This month has been a blockbuster month in terms of actions and reactions all over the
map, and this week is no exception. Remember last month when the Allies opened a new front
at Gallipoli? Well, this week yet another front opens as Italy joins the war.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week, the Germans and Austrians had knocked back the Russians at the battle of the San,
the British lost 15,000 men to take 3 km at Festubert, the Russians were advancing in
eastern Anatolia, and Winston Churchill lost his post as First Lord of the Admiralty because
of the failure of the Gallipoli landings. Here’s what happened next.
I’ll jump right in with the big news of the week.
On May 23rd, 1915, Italy declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now, after the last
few weeks this doesn’t come as a real big surprise, but still, amazing but true, the
war keeps growing. Italy had been courting both sides for the past few months, looking
to join the war purely for territorial gain, and with the Austrian military disasters over
the winter, it had seemed like a good idea to join the Allies and take back some disputed
territory from Austria-Hungary.
But if you look closely, you can kind of see that the Italian army was not really prepared
for European war and also still had big commitments in Libya, which it had taken from the Ottoman
Empire in 1912. The Italians had really only occupied the Libyan coast and faced strong
resistance from the local population who basically refused to be colonized and it took a lot
of manpower to keep order.
But still, Italy mobilized 1.2 million men for war with Austria-Hungary, but only had
equipment for 700 and something thousand. Italy was not, at this time, a fully industrialized
power and had similar problems to the ones Russia had when the war broke out with production,
equipment, and training. Italy also didn’t have much heavy artillery or mountain guns,
which it would certainly need in the terrain along the border with Austria.
In fact, the Italian front was probably the worst one for offensives out of all the fronts.
It was, like, 600 km long, but 80% of that was mountains. Many of them high mountains.
So in winter you had snow and wartime explosions could trigger avalanches, and in the summer
you had rock that couldn’t be dug for trenches and splintered into shrapnel when hit.
One of Italy’s big tasks upon entering the war was in the north to defend the Austro-Hungarian
salient of Tyrol and Trentino and stop the Austrians from reaching the Venetian plains,
but the most logical place for Italy itself to attack, even though it was going to be
uphill, was the salient between the Dolomites and the Adriatic. This was the quickest route
to Trieste and Ljubljana.
Now, there was some scattered action this week immediately upon the declaration of war.
On the 23rd, the Austrians attacked in the Carnic Alps. On the 24th, Italy occupied Caporetto
and Cormons, then within days captured Monte Altinino, and occupied Grado and Ala. Austria-Hungary
mounted a naval raid on the Italian Adriatic Coast the 24th and an air raid on Venice the
same day.
So that’s the newest front, and if we look at the second newest front, at Gallipoli,
we see that it was a standstill.
Much like on the western front, it had descended into trench warfare, but there was action
this week there at sea. The German U-boat U-21 had traveled all the way from the Baltic
Sea to the Dardanelles and on May 25th sank the British battleship HMS Triumph and on
the 26th sank the HMS Majestic. The other six British battleships there withdrew to
safe havens, finally relieving the Turks from their constant bombardment. Also this week
was a ten-hour truce between the ANZACs- the Australian and New Zealand troops- and the
Turks so the thousands of rotting corpses of soldiers festering in the sun could be buried.
Now, this was a shared moment of humanity between the Turkish soldiers and their enemy,
but the Turkish government was being accused of lacking that very humanity.
On may 24th, after an initiative by Russia; France and Britain joined the Russian government
in condemning the Turkish massacres of Armenians over the past two months, saying it was “against
humanity and civilization”. The Ottoman Imperial government would reply that it was
practicing self-defense, and the responsibility for everything that happened in the Armenian
districts was the fault of the Entente Powers, who had “organized and directed the revolutionary
movement” there in the first place.
It seemed like humanity was lacking pretty much everywhere, though, including the Western Front.
The Germans had begun using poison gas on the Allies in the ongoing Second Battle of
Ypres weeks ago, but even though it was an almost unspeakable horror on the battlefield,
it was still not proving effective at breaking the stalemate. On May 24th, a gas attack on
a seven kilometer front could not break the British lines, and on May 25th, the second
battle of Ypres came to an end as Allied forces pushed the Germans back nearly a kilometer
over a front three times that in length. The new ground came at a high cost; on that day
the attackers took 16,000 casualties to only 5,000 for the Germans. Now, the battle “officially”
lasted till the 31st, with Allied total casualties around 60,000 versus around 35,000 for the
Germans. A side note here, according to Martin Gilbert, Private J. Condon of the Irish Regiment
died this week. At just 14 years old, it is believed that he was the youngest soldier
to die on the Ypres salient in the war.
So stalemate continued in both the west and the southeast, but one place where movement
had returned to the war with a vengeance was on the Eastern Front.
The Russians were pushed back all week, and on May 25th, the Germans took 25,000 prisoners
east of the River San. Actually, throughout the week, the Austro-German forces continued
their seemingly inexorable march toward Przemysl fortress, a symbol of Austrian military might
that had fallen to the Russians two months ago after a siege of half a year. The attackers
were now nearing the fortress from three sides and the Russians were evacuating both the
garrison within and its supplies.
Hey, wanna hear something interesting about Russia? On May 28th, there was a post in the
London Times that said that between September 1914 and April 1915, state saving banks in
Russia had monthly deposits of nearly 4 million pounds average, right? But before the war
it was only around 100,000 pounds/month. This 40 times increase in personal saving was ascribed
to the total prohibition of sales of spirits.
Russia might be losing in Galicia, but on other fronts the great bear was fighting quite well.
Up in Lithuania, they took Kindowary the 27th in the Shavli district, and the following
day took Bubie. In Persia this week they occupied Miandoab, and in eastern Anatolia occupied
Vastan on Lake Van.
Now, we’ve had several of you ask at times in the comments section what was going on
with either China or Japan. Well, this week something was.
On May 25th, 1915, those two countries signed a treaty. China agreed to open new treaty
ports in Shantung and east inner Mongolia, to lease Port Arthur for 99 years, not to
convert the Han Yeh-Ping company into a state concern without consent of Japanese capitalists,
not to allow establishment of any shipyard, coaling, naval, or military station under
control of a foreign power or financed with foreign capital on the Fukien coast, and the
former German colony of Kiao-Chau was to be restored to China at end of the war, having
been occupied by Japan since November.
And that was the week. The Russians winning on three fronts, but losing badly on perhaps
the most important one. Gallipoli and the Western Front at a standstill, but at least
the Turks getting some relief from constant British bombardment. And a new front, of course,
as Italy joined the war.
Italy had had commitments to Germany and Austria-Hungary before the war, and had reneged on them last
year, claiming the aggressive nature of the Central Powers’ actions was a breach of
the defensive nature of the treaty, but an alliance between Italy and Austria-Hungary
wasn’t going to be popular anyhow with the Italian population, who still harbored grudges
over disputed lands, and attacking the Empire when it was on its last legs seemed like a
good idea, but this would backfire. German support had reinvigorated the imperial forces,
and they now had a breather on the eastern front. Also, many disillusioned Austrian troops
finally had an enemy they could agree on, particularly the Slavic ones who weren’t
keen on fighting “brother” Russia or Serbia.
Future British Prime Minister David Lloyd George had this to say, “If success was
achieved on the Italian front... victory in the war was assured. A separate peace with
Austria would then be predictable, and having eliminated Austria from the war, Germany would
be at our mercy.” End quote.
This was, as ever, pure fantasy, but the real and totally predictable result of Italy joining
the war was this: hundreds of thousands more dead soldiers.
So this week mark the end of the second battle of Ypres.
But if you'd like to see the end of the first battle of Ypres: click right here for that episode.
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