns against this important stronghold. Roverto is one of a number of strongly fortified places girdling Trent and commanding the converging routes to this center of the Austrian defensive. Other lesser fortresses in this girdle are Laredo on the Chiese, Levico on the Brenta, and Riva at the head of Lake Garda. Upon these the Italians closed in, and there they consolidated their positions awaiting the support of the first-line troops advancing in heavy detachments, and of their artillery.
While Italy struck the first blow on land, the first offensive operation of the Italo-Austrian conflict by sea came from Austria. This was an extensive raid on Italy's Adriatic coast. Its object was to delay the Italian concentration by attacking vital points on the littoral railway from Brindisi to the north.
The Coasts of Italy and Austria, Showing the Naval Raid May, 1915.
The Coasts of Italy and Austria, Showing the Naval Raid May, 1915.
The Austrian fleet began its attack early on the morning of Monday, May 24, 1915. The ships engaged were a squadron from Pola, consisting of two battleships, four cruisers, and eighteen destroyers, strongly supported by aircraft. The assault extended from Brindisi to Venice, and covered a large extent of coast territory hard to defend. At Venice the Austrian air raiders dropped bombs into the arsenal and the oil tanks and balloon sheds on the Lido. The priceless relics of art and architecture, all that remained to recall the city's proud position as ruler of the Adriatic, were uninjured, but the attack from the air caused an outcry from the nations of the Entente almost equal to that which rang through the world when the Germans shelled the cathedral at Rheims and destroyed Louvain. The Austrians replied that the attack was a serious military operation, and byno means the wanton outrage their enemies had tried to make it appear.
The Austrian naval raid lasted barely two hours, but in that time the cruiserNovaraand several destroyers attacked Porto Corsini, north of Ravenna, in a vain effort to destroy the Italian torpedo base; the cruiserSt. Georgshelled the railway station and bridges at Rimini; the battleshipZrinyiattacked Sinigaglia, and wrecked the railway station and bridge; south of Ancona the battleshipRadetzkydestroyed a bridge over the River Potenza. In the south the cruisersHelgolandandAdmiral Spaunwith destroyers shelled a railway bridge and station and several signal stations in the neighborhood of Manfredonia and Viesti, and caused some damage in small coast towns. The raid was well planned and swiftly executed, and it accomplished much of its purpose. The Italian fleet was taken by surprise, and the marauders were back in safety at Pola by six o'clock in the morning, unharmed.
While Italian Alpine troops were driving in the Austrian outposts on the frontiers of Trentino and the Tyrol, General Cadorna advanced his main infantry force, the Third Army, across the Friuli Plain through Udine, Palmanova, and St. Georgio toward the Isonzo. Here the covering troops on May 24 and 25 had captured nearly all the small towns and villages between the frontier and the river from Caporetto in the north just below Monte Nero to Belvedere in the south on the Gulf of Trieste. Cadorna feared lest his opponent, General von Hofer, would launch his main attack from Gorizia against the Italian city of Palmanova, fourteen miles to the west. But Von Hofer, so it developed, had a subtler plan of campaign than a direct attack through Gorizia. What he did was to place a strong force on the mountain of Korada between the Isonzo and the Judrio. This height commanded the middle course of the Isonzo, and it had been transformed into a network of permanent trenches, protected by strong wire entanglements.
The Austrian general believed that by the time the Italians could bring up their heavy artillery and begin to smash the entanglements with their field guns, supports could be pushed acrossthe river. Realizing that Korada must be captured, if at all, by dash and surprise, the Italian brigadier in charge of the attack gathered a herd of fierce bulls, which are numerous in that part of Venetia, and penned them in a hollow out of sight of the enemy, while his artillery began to bombard the hostile trenches. When the animals were wrought to a frenzy of rage and fear by the noise of the guns, they were let loose and driven up the mountain against the Austrian positions. Their charge broke through many strands of the wire entanglements, and before the last of them fell dead under the Austrian rifle fire, Italian troops with fixed bayonets had crowded through the gaps in the wires and captured the position.
By the end of May, 1915, the Third Army had reached the Isonzo River, but had not crossed. Its advance was slow and cautious. Operations were hampered by the heavy rains, which caused the river to overflow its banks and added greatly to the difficulties put in the path of the advancing army by the Austrians, who, as they withdrew, left not a bridge behind them.
Grado, a fishing town of about 5,000 inhabitants, but important on account of its strategic situation, was occupied by the Italians with no great difficulty. Grado lies at the head of the Adriatic, and is twelve miles from Trieste and sixty from Pola. The waters of the lagoons in this neighborhood were valuable to the Italians as a safe shelter for submarines and other small war-craft, and as a base for a prospective attack later upon Pola itself. The inhabitants, most of whom preserved their Italian traits and sympathies, although the town had been under Austrian rule since 1809, hailed the conquerors enthusiastically. Cannon and military carriages were decorated with flowers. Thousands of Italian flags appeared as if by magic. The entering troops were greeted with shouts of "All our lives we have been waiting for this moment when we can cry 'Viva Italia!'" The possession of Grado gave the Third Army virtual control of the mouth of the Isonzo, but the main Austrian position of defense at Gorizia remained apparently unweakened.
Scenes like those at Grado were witnessed at Ala, the first Austrian town of any size and the first railroad center captured bythe Italians in the Trentino. Ala was occupied May 27, 1915. Three days before this the Italian light infantry had massed behind the boundary line, and when they began their advance along the main highway their first act was to pull down the yellow and black pole that marked the frontier.
The next day, May 28, 1915, the commanding general with his chief of staff and two guards motored to the spot, cut a passage-way through the barricade, and, encountering no opposition, kept on until they reached Ala, seven miles beyond.
The Italian troops were ordered to advance next day, May 29, 1915, and as they marched into the town, officers shouted: "Open your windows. Long live Italy!" The Mayor of Ala called out his townsmen and set them at work removing the barricades on the main road.
In the midst of these rejoicings the sharp rattle of musketry was heard, and the Italians rushed to cover. A reconnoitering party reported that the Austrians were intrenched in a large villa beyond a stream outside the town. The Italian troops began an attack upon this position, and a skirmish party sought to take a position in a house on a near-by hill commanding the villa held by the enemy. Although the way to this house was exposed to the Austrian fire, the Italian officer decided to risk an attempt to reach it. But as he raised his sword to signal an advance, a young girl ran to his side and told him of a path sheltered from the Austrian fire. This girl, Signorina Abriani, whose name will go down in Italian history as one of the first heroines of the war, guided the detachment safely. The Austrians holding the villa were strongly intrenched, and they held out against superior forces until late in the afternoon, when four shells crashed into the building, bringing it down about their ears. The Italians had brought up a battery on the opposite side of the Adige River and opened fire at long range. The Austrians made good their retreat, leaving all their ammunition and three dead. Later fifty-seven Austrians were taken prisoners.
That night the Italian general took the precautions, usual on entering a newly occupied town, of ordering that all the windows in town be kept open and illuminated, and kept patrols about thetown. The mayor was reconfirmed, and his first act was to announce to the citizens that "the royal military authorities, knowing the needs of the inhabitants, have with affectionate solicitude and great generosity placed 5,000 rations of bread and 2,000 of rice at the disposal of the poor." Thus Ala became Italian.
The incidents of these first advances into Austrian territory were reported in detail in Italy, and are set down here as typical of events that accompanied the irruption of Italian troops over the border into the country which once had been Italian and where, despite more than a century of Austrian occupation, a large proportion of the inhabitants in spirit was Italian still. Such reports spread through Italy naturally increased enthusiasm for the restoration of the "unredeemed" provinces.
Although, as a rule, the Austrians retired before the first Italian advance into Trentino, they did not depart until they had left every possible obstacle. Roads were barricaded, bridges destroyed, and mines were laid, cleverly concealed on hillsides where it was intended their explosion would overwhelm the Italians under masses of rock and earth. But this was just what the Alpini and Bersaglieri had been trained to anticipate. According to the official Italian accounts, their scouting was so excellent that the wires connecting these mines with Austrian hiding places were discovered and cut, and hardly a mine was exploded. All this took place while the Austrians were drawing in their outposts and consolidating their forces in the great strongholds where later they held the Italians in absolute check. The Italians advanced cautiously in small groups, and the Austrians abandoned the frontier villages soon enough to avoid serious encounters, but not a minute sooner.
In the Alps in these days of May, 1915, the Great War was fought much as wars have been fought in times we are accustomed to regard as the age of true romance. The Italian King visited the Alpine troops and surprised his men and redoubled their devotion by showing his skill as a mountain climber. "You forget," he told an officer who remonstrated with him as he was about to scale a particularly difficult position to examine a gun "chamois hunting is my favorite sport."
If certain portions of the Italian population seemed lukewarm toward the war during the period of diplomatic negotiations, there was no doubt of the temper of the nation after hostilities actually began. The chord of national feeling was struck by King Victor Emmanuel in an order issued upon taking supreme command of the army and navy.
"Soldiers on land and sea," said the order, "the solemn hour of the nation's claims has struck. Following the example of my grandfather, I take to-day supreme command of Italy's forces on land and sea, with the assurance of victory which your bravery, self-abnegation, and discipline will obtain.
"The enemy you are preparing to fight is hardened to war and worthy of you. Favored by the nature of the ground and skillful works, he will resist tenaciously, but your unsubdued ardor will surely vanquish him.
"Soldiers, to you has come the glory of unfurling Italy's colors on the sacred lands which nature has given as the frontiers of our country. To you has come the glory of finally accomplishing the work undertaken with so much heroism by our fathers."
The stormy scenes which followed the resignation of the Salandra cabinet gave way to a confident calm. From his seclusion in the Vatican the pope addressed a letter to Cardinal Vannutelli, breathing a spirit of resignation and faith, but carefully refraining from any expression of partisanship in the great struggle.
"The hour which we are traversing is painful," he said, "but our prayers will go out more frequently and more fervently than ever to those who have in their hands the fate of nations." The pope recalled that in his first Encyclical issued at the beginning of the war he exhorted the belligerent nations to make peace, but his voice was unheeded and the war continued "until the terrible conflagration has extended to our beloved Italy. While our hearts bleed at the sight of so much misery," he wrote, "we have not neglected to continue our work for relief and the diminution of the deplorable consequences of war. I wish that the echo of our voice might reach to all our children affected by the great scourge of war, and persuade all of them of our participation in theirtroubles and sorrows. There is little of the grief of the child that is not reflected in the soul of the father."
The greatest enthusiasm, naturally, was manifested in the cities of the north nearest the scene of war. The Master Workers' Guild of Milan voted unanimously to give up one day's pay each month to be devoted to the relief of the families of men at the front. Many business houses carried soldiers' names on their payrolls and remitted their wages to their families.
In all cities within range of the enemy's aircraft precautions were taken to guard public buildings, and especially the famous objects which for centuries had made Italy the Mecca of lovers of art. In Venice the bronze horses of St. Mark's were taken down from their pedestals and hidden in the subterranean caverns of the cathedral. The gilded statue of the Virgin surmounting the celebrated white marble cathedral at Milan was covered with cloth, so that it might not serve as a guide to Austrian raiders. The stained glass windows of the edifice were removed as a precaution against possible bombardment. After the first Austrian sea and air raid along the Adriatic coast orders were issued that lights should be darkened in all Adriatic ports. This order was extended also to certain inland cities, such as Milan, Bologna, Verona, Brescia, and Udine. A special watch for aeroplanes was kept at Bologna on account of the location there of an important factory for the manufacture of explosives. Watches were set on the crests of the Appenines ready to notify Rome of approaching danger from the air.
The attitude of Germany toward Italy at this period of the war is best indicated by the speech delivered at the session of the Reichstag by Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, the Imperial Chancellor. He imputed the Italian declaration of war to a combination of mob dictation, bad faith on the part of the cabinet of Premier Salandra, and, to a certain degree, to the money of the powers of the Entente. The greater part of the Italian people, the chancellor asserted, and a majority in the Italian Parliament had not wanted war, and were even kept in ignorance of the extent of the concessions which Austria-Hungary was willing to make for the sake of peace. The Salandra cabinet, he declared,long before the Triple Alliance had ceased to exist, aligned itself with the Triple Entente and "unchained the mob spirit and intimidated the advocates of peace."
On the eve of leaving Rome, Prince von Bülow gave out a statement in which he declared that Italy was led into the war by a "noisy minority," and that even if in the end she obtained what she asked she would not get much more than what Austria already had offered. "It should be understood," he explained, "that it was impossible to deprive the central empires of Trieste, their only outlet to the Adriatic in the Mediterranean."
Turkey regarded the entrance of Italy into the war on the side of the Entente with apparent equanimity. "We will not declare war on Italy," announced Talaat Bey, the Turkish Minister of the Interior. "We can wait. What can Italy do to us?"[Back to Contents]
FIGHTING IN THE MOUNTAINS
While the world hears little about strategic plans that fail to work out, it is believed that the Austrians in May, 1915, had in mind to let the enemy obtain a good start in his advance against Trieste. Then, when the Italian operations were well under way, and the two railroads from Venice were choked with their supplies, the Austrians probably intended to launch a swift attack upon Verona and the rich cities of Lombardy, thus cutting off the chief centers of Italian industry. At the same time, they undoubtedly meant to send an invading army through the passes of the Carnic and Julian Alps from their base at Tarvis, and by a sudden swoop southward take the Italian forces on the Isonzo in the flank. At least this is what the Italian staff believed was their plan, and they arranged their own forces accordingly.
This was the reason for the extensive Italian drive during the third week of May, 1915, at all the mountain passes of the longfrontier. For almost any of these passes might prove to be the gateway of invasion, whereas, once captured, they could be held by a few battalions. But behind each force that occupied the passes won in the first Italian dash was a large reserve ready to lend support wherever the enemy tried to break through. The Italians were not kept long in suspense as to where this thrust from the north first would come.
On May 29, 1915, under cover of a heavy fog, the Austrians concentrated a strong force from Villach, brought them to Mauthen, and from that point launched five successive attacks in an effort to win back the pass of Monte Croce in the Carnic Alps. The Alpini met the attacks with musketry and machine-gun fire, then, after the last attempt had failed, leaped from their trenches and drove the Austrians down the valley.
Thus began the battle of Monte Croce, an engagement described in the official bulletins of both countries in a way that gave the world its first intimation of the peculiar features of this mountain warfare. Each side had large reserves, and the struggle for the pass continued day and night, the Italians pushing over the neighboring passes and gathering their strength for a counterattack when the Austrians were exhausted.
On June 8, 1915, the Italians stormed Freikofel, a height commanding the Plocken Plateau, and took the Pass of Valentina and the Pass of Oregione, 7,500 feet high, and overlooking the wooded valley of Gail. The Alpini won Oregione by climbing through ice and snow over Paralba Mountain and fighting their way downward. Undaunted, General Dankl called up a fresh corps.
On the night of June 14, 1915, the Austrians made a supreme effort to break through the Italian line and put into effect his plan of pouring an army through the Carnic Alps to attack the flank of the main Italian army. Although 100,000 men were engaged in this battle, the ground permitted no massed movements. For miles the saddle of Oregione, the snow-clad sides of Paralba, and every smaller peak and ravine extending to Monte Croce and Freikofel were speckled with fighting men. After the two sides came to grips, the big guns held their fire, and it was man to man and bayonet against bayonet. At one point only did the Austrianthrust reach Italian soil. For a short time the Austrians were on Paralba at an elevation of 8,840 feet, but threatened both in the flank and in the rear they were forced to retreat and take refuge in their prepared positions on Steinwand, a huge limestone mountain overlooking the Gail Valley.
The strategic idea of General Cadorna is more easily understood when one studies the railway map of the Austrian territory north of the Carnic border. Here their railway line through the Drave Valley passed closer to the boundary line than did the Italian system on the south, and they could bring up fresh troops with more speed. In the Gail Valley they had a wide region in which they could mass hidden from the enemy, and they had a good road up the mountains from Mauthen, while the Italians had to depend upon rough tracks through the valley. Although Cadorna had the hard task of keeping the doorway to Venice closed while he attacked the enemy on both flanks, he accomplished his purpose.
The Italian army operating in the province of Cadore won its next success in an attack upon the village of Cortina, situated in a salient of the frontier, 4,000 feet high, amid some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. Cortina was taken on May 30. The Austrians had barricaded the famous road winding up through the Dolomites, and dug elaborate trenches; but the Italians, by superhuman efforts, moved up their mountain guns, while the Alpini scrambled over the mountains by the glaciers of Serapis and the tarns of Croda da Lago, and descended into Cortina on either side. Then, holding the enemy on the east, they advanced into the Tyrol westward to Falzarego.
In this region they had an experience which illustrated the foresight of the Austrians in preparing for the attack they believed would come. Some years before an Austrian had built a hotel in a deep ravine shut in by walls of limestone and very difficult of approach. Tourists had commented upon the lack of practicability of the man who placed a hostelry in so inaccessible a spot. But when the war came it developed that the hotel builder probably had a subsidy from the Government. For sandbags, machine guns, and quick-firers quickly converted the hotel intoan excellent fort, which dominated the famous ravine. Thanks to the hardiness and ingenuity of their picked Alpine troops, the Italians, after a week of hard fighting, cleared the mountains above the ravine and dropped upon the hotel fort.
By June 9, 1915, the Italians had won the Falzarego Pass. At times the fighting raged on summits 10,000 feet high, where the thin air exhausted the combatants far quicker than their physical exertions. In the last battle of this engagement the Italians obtained a footing upon a point of great strategical importance three miles beyond the pass on the Sasso d'Istria, close to where the Dolomite road bends southward through the ravine and penetrated the mountains in two tunnels.
This victory gave the Austrians cause for anxiety regarding the western defenses of Tyrol, for by a double flanking movement along the Cordevole River and the Dolomite road the Italians in Cadore had extended like two arms around one of the principal systems of defense. General Dankl hurried reenforcements to the Cadore front to check the thrust up the Cordevole Valley. At the end of this valley was the focal point of the system of railways that carried food and munitions to both the Trentino forces and those in southern Tyrol. If the Italians had succeeded in cutting the railway at this point the enemy would have had great difficulty in maintaining his armies on the Trentino and Tyrol fronts. The Italian effort was not pushed to success; but it at least had the effect of discouraging any plans General Dankl might have formed of invading the plains of northern Italy at the foot of the frontier mountains.
Only twenty miles south of the Austrian outposts was the important city of Verona, famed for its memories of Romeo and Juliet. Nearer still was Brescia with the fertile lands of Lombardy surrounding it. But by his maneuvers at the opening of the war, General Cadorna effectively protected Italian territory and forced the enemy to devote all his attention to resisting the attacks of active light infantry and mountain artillery. The great 12-inch Skoda howitzers, upon which Austria depended to batter down the defenses of these Italian cities, were needed elsewhere, behind the Julian and Carnic Alps, and especially inthe corner of the frontier near Predil Pass, by which Napoleon invaded Italy, and on the Isonzo front between Tolmino and the Adriatic.
Thus with his infantry, Cadorna overcame the artillery handicap under which Italy labored during all the first months of the war. The Skoda gun was reputed to be the best in the world. It had proved its worth in Belgium and Russia, and the fact that the Austrians were able to lend guns to their ally proved their wealth of big-gun power. Now, even after ten months of war, when thousands of the great howitzers were busy in Galicia and along the Danube, the Skoda works could still produce an armament superior to that of Italy. Much of the effectiveness of the Skoda gun lay in the fact that it could be separated into two parts for easier transportation. In addition to these 12-inch mortars, Austria had a 6-inch steel Skoda, designed in the summer of 1914, for use in the Carpathians and well adapted to fighting in the Alps. Due in part to their realization of this superiority of Austria in big guns, the Italians remained neutral for ten months, but meanwhile they had created a new armament for their own armies at full speed. For the attack on the Austrian infantry in the field they adapted the French 75-millimeter quick-firer, and for siege work they manufactured 6-and 12-inch howitzers. But it takes time to build heavy artillery, and at this time every armament firm in the world was pushed to its full capacity, while the Italians, being without coal fields, were handicapped in the development of armament resources at home. For political reasons also General Cadorna would not risk sacrificing his men to overcome this artillery handicap. His problem was to conserve his forces as much as possible in readiness for a defensive campaign against combined Teutonic armies, winning what small victories he could, and meanwhile keeping down his casualty lists, while fighting heavy howitzers with light mountain guns and 3-inch quick-firers.
After the Italians had established their hold upon the frontier points there was an apparent relaxation of effort while the infantry of the line waited for the heavy siege artillery to issue from the armament factories and come into action. This movementof artillery was slow, especially on the Isonzo front where engineering operations were delayed by the summer floods caused by the melting snows from the mountain tops. To transport heavy pieces of ordnance across the floods the Italian engineers had to build strong bridges, often under heavy fire from the enemy, who, even after their retirement from the east bank of the river, continually harassed the Italian advance guard holding the bridgeheads. The Austrians aided the work of the mountain floods by breaking down the high embankment used to carry off the snow water, and thereby inundated the plain. Working under a plunging fire from the enemy's batteries on the foothills, the Italian sappers built light pontoon bridges over the floods upon which the first Italian contingent crossed at night and occupied the first line of Austrian trenches near the river.
This much the Italians accomplished by the first week in June, 1915; but there they were forced to pause for the reasons already described. Active hostilities during the first part of June on the Isonzo front centered around Monfalcone, a seaport just below the dominating Carso headlands. Taken from Venice by the Austrians during the Napoleonic era, Monfalcone had become the third most important port in the empire. In its yards warships were being constructed.
On June 9, 1915, the Italians made their swift stroke in a southwesterly direction from their Isonzo line. The port was bombarded on June 7, 1915, by a light Italian cruiser squadron, and the Castle of Duino, standing at the sea edge near Trieste and defended by three artillery batteries, was shattered and set afire apparently to prepare for the operations against Monfalcone from the southwestern side of the Gulf of Panzano. Archduke Eugene hastily collected a strong force above Duino ready to resist an attempt by the Italians to land, but the attempt never was made. It developed that the bombardment of Duino was a feint.
The real movement against Monfalcone was launched from another quarter straight across the Isonzo. The Bersaglieri cyclist corps and grenadiers broke through the Austrian line at the river, and since the Austrians had neglected to prepare a reserve line, the Italians advanced by a swift, running fight through thevillages around the Isonzo delta. Near the historic town of Aquileia, now a mere hamlet, the Italians forced a passage of the river at the point of the bayonet and flowed in two streams around the enemy's positions, depending for their rapid movements upon their cyclists with machine guns and their fast-marching light infantry. The Austrians set fire to the pine-clad mountain slopes, but were unable to stem the rush of the Italians who, under the flare of the forest fires, broke into the open town of Monfalcone after storming the promontory of Rocca.
Here, however, the Italian advance guard was in a dangerous position, for the Austrian batteries posted on the limestone bluffs rising 1,000 feet on the northern side of the town still dominated the streets occupied by the Italians near the water's edge. The situation was critical, not only because the troops in the lower town were in danger of annihilation if they held their ground, but because the Italians were anxious to save the town from bombardment, and preserve the warships under construction in the shipyards. So a brigade of light troops scaled the limestone cliffs dragging their mobile 3-inch guns, and forced the Austrians to retire, taking their heavy howitzers with them. Monfalcone now rested securely in Italian possession. The Italians in all this engagement lost only about 100 killed and wounded, while the enemy's casualties were estimated at 2,000. The loss stung the Austro-Hungarian Government deeply.[Back to Contents]
ATTACKS IN GORIZIA
After the Italian success in June, 1915, certain readjustments were manifest in the Austrian forces in the Italian theatre. Although there was no declaration of war between Italy and Germany, it was reported that German officers were sent to aid the Austrians, and that the forces of Archduke Eugene were progressively strengthened from this time on. German soldierswho joined the Austrian detachments were supposed to have volunteered in an irregular individual manner. In this manner Germany preserved the appearance of neutrality.
The latter part of June, 1915, found Austria occupied with the siege of Lemberg, and the archduke, apparently, was content to hold his own on the Italian front until a decision had been obtained in the more important operations against the Russians. Satisfied with their initial successes, General Cadorna on land and the Duke of Abruzzi at sea settled down to a slow, patient chess play, not unlike that worked out by General Joffre in France. Cadorna issued a statement to the Italian people in which he warned them that the preliminary successes which, he said, had made good the strategical defects of their frontier, would be followed by a long stage of gradual approaches against the enemy's second line.
The attrition of the Austro-Hungarian forces would be carried on by long-range artillery and sappers and local trench warfare with hand grenades. The Italian commander in chief resolutely refused to divert any part of his forces to the Dardanelles. Possible danger to Italian dominion in Tripoli, pointed out by the leaders of the Entente Powers, did not change his purpose to maintain a single concentrated front and not diffuse his efforts. The war with Austria, he believed, would be won or lost on the Italian frontier. His theory as to the best way to meet advances by the Teutonic allies in new fields was to increase pressure on their home frontiers where their interests were most vital. The Italian army in the field was increased to a million men, and, after the fall of Lemberg, Austria gradually moved more and more troops to the Alpine passes and the Isonzo, until by August she had 600,000 men facing the Italians, double the number arrayed on this front when Italy declared war. Had the Russians been able to hold out longer in Galicia, there is little doubt that Cadorna would have had something to show for the month of July besides a few local victories which did not vitally affect the main campaign.
Italian Attack on Austria.
Italian Attack on Austria.
On June 9, 1915, the capture of Gradisca completed the Italian control of the lower Isonzo, and Cadorna prepared for a generalattack on all the strongholds guarding Trieste. Of these the most important were the Carso tableland on the south, Gorizia barring the river-valley of the Vipacco between the Carso and the foothills of the Julian Alps, the fortified system of heights north of Gorizia surrounding the town of Tolmino, and the great intrenched camp of Tarvis above Tolmino extending to Malborghetto and the other Alps of Carinthia. These fortified points had to be attacked generally or not at all. Any attempt to mass an army against any one of them would have spelled disaster, for the Italians would have been flanked by Austrian forces from the north or south. A properly defined advance against Trieste called for a simultaneous thrust at Tolmino and the Tarvis fortress commanding the road to Vienna. The Austrians had been strengthening Tarvis ever since 1859, after Napoleon III overthrew the Austrians in the battles that freed Lombardy. The Austrian fortresses were again strengthened after the siege of Port Arthur had demonstrated the power of high-explosive shells, and again in 1910 when the Teutonic allies made their great discovery that their new giant howitzers laughed at modern defense works of steel and concrete. In remodeling her Alpine strongholds Austria selected positions on the plateau for systems of earthworks containing mobile siege guns.
The key to this immensely strong Austrian line of defense was the railway town of Plava on the eastern bank of the Isonzo under the wooded heights of the Ternovane Forest. Plava was in a salient occupying about the middle of the Austrian line.
Here, on the night of June 17, 1915, the Italians began their general offensive by an attack from Mount Korada on the opposite side of the river. Under cover of darkness the Italian sappers built a pontoon bridge, and the Bersaglieri crossed and carried the town and the surrounding heights at the point of the bayonet. The Austrians realized the importance of the position and quickly returned to a violent counterattack. The Italians threw all their available men into the gap, and a great battle raged on the edge of the highlands east of the river. The Austrians had the advantage of position, for their forces could be massed in the woodland out of sight of the Italian aviators. But, on the other hand,the Italian batteries on Mount Korada were able to pour a plunging fire into the lower tableland; and due mainly to the aid of their artillery the Italian troops drove back the enemy and maintained the ground won by the first dash.
General Cadorna was now in a position to begin a direct attack upon Gorizia. He assailed the Hill of Podgora, forming the barbican of the city's system of defenses and advanced a reconnoitering force toward Mount Fortin. Meanwhile he massed 500 pieces of artillery on the heights commanding the city. But the defenses of Gorizia had been well planned, and they proved their completeness by a long resistance covering a period that brought successive reports that the fortress had fallen. All these reports proved false. South of the city the Austrian intrenchments covered a front of more than ten miles, from the Mount of San Gabriele below Plava to Mount San Michele on the Carso tableland. The trenches were built in the most modern style, of concrete more than a yard thick covered with steel armor, against which ordinary shrapnel had no more effect than so much hail, and even high-explosive shells of medium power did little damage. The Italian weapons of attack were hand grenades and short knives, in the use of which the infantry were expert. Four army corps operating under the Duke of Aosta between Gorizia and the sea were beaten back by the Austrians with heavy losses. This victory so encouraged the archduke and chief lieutenant, General Boroevics, that they decided upon a counteroffensive in force. Therefore, as soon as the Italian attack slackened, the main Austrian army advanced across the Carso Plateau.
The series of battles that now followed were the first engagements of any size between the Italians and the Austro-Hungarians in the open field. They began June 22, 1915, and lasted until the close of July, with a short let-up at the end of the first week in July. The theatre included the whole Carso front, the Vipacco Valley, and the southern part of the Ternovane Forest. After his first repulse General Boroevics brought up fresh corps and renewed the attack, but in the end he was driven back to his main line with shattered forces.
In the Carso tableland the Austrians had as nearly perfect a position of natural defense as a general could choose. On the east of the Isonzo plain the broken, rocky wall rises in places to 1,000 feet, seamed with gullies and ravines, and bristling with forest growth which afforded ideal cover. The action of the rain has pitted the limestone with funnel-shaped holes which form natural redoubts for machine guns; and there are larger depressions and caves where heavier pieces of artillery may be placed in excellent shelter.
But while the Italians were unable to capture this position, when General Boroevics took his troops out of their defenses and sent them charging across the open ground, he found that the enemy had made good use of his precarious hold on the edges of the tableland. Although they occupied barely more than the rim of the plateau, with the flooded Isonzo a third of a mile broad beneath them, the Italians had strengthened their positions with sandbag intrenchments and hauled up a few pieces of light artillery.
The chief support of the infantry holding these sandbag defenses was the heavy guns across the river, which searched out the Austrian columns whenever they left cover. In weight of artillery the Italians had the advantage, for most of the Austrian 12-inch howitzers were busy in the Alps, and they had to depend mainly upon 6-inch pieces.
By the second week in July, 1915, the Austrians relaxed their efforts, and the Italians began a slow advance, working up the hills overlooking Gorizia by a variety of methods. In the places, comparatively few, where there was cultivated ground, they practiced the siege method of sapping forward, but generally their advance was over bare rock, where trenches could be excavated only by the use of dynamite, and when a charge was made the troops had to carry sandbags to build temporary cover from machine-gun fire. This method of warfare, in fact, was general throughout the whole mountain front, where the hard rock carried a mere veneer of earth, and sandbags had to serve for defense until the engineers could blast trenches and galleries in the flintlike face of the slopes.
The repulse of the Austrian counterattack in the middle of July, 1915, ended the first phase of the battle of Gorizia. On July 18th, 19th and 20th, General Cadorna delivered a fierce assault aided by knowledge gained in the first stage of the battle, which, for the Italians, was little more than a reconnaissance in force. For three days and nights he drove the troops of his combined Second and Third Armies against the enemy's lines all along the Isonzo. His system was to attack by day and then at night resist the enemy's counterassaults on his newly won positions. The Italians retained all the ground they won during these days of terrific fighting, and captured 3,500 prisoners.
By the 20th of July their confidence had increased to such an extent that they determined upon a night assault. But next morning Cadorna received word from his aeroplane scouts and his spies that the enemy was massing for a supreme effort. The Italian advance was stayed and every man was set at work helping the engineers strengthen the trenches.
On July 21, 1915, there came a complete lull. The next day the Austrians opened their attack with a concentrated bombardment. During the period of Italian advance the railways had been piling up the Austrian shells and German gunners had been sent by the Crown Prince of Bavaria to help serve the heavy howitzers rushed to the Carso from the Julian Alps and the Tyrol and Trentino salients. With the design to cut the Italian line of communication, the main Austrian infantry attack was delivered toward Gradisca where the Italians had constructed their principal bridges across the Isonzo. The infantry massed behind the neighboring hills and under cover of a tremendous artillery bombardment advanced in close formation. The first line of Italian troops seemed about to be swept away when the gunners on the heights across the river got the range and poured into the advancing Austrians a massed fire from all their 500 pieces. General Boroevics's advance was pounded to pieces; the Italians brought up reenforcements and charged and captured the lines from which the Austrians had delivered their assault, taking 2,000 prisoners.