The Italian front has been active in bursts for the past year.
All of the big actions being Italian offensives.
That pattern changes this week, for this week the Austro-hungarian Empire strikes back.
I'm Indy Neidell, welcome to the Great War.
Last week began the death march from Kut Al Amara
when the 12.000 British and Indian troops who had surrendered to the Ottomans
after a five months siege began the long march to Anatolian prison camps.
Meanwhile, Belgian and French citizens in German-occupied-territory
were being sent as workers to Germany.
While at Verdun, where the battle raged on, the French began preparations for a new offensive.
The Italian front had been quiet, but it wasn't any longer.
The Austrians have been passive for the past year on the Isonzo river, even after five battles of that river's name.
General Svetozar Boroević von Bojna believed his best offense was a good defense.
But this didn't sit so well with Austro-Hungarian Imperial Army Chief of Staff, Conrad Von Hötzendorf.
Now, he wanted to take the battle to the Italians, whom he considered traitors for joining the entente powers.
Toward the end of 1915 he had begun obsessing about an attack out of the Tyrol towards the sea.
His forces would surge out onto the planes.
And when they'd reach the seas near Venice they would cut Italian supply lines.
And unless Britain, Russia or France could hurry to the rescue Italy would fall.
Well, that was the idea.
He figured he'd need sixteen divisions to have a two-to-one advantage over the Italians in the Trentino.
Which meant that he would need German help.
So, back in December he'd sat down with German Chief of Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, to argue his case.
And Conrad felt that even if Italy didn't surrender the front would be shortened so much
that 200.000 Austrian troops would be freed up to fight elsewhere.
Now, disregarding the fact that Germany was not actually at war with Italy at the time,
Falkenhayn said no anyhow to sending German Troops.
For one, he thought that Conrad seriously underestimated the amount of men needed for success.
And for two, he was planning his own big offensive at Verdun, and didn't think it worthwhile to divert troops.
But Conrad had a B in his bonnet about his plan, and he had slowly been building up for it for months.
He had Boroević send over four of his best divisions and loads of heavy batteries.
He had also taken five divisions from the front in Galicia against Russia, against Falkenhayn's express orders,
and had managed to scrape together fifteen total divisions
and over a thousand pieces of artillery by march,
and had been waiting and waiting for the weather to allow his attack,
which would have to capture ridges and peaks 2000 meters high.
The commander of the Italian troops in that sector was general Roberto Brusati.
In mid february he had said to Italian army chief of staff Luigi Cardona that an Austrial buildup was going on
and asked for reinforcements. Cadorna said: "no dice".
In late March Brusati said he expected an Austrian attack within days, and if it was serious he had no reserves.
Cadorna was sceptical since he believed the Austrians were fighting a purely defensive war.
And even in the face of detailed evidence from Austrian deserters,
who had documents about the buildup, Cadorna thought it was still all just a bluff.
By mid april, accurate estimates of the Austro-hungarian forces massing
were appearing in the Italian and French papers.
But Cadorna remained unmoved.
Ok, he wasn't entirely stupid here,
he did write to French leader Joseph Joffre in late april
and say that he thought the Austrians were up to something and asked for support.
But the French were busy with Verdun.
Cadorna also visited Trentino for the first time since September,
but refused to meet Brusati in person, and then, guess what?
Cadorna appealed to the king and had Brusati sacked.
And at dawn on may 15th, 1916,
Conrad Von Hotzendörf's big Austrian guns began to roar and the Trentino offensive had begun.
And in spite of the preparations having been written up in the press for all to see,
Austria-Hungary still had the element of surprise, thanks to Cadorna.
They overran the Italian lines on a front 20 kilometers long.
And the Italians began to retreat.
Cadorna scrabbled to transfer men over there as quickly as possible.
The Italians were forced back throughout the week.
They were push south of Rovereto the 15th.
They evacuated Zugna Torta the 18th, and retreated from the mountains.
The Austrians claimed 6300 prisoners.
On the 19th, Italian representatives sent to the dostavka in Russia
insisted that the Russians start offensive actions on the eastern front
to take some pressure off of the Italians at once,
and threatened to make a separate peace with Austria if that didn't happen.
On the 21st, Italian king Victor Emmanuel would make the same appeal to the Tsar.
But as the week ended the Austrians were still coming on strong.
Cadorna often sacked his generals, but there had been a shakeup in the French command recently as well.
I haven't had time to mention it yet,
but French commander-in-chief Joseph Joffre was regretting general Philippe Pétain's command at Verdun
only weeks after giving it to him.
To Joffre, Pétain had only seemed to surrender territory and was still not thinking of a major counterattack.
And Pétain's demands were draining the resources Joffre wanted to use
for the major Anglo-French offensive planned for the summer at the Somme.
So, a rift developed between the two.
Pétain believed that if Verdun was to remain in French hands
that's where the major French effort of 1916 should be,
and even began to suggest that the Somme should be left to the British alone.
But Joffre couldn't just remove Pétain, who was, by now, idolized throughout France as "The savior of Verdun."
At just the same time as Joffre's popularity was at a new low.
Enter general Robert Nivelle,
a man whose, according to Alistair Horne, "...ambition was as boundless as his self-confidence."
I'm going to paraphrase Horne here for a bit: Nivelle was actually a triumvirate.
On one hand, was his chief of staff, major D'Alançon,
a brillian officer that was, unfortunately, dying of consumption,
and who made it his personal mission to save France before he died, urging Nivelle into attack after attack.
On the other hand was "the toughest general in the whole French army", Charles Mangin,
known to his man as The Butcher.
He was a real frontline general who scorned fear and death, and was wounded several times,
taking enormous, and perhaps stupid risks.
Winston Churchill described him: "...reckless of all lives, and of none more than his own,
charging at the head of his troops, fighting rifle in his hand...
became, on the anvil of Verdun, the fiercest warrior-figure of France.
At the end of march, the triumvirate had been transferred to Verdun
to command troops on the right bank of the meuse river.
And over the following weeks, they launched a multitude of small scale attacks.
Now, Horne says these were probably less effective than Pétain's defensive posture on the left bank,
but Joffre was very impressed.
And now he had an opportunity.
Instead of firing Pétain, he promoted him.
On April 19th, Pétain was told he was to take over army group centre,
and Nivelle would take over the 2nd army at Verdun.
So Pétain would be in indirect control of things, but Nivelle would be on the spot.
Pétain was furious, but what could he do?
And on May 1st, general Nivelle took over.
And a little note about something that happened this week not too far from Verdun, in Alsace.
A German recoinassance plane was shot down by a plane bearing the tricolour on its wings.
But on the fuselage was painted the head of a native american brave in full war feathers.
The pilot was Kiffin Rockwell from Ashville, North Carolina,
and this victory was the first scored by Escadrille Américaine,
soon to be known as the Escadrille Lafayette, a French fighter squadron composed of American volunteers.
The day after Rockwell became the first American to shoot down an enemy aircraft
the squadron was transferred to Verdun,
where within a week Rockwell's exploits would make him the first American
to win the French legion d'honneur.
And here are a couple of notes to round out the week:
from the 13th to the 17th, Russian warships, seaplane carriers and 50 transports
transported 34.000 reinforcements to the Trabzon area.
And this week the Russians also advanced in North Persia, taking Rawandiz the 15th,
advancing on Mosul the 16th,
and on the 20th, a group of Russian cossacks met up with a small British force
at Ali Gharbi on the upper Tigris river.
So the week comes to an end with American pilots in the skies over France,
some Russian advances in the south and a new Austro-Hungarian offensive,
which nobody could've seen coming, even though everybody saw it coming.
Newspapers aren't always reliable,
but when your nation's and your allies' nation's papers are printing frighteningly accurate accounts
of the enemy's buildup for an attack, maybe it's the time to listen to your subordinates.
But, Luigi Cadorna did not listen to his subordinates, and when they questioned his judgment or leadership,
he fired them.
And now his armies and the Italian people were going to pay the bloody price.
If you'd like to know more about one of the Austrian commanders on the Italian Front
who would become known as the Lion of the Isonzo,
you can click here for our episode about Svetozar Borojević von Bojna.
Our patreon supporters of the week are the guys from Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell,
thank you guys for supporting your fellow youtubers, and keep on rocking with your sexy animations.
You can also support us by buying our official merchadise, like cool shirts and posters.
Don't forget to subscribe, see you next time.