MINOR OPERATIONS ON THE AUSTRO-ITALIAN FRONT IN TRENTINO OFFENSIVE

Just as soon as the Austro-Hungarian forces began to concentrate their activities in the latter part of May, 1916, on their drive in the Trentino, military operations in the other sectors of the Austro-Italian front lost in importance and strength. During the greatest part of both the Austro-Hungarian drive and the Italian counteroffensive in the Trentino—May to July, 1916—operations along the rest of the Austro-Italian fronts—on the northwestern frontier of Tyrol, along the Boite River in the northeastern Dolomites, in the Carnic and Julian Alps, and on the Isonzo front—were practically restricted to artillery duels. Only occasional, and then but very local infantry engagements took place, none of which had any particular influence on general conditions in these various sectors. However, as the Italian counteroffensive in the Trentino progressed, there developed from time to time minor operations along the other parts of the front. Quite a number of these were initiated by the Austro-Hungarians, undoubtedly in the hopes that they might thereby reduce the Italian pressure on their newly gained successes in the Trentino. Others found their origin on the Italian side, which at all times attempted to avail itself of every opportunity to extend and strengthen its positions anywhere along the front. And as the Austrian resistance against the Italian counteroffensive stiffened and showed no signs of abatement, General Cadorna, in undertaking operations in other sectors of the front than the Trentino, was undoubtedly influenced by motives similar to those guiding his opponents. He, too, hoped to impress his adversary sufficiently by minor operations in sectors unconnected with the Trentino, to reduce their strength there.

Considerable light is thrown upon the organization of the Italian army, which made it possible to carry on successfully these operations, in the following article from the pen of the special correspondent of the London "Times":

"I have been allowed to visit the offices of the general staff at army headquarters and those of the administrative services at another point within the war zone. This is not a favorable moment for describing how the army machinery works; but there is no harm done in saying that all these services appear to run smoothly, have good men at their head, and produce good results.

"I was particularly struck by the maps turned out. They do great credit to the Military Geographical Institute at Florence, and to the officers at headquarters who revise the maps as new information pours in. All the frontiers have been well surveyed and mapped on scales of 1:25,000, 1:50,000, 1:100,000, and 1:200,000. These maps are very clear and good. I like best the 1:100,000, which is issued to all officers, and on which operation orders are based. The photographs are also very fine, and the panoramas excellent, while the airmen's photographs, and the plans compiled from them, are quite in the front rank.

"The service of information at headquarters also appears to me to be good. There are more constant changes in all the Italian staffs than we should consider desirable, and officers pass very rapidly from one employment to another, but in spite of this practice the information is well kept up, and the knowledge of the enemy's dispositions is up to standard, considering the extraordinary difficulty of following the really quite chaotic organization of the Austro-Hungarian forces.

"I am not sure that I like very much the liaison system in Italy. The comparatively young officers intrusted with it report direct to army headquarters, and on their reports the communiquÉs are usually based. These officers remind us of the missi dominici of the great Moltke, but on the whole I confess that the system does not appeal to me very much. "All the rearward services of the army are united under the control of the intendant general, who is a big personage in Italy. He deals with movements, quarterings, railways, supply, munitions in transit, and, in fact, everything except drafts and aviation, both of which services come under the general staff. There is a representative of the intendant general in each army and army corps. An order of movement is repeated to the intendant general by telephone and he arranges for transport, food, and munitions.

"The means of transport include the railways, motor lorries, carts, pack mules, and porters. The railways have done well. They had 5,000 locomotives and 160,000 carriages available when war broke out, and on the two lines running through Venetia, they managed during the period of concentration to clear 120 trains a day. Between last May 17 and June 22, 1916, for the purposes of General Cadorna's operations in the Trentino, the railways carried 18,000 officers, 522,000 men, about 70,000 animals, and 16,000 vehicles, with nearly 900 guns. These figures have been given by the Italian press, so there is no harm done by alluding to them. The railway material is much better than I expected it to be, but coal is very dear.

"The motor lorries work well. There are three types in use—the heavy commercial cars, the middleweight lorries, which carry over a couple of tons, and the lightweights, taking about one and a half tons. These lorries form an army service. Each army park has a group of lorries for each army corps forming part of the army, and each group has two sections for each division. The motor cars of the commanders and staffs are good. I traveled several thousand miles in them, and having covered 300 miles one day and 350 another, am prepared to give a good mark to Italian motor-car manufacturers, and also to Italian roads and Italian chauffeurs.

"I may also point out that the army has hitherto administered the Austrian districts which have been occupied on various parts of the front, and has had to deal with agriculture, roads, births, deaths, marriages, police, and a great many other civil matters. As I had once seen a French corps of cavalry farming nearly 5,000 acres of land I was prepared to see the Italian army capable of following suit; but I fancy that if Signor Bissolati is to take over all these civil duties General Porro will be far from displeased.

"There is the little matter of the 4,000 ladies who remain at Cortina d'Ampezzo while their men are away fighting in the Austrian ranks, and there are such questions as those of the Aquileia treasures, which have fortunately been preserved intact. I must confess that it is a novelty and a pleasure to enter an enemy's territory and sit down in a room marked MilitÄr Wachtzimmer, with all the enemy's emblems on the walls, but on the whole I liked best the advice evitare di fumare esplosioni painted by some Italian wag on an Austrian guardhouse, and possibly intended as a hint to Austro-German diplomacy in the future.

"The Italians regard Austria as we regard Germany, and Germany as we regard Austria. Austria is the enemy, but at the same time, while every crime is attributed to Austria on slight suspicion, I find no unworthy depreciation of Austrian soldiers. I am told that while Austrian discipline is very severe, and the officer's revolver is ever quick to maintain it, the Austrian private soldier has a sense of deep loyalty toward his emperor, and that this is a personal devotion which will not easily be transferred to a successor. In meeting the KaiserjÄger so often the Italians perhaps see Austria's best, but the fact remains that the Italian has a good word for the Austrian as a soldier, and that I did not see many signs of such willful and shameless vandalism by the Austrians as has disgraced the name of Germany in Belgium and in France. Even towns which are or have been between the contending armies have not, I think, been willfully destroyed, but they have naturally suffered when one army or the other has used the town as a pivot of defense.

"The officers who have to keep the tally of the Austrian forces and to locate all the divisions have my deepest sympathy. Long ago the Austrian army corps ceased to contain the old divisions of peace times, but one now finds army corps with as many as four divisions, while the division may be composed of anything from two to eight battalions. A certain number of the divisions reckoned to be against the Italians on the whole front are composed of dubious elements, and there are some sixty Austrian battalions of rifle clubmen.

"The Austrians shift regiments about in such apparently haphazard fashion that it is hard to keep track of them. They may take half a dozen battalions from different regiments and call it a mountain group. In a week or two they will break it up and distribute the battalions elsewhere. They usually follow up their infantry with so-called march battalions, but whether these battalions are 100 or 1,000 strong seems quite uncertain. Some surprise occurs elsewhere, and away go some of the march battalions. They may lose prisoners, say, on the Russian front, and the Russians naturally believe that the regiment and the division to which the regiment belongs are all on the Russian front, whereas only one weak battalion of drafts may be there and all the rest may still be against the Italians. The Austrians also take a number of regiments from a division and send them elsewhere, leaving a mere skeleton of the divisional command behind.

"For these reasons one must regard with a good deal of scepticism any estimate which professes to give an accurate distribution list of the Austrian army. Also it is difficult to believe that any real esprit de corps can remain when such practices are common, and we are reduced to the belief that the only real soldier of the army is the personal devotion to the emperor of which I have already written.

"I could not find time to study the Italian air service, but foreign officers with the army speak well of it. The Austrian airmen deserve praise. They watched us daily and bombed with pleasing regularity.

"My view of the war on the Italian front is that Italy is in it with her whole heart, and has both the will and the means to exercise increasing pressure on Austria, whom she is subjecting to a serious strain along 400 miles of difficult country. I think that few people in England appreciate the special and serious difficulties which confront both combatants along the Alpine borderland, and especially Italy, because she has to attack. The Italian army is strong in numbers, ably commanded, well provided, and animated by an excellent spirit. As this army becomes more inured to war, and traditions of victory on hard-fought fields become established, the military value of the army is enhanced.

"As I think over the Italian exploits during the war, I remember that the men of Alps, of Piedmont and Lombardy, of Venetia, and Tuscany, of Rome, Naples, Sardinia, and Sicily have one and all contributed something to the record, and have had the honor of distinguished mention in General Cadorna's bulletins, which are austere in character and make no concessions to personal or collective ambitions. I find much to admire in the cool and confident bearing of the people, in the endurance of great fatigues by the troops, and in the silent patience of the wounded on the battle field. I fancy that the army is better in the attack than in the defense, and I should trust most with an Italian army to an attack pressed through to the end without halting."

The first indications of renewed activity, outside of artillery duels, anywhere except in the Trentino, appeared during the last days of June. On June 28, 1916, the Italians suddenly, after a comparative quiet of several months, began what appeared to be a strong offensive movement on the Isonzo front. They violently bombarded portions of the front on the Doberdo Plateau (south of Goritz). In the evening heavy batteries were brought to bear against Monte San Michele and the region of San Martino. After the fire had been increased to great intensity over the whole plateau, Italian infantry advanced to attack. At Monte San Michele, near San Martino and east of Vermigliano, violent fighting developed. At the Goritz bridgehead the Italians attacked the southern portion of the Podgora position (on the right bank of the Isonzo), and penetrated the first line trenches of the Austrians, but were driven out.

The Italian offensive was continued the next day, June 29, 1916, and resulted in the capture of Hills 70 and 104 in the Monfalcone district. The Austrians undertook a counteroffensive at Monte San Michele and Monte San Marino, on the Doberdo Plateau, attacking the Italian lines under cover of gas. Fighting continued in the Monfalcone sector of the Isonzo front for about a week, during which time the Austrians vainly endeavored to regain the positions which they had lost in the first onrush of the Italian offensive. After that it again deteriorated into artillery activity which was fairly constantly maintained throughout the balance of July, 1916, without producing any noteworthy changes in the general situation.

Coincident with this short Italian offensive in the Monfalcone sector of the Isonzo front, there also developed considerable fighting to the east on the Carso Plateau, north of Trieste, which, however, was equally barren of definite results.

Minor engagements between comparatively small infantry detachments occurred in the adjoining sector—that of the Julian Alps—on July 1, 1916, especially in the valleys of the Fella, Gail and Seebach. These were occasionally repeated, especially so on July 19, 1916, but throughout most of the time only artillery duels took place.

In the Carnic Alps hardly anything of importance occurred throughout the late spring and the entire summer of 1916, excepting fairly continuous artillery bombardments, varying in strength and extent.

Considerable activity, however, was the rule rather than the exception in the sector between the Carnic Alps and the Dolomites. There, one point especially, saw considerable fighting. Monte Tofana, just beyond the frontier on the Austrian side, had been held by the Italians for a considerable period, and with it a small section of the surrounding country, less than five miles in depth. The Italians at various times attempted, with more or less success, to extend and strengthen their holdings, while the Austrians, with equal determination, tried to wrest from them what they had already gained, and to arrest their further progress.

In this region Alpine detachments of the Italian army on the night of July 8, 1916, gained possession of a great part of the valley between Tofana Peaks Nos. 7 and 2, and of a strong position on Tofana Prima commanding the valley. The Austrian garrison was surrounded and compelled to surrender. The Italians took 190 prisoners, including eight officers, and also three machine guns, a large number of rifles and ammunition.

A few days later, on July 11, 1916, the Italians exploded a mine, destroying the Austro-Hungarian defenses east of Col dei Bois peak. This position commanded the road of the Dolomites and the explosion blew it up entirely, and gave possession of it to the Italians. The entire Austrian force which occupied the summit was buried in the wreckage. On the following night the Austrians attempted to regain this position which the Italians had fortified strongly in the meantime, but the attack broke down completely.

Three days later, July 14, 1916, Italian Alpine detachments surprised and drove the Austrians from their trenches near Castelletto and at the entrance of the Travenanzes Valley. They took some prisoners, including two officers, as well as two guns, two machine guns, one trench mortar and a large quantity of arms and ammunition. An Austrian counterattack against this position was launched on July 15, 1916, but was repulsed.

Finally on July 30, 1916, the Italians registered one more success in this region. Some of their Alpine troops carried Porcella Wood and began an advance in the Travenanzes Valley.

Throughout this period considerable artillery activity was maintained on both sides. As a result Cortina d'Ampezzo, on the Italian side, suffered a great deal from Austrian shells, while Toblach, on the Austrian, was the equally unfortunate recipient of Italian gunfire.

On the western frontier, between Italy and Austria, along Val Camonica, only artillery bombardments were the order of the day. These were particularly severe at various times in the region of the Tonale Pass, but without important results.

Aeroplanes, of course, were employed extensively, both by the Austro-Hungarians and the Italians, although the nature of the country did not lend itself as much to this form of modern warfare as in the other theaters of war. Some of these enterprises have already been mentioned. The Austrians, in this respect, were at a decided advantage, because their airships had many objects for attacks in the various cities of the North Italian plain. Among these Bergamo, Brescia, and Padua were the most frequent sufferers, while Italian aeroplanes frequently bombarded Austrian lines of communication and depots.[Back to Contents]