Last fall the Central Powers dealt Italy a huge defeat at the Battle of Caporetto, and
the Italian Front has been quiet since then, but no more.
This week, the Austrians attack!
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week German and Ottoman troops - though Allies - skirmished in the Caucasus; this
is all machinations to get control of the Baku oil fields.
The Battle of Matz began and ended in the west with a German defeat, and the Austrians
were just about to launch a new offensive in Italy.
And as this week began, so did that offensive.
On June 15th, 1918 at 0300, the artillery bombardment for the Second Battle of the Piave
River began.
It was supposed to go off like at Caporetto - incapacitating the enemy with pinpoint accuracy
and copious amounts of gas shells.
Thing is, by now the Italians were equipped with British gas masks, a real improvement,
and the Austrian firing accuracy was pretty bad since the Allies controlled the air.
They also ran short of shells.
But the morning still went well for the Austrians, who managed to get 100,000 men across the
River in the rain.
However, they couldn’t expand their bridgeheads, and though in a couple of places they pushed
forward 3 or 4 km, like the heights of the Montello, they were mostly pinned down at
the river.
On the Asiago, the second prong of the attack, Italian intelligence knew when things were
going to start and pre-empted the Austrian barrage with a barrage of their own four hours
earlier.
When General Conrad von Hötzendorf’s troops attacked toward Monte Grappa, they pushed
back the British and French troops opposite them initially, but the Italian counterattack
was a success, since the Italians had developed an elastic defense system, like the armies
on the Western Front.
And just a side note - the Italians fielded 52 total divisions in the battle, the British
3, and the French 2.
The second day was worse for the Austrians.
Conrad was by now retreating and his artillery batteries, which made up more than a third
of all the Austrian big guns in Italy, were out of action.
At the Piave, the rain caused the river to rise and washed away a lot of the Austrian
pontoons, so it was tricky business to even supply the bridgeheads.
The columns of men waiting to cross the river were easy targets for the Allied planes, and
what Austrian artillery there was was nearly shell-less, while the Allied bombardment was
merciless.
The Italians sent some reinforcements from the mountains to the river, and they launched
a counterattack there the 19th, but they couldn’t destroy the Austrian bridgeheads.
Field Marshal Svetozar Borojevic von Bojna didn’t want to just hang around though.
He told Austrian Emperor Karl that if they could secure the Montello, then they could
launch a new offensive from there, but if not, then they should abandon the bridgeheads
and really build up their defenses.
He figured he would need at least three more divisions to do the job on the Montello.
Well, Karl didn’t get a chance to decide what to do, because German High Command ordered
him to end the offensive because German Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff wanted Austria to
send its best divisions to the Western Front, where his offensives had been running out
of steam.
Karl talked to his Chief of Staff Arz von Straussenburg, who’d replaced Conrad, and
they realized that they would be in no position in the near future for any offensive action.
On the 20th, Karl ordered his men back across the Piave.
I read in “The White War” that Feldmarschall-leutnant Ludwig Goiginger, the commander of the force
that had advanced on the Montello, refused to obey this order, since he’d taken 12,000
prisoners and 84 guns.
Why retreat?
He did eventually, though, and the last Austrians will re-cross the Piave on the 23rd, next
week.
For the Battle, also known as the Battle of the Solstice, the Allies lost 45,000 wounded
or dead, and 40,000 prisoners.
The Austrians had lost a lot more, nearly 120,000 dead, wounded, or captured (White
War).
One source says that 20,000 Austrians drowned trying to swim the swollen river under heavy
enemy fire.
(The Literary Digest History of the World War, 1919), but I don’t know about that.
Allied Supreme Commander Ferdinand Foch urged Italian Army Chief of Staff Armando Diaz to
go on the offensive and try to break the Austrian lines, but he knew his limitations, and he
also knew that once across the river he’d have the same problems as the Austrians did,
so he only mounted limited actions to improve his position for the time being.
And while Austrian command was revising its plans, its Ottoman ally was too.
Vehip Pasha is now persona non grata to the Germans for attacking them last week, so he’s
sent back to Constantinople, and a new army - the 9th Army is formed around Alexandropol
under Yakup Shevki Pasha.
This army’s supposed task is to fight British and Bolshevik threats to the Caucasus and
northern Persia, but Ottoman Minister of War Enver Pasha had not given up his pan-Turanian
plans or his Army of Islam.
See, now he also organizes armed forces of Tatars within Azerbaijan, based at the town
of Ganja along the Tiflis-Baku railway, and the 5th Caucasian Division of the Ottoman
army march across Armenia, whether they like it or not, and arrive in Ganja June 20th.
Enver’s half-brother Nuri Pasha will soon arrive to take command of this army, which
is about 6,000 Ottoman regulars and 10-12,000 volunteers and militia.
The Ottomans are now in a position to advance on Baku and its oilfields without German objection
since they are not going to use Georgian territory or Georgian railways.
They were, though, going to continue the massacre of Armenians, which had been escalating in
the region for the past couple of weeks.
There was another change in Central Powers leadership this week.
Prime Minister Vasil Radoslavov and his cabinet resign in Bulgaria.
He was popularly blamed for Bulgaria’s failure to get control of all of Northern Dobruja
in the Treaty of Bucharest.
Part of it went under joint Central Powers administration.
He was also seen by many as a German puppet.
Tsar Ferdinand calls on Aleksandar Malinov to form a new government.
Malinov won’t get the government he wants since Ferdinand won’t release Agrarian Party
members from prison, and he immediately tries to pursue peace negotiations with the Allies.
This is unsuccessful, and his real motive behind it was to persuade Germany to give
Bulgaria some much-needed economic aid.
That doesn’t happen either and civilian unrest like bread riots continues.
There is even a change in the Allied command in that part of the world.
Adolphe Guillaumat is recalled to Paris where he will become the military governor of the
city.
His replacement as Commander of the multi-national Army of the Orient on the Macedonian Front
is Franchet D--’Espérey, AKA Desperate Frankie.
There had been some turbulence between the national forces there, and Serbian Army Chief
of Staff Petar Bojovic had resigned as protest to Guillaumat’s plans to expand the Serbian
sector of the front in opposition to Serbian plans.
Field Marshal Zivojin Misic is the new Serbian Chief of Staff and Bojovic takes up his old
post as Commander of the First Serbian Army.
Also, this week, a secret agreement came to light.
A treaty between Russian Bolshevik leadership and Germany is published in “Nation’s
Voice” in Krakow (Chronology).
It’s from a few months ago, and its terms: Polish policy to be conducted by Germany
Russian government will not interfere in the organization of Poland
Bolshevik government will remain in contact with Polish revolutionary organizations and
give Germany the names of agitators Bolsheviks not to send any of their own agitators
to Germany or Austria Bolshevik government to prevent Russian investment
in Polish industry That’s the general idea.
It’s for Germany to control Poland.
So let me summarize the week: the Germans are ordering the Austrians around, the Ottomans
are trying to go around the German orders, the Bulgarians have a new guy who’s not
a German puppet, and tries to make peace to get help from the Germans, who don’t order
him around.
The Italians won’t let the French order them around, but a new French guy comes to
order all the Allies in the Balkans around, and the Russians will not order the Polish
around so that the Germans can.
Simple, right?
Also this week, on June 15th, “Futility”, a poem by Wilfred Owen, appeared in “The
Nation”.
I think I’ll close with that:
Move him into the sun- Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields half-sown, Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now, The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds- Woke once the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sides Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth’s sleep at all?
If you actually want to learn more about the Piave front in Italy, we went there last year
and explored the Central Powers occupation.
You can click right here for that.
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