Battle of Caporetto
The Battle of Caporetto , took place from 24 October to 9 November 1917, near
Kobarid, in what is now
Slovenia, on the Austro-Italian front of
World War I.
Austro-Hungarian forces, reinforced by
German units, were able to break into the
Italian front line and rout the Italian army, which had practically no mobile reserves. The battle was a demonstration of the effectiveness of the use of stormtroopers and the infiltration tactics developed in part by
Oskar von Hutier.
Erwin Rommel added lustre to his military career leading a company of Wuertemburg mountain troops during this battle and capturing 3000 Italians, winning a
Pour le Merite in process.
Encyclopedia
The
Battle of Caporetto , took place from 24 October to 9 November 1917, near
Kobarid, in what is now
Slovenia, on the Austro-Italian front of
World War I.
Austro-Hungarian forces, reinforced by
German units, were able to break into the
Italian front line and rout the Italian army, which had practically no mobile reserves. The battle was a demonstration of the effectiveness of the use of stormtroopers and the infiltration tactics developed in part by
Oskar von Hutier.
Erwin Rommel added lustre to his military career leading a company of Wuertemburg mountain troops during this battle and capturing 3000 Italians, winning a
Pour le Merite in process.
Italian losses were enormous: 275,000 prisoners were taken and 2,500 guns captured; 40,000 were killed and 20,000 wounded. Austro-German forces advanced more than 100 km in the direction of
Venice, but they were not able to cross the Piave River, where the Italians established a new defensive line, which was held for the rest of the war.
The battle led to the conference at
Rapallo and the creation of a Supreme War Council, with the aim of improving Allied military co-operation and developing a unified strategy.
The bloody aftermath of Caporetto was vividly described by
Ernest Hemingway in his novel
A Farewell to Arms is a semi-autobiographical novel [i] written by Ernest Hemingway [i] in 1929 [i]. ...
.
Luigi Cadorna was in charge of the Italian forces and was forced to resign after the defeat. He was replaced by
Armando Diaz and
Pietro Badoglio .
The debacle was not the result of a lack of repression or coercion. In fact, 870,000 Italian soldiers came to be denounced by authorities with 210,000 sentences in military courts; 15,000 were sentenced to life in jail and 4,000 to death. There were rumors of illegal decimations taking place after the fashion of
Ancient Rome to attempt to terrorise the remaining soldiers into fighting to the death. The failure of the Italian army was most likely
because of the preponderance of peasants in an army which fought through terror. Many of these soldiers could not understand the national language or their battle orders.
This led governments to the realization that terror alone cannot adequately motivate a modern army. After the defeat at Caporetto, Italian propaganda offices were established and cynically promised land and social justice to soldiers. Italy also accepted a more cautious military strategy from this point on. Just one fifth of the total 650,000 Italian casualties during the war occurred after Caporetto.
After this battle, the term "Caporetto" gained a particular resonance in Italy. It is used to denote a terrible defeat - the failed General Strike of 1922 by the socialists was referred to by Mussolini as the "Caporetto of Italian Socialism".
