The following day the Italians realized, to their astonishment, that Gorizia was virtually defenseless as the nearest bridge was still under Austrian artillery fire, a small group of around 100 Italian soldiers simply waded across the shallow river and occupied the town, in something of an anticlimax following so much bloodshed on its doorstep. With no reserves immediately available and his existing forces already stretched to the breaking point, the talented commander of the Austro-Hungarian Fifth Army, Svetozar Boroević, had no choice but to allow his troops to begin making limited withdrawals to the second line of defenses behind Gorizia on August 7. ![]() The same tactics also yielded victory at the southern end of the battlefield, giving the Italians possession of the key transportation junction at Doberdò as well as Mount San Michele, the site of so much futile bloodshed in the first five battles of the Isonzo – albeit with heavy losses once again.Ĭivic Musei di Storia e Arte di Trieste via Itinerari della Grande Guerra ![]() There was no indication of life in them anywhere – the God of war reigned supreme.Īfter a morning and afternoon of unrelenting shelling, at 4 pm the first wave of Italian troops poured out of their hillside shelters and swamped the outnumbered defenders, beginning at Mount Sabotino northwest of Gorizia, where the Italians had secretly dug shallow tunnels and concealed trenches (saps) more than halfway across no-man’s-land, allowing them to charge the surprised enemy from close range. ![]() At first glance it was a rich and smiling landscape bathed in the glorious sunshine of an Italian summer morning, but one soon discovered that the white houses of the villages were now but heaps of ruins. The war correspondent Julius Price recorded his impressions two days later:įrom Monte San Gabriele to Monte San Michele, a distance of, roughly, nine miles, was one continuous line of bursting shells of every caliber… The whole country appeared to be in a state of irruption, and columns of smoke of various colours and fantastic shapes were to be seen rising everywhere like embryo volcanoes… Seen through the telescope, the desolation of the countryside was revealed in all its horrors. The intensity of the Italian preparatory bombardment early on the morning of August 6 was unprecedented in proportion to the length of front being shelled, and Italian gunners delivered some of their most accurate shooting to date, thanks to increasingly detailed reconnaissance by airborne artillery spotters. Best of all, the Habsburg commanders were complacent following Italy’s close call in the Punishment Expedition, never imagining their foes would be able to mount another offensive so quickly. In return for lowering their sights somewhat, Cadorna and Aosta were able to concentrate more artillery firepower and infantry divisions, totaling 200,000 troops, against a much smaller number of Habsburg defenders. They also reined in their ambitions considerably, giving up the idea of a decisive breakthrough towards Trieste in favor of a limited campaign focused on the town of Gorizia. In the new plan drawn up by Cadorna with the Duke of Aosta, the commander of the Italian Third Army, the Italian effort would be concentrated on a relatively narrow front compared to previous assaults, a stretch of the Isonzo River Valley less than ten miles long between the hill of Podgora (also called Mount Calvario) to the north and Mount San Michele to the south. In fact the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo, from August 6-17, 1916, would prove Italy’s greatest victory until the decisive battle of Vittorio Veneto at the end of the war. The Italians had already suffered multiple defeats or Pyrrhic victories here in the first five battles of the Isonzo, but this time would be different. With the failure of the Austrian “ Punishment Expedition” against Italy in June 1916, when the Russian Brusilov Offensive forced Austria-Hungary’s chief of the general staff Conrad von Hötzendorf to withdraw troops to shore up the Eastern Front, the initiative returned to the Italians, and chief of the general staff Luigi Cadorna began preparing yet another offensive in the Isonzo River Valley. August 6-17, 1916: Italian Victory At Sixth Isonzo ![]() This is the 246th installment in the series. Erik Sass is covering the events of the war exactly 100 years after they happened.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |