The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Italian Front [Chat]
Thomamelas
Only one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered User regular
Only one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered User regular
So in less then a month is the anniversary of the opening of the Italian Front in WWI.
Most people know about the Western Front, a lot know about the Eastern Front but we're gonna talk about the Italian Front. Which is like the Western Front but even more depressing in it's own way.
So the map that RMS Oceanic helpfully posted shows the breakdown of the various alliances. And you'll note that as of 1914, the Italians are part of the Central Powers. And as RMS Oceanic mentioned they aren't exactly the most eager members of that alliance. Austria has Italia Irredenta which Trieste, Trentio and Tyrol and the Italians want it those lands. The people there are ethnically Italian. And Italy is a Young Turk* of a country. Unified Italy is about fourty years old at this point.
So during 1915, you have the French and British realizing that neither Austria or Italy are that eager to fight in the war. And they don't love each other. So the Triple Entente goes on a charm offensive and Italy jumps first. They sign the Treaty of London** and get promised Trieste, Trentio and Tyrol along with a chunk of Germany's Africa colonies and some African colonies on the Med. Basically Italy was brought into the Triple Alliance to prevent them from going to war for those exact lands. But with English and French promises*** the Italian Front is launched.
The Italian forces found themselves lead by Luigi Cadorna. At some point in this thread, people will propose various Generals as the worst of the war. If they don't mention Luigi "If at first you don't succeed then try it again the exact same way 10 more times" Cadorna then they are wrong. Cadorna made just about all of the usual expected mistakes. And he fucked up logistics. Oh and 1 in 17 Italian troops faced a disciplinary charge because his version of discipline was insane. 750 Italian troops were executed for cowardice. To put this in perspective, the British and Commonwealth forces executed 306. He's the trifecta of fuck ups.
So the war starts out for the Italians on the Isonzo Front.
Now much like the Western Front, you see both sides putting up lines of trenches but for different reasons. On the Western front, the ability to move reserves quickly via railway makes it incredibly hard for both sides to turn the flank of the other. In the Italian campagin, it's because the war is being fought in the Alps. Which is about the worst place possible to try to fight with cavalry. It's not exactly great to fight with infantry in either. So on the Western Front, soliders would climb out of trenches and cross no-man's land. Here, they climbed out of their trenches and kept climbing. Like this.
Uphill, into machine gun fire and artillery. On the Western Front the shells hit the ground and the dirt absorbed some of the blast. In the Alps you hit rock. Which doesn't absorb the blast but becomes even more shrapnel. Some of the estimates place the killing power of a shell on the Italian front to be between 50 to 60% greater. It's into this hell that Italian troops found themselves.
Next time we'll get start getting into more detail.
*Yes, this is a history joke.
**I'll cover the Treaty of London at some point. It's kind of a big deal. And it's one of those things that would cause shit tons of issues down the line.
***Literally not worth the paper they are written on. Much like the Sykes-Picot Agreement
Most people know about the Western Front, a lot know about the Eastern Front but we're gonna talk about the Italian Front. Which is like the Western Front but even more depressing in it's own way.
So the map that RMS Oceanic helpfully posted shows the breakdown of the various alliances. And you'll note that as of 1914, the Italians are part of the Central Powers. And as RMS Oceanic mentioned they aren't exactly the most eager members of that alliance. Austria has Italia Irredenta which Trieste, Trentio and Tyrol and the Italians want it those lands. The people there are ethnically Italian. And Italy is a Young Turk* of a country. Unified Italy is about fourty years old at this point.
So during 1915, you have the French and British realizing that neither Austria or Italy are that eager to fight in the war. And they don't love each other. So the Triple Entente goes on a charm offensive and Italy jumps first. They sign the Treaty of London** and get promised Trieste, Trentio and Tyrol along with a chunk of Germany's Africa colonies and some African colonies on the Med. Basically Italy was brought into the Triple Alliance to prevent them from going to war for those exact lands. But with English and French promises*** the Italian Front is launched.
The Italian forces found themselves lead by Luigi Cadorna. At some point in this thread, people will propose various Generals as the worst of the war. If they don't mention Luigi "If at first you don't succeed then try it again the exact same way 10 more times" Cadorna then they are wrong. Cadorna made just about all of the usual expected mistakes. And he fucked up logistics. Oh and 1 in 17 Italian troops faced a disciplinary charge because his version of discipline was insane. 750 Italian troops were executed for cowardice. To put this in perspective, the British and Commonwealth forces executed 306. He's the trifecta of fuck ups.
So the war starts out for the Italians on the Isonzo Front.
Now much like the Western Front, you see both sides putting up lines of trenches but for different reasons. On the Western front, the ability to move reserves quickly via railway makes it incredibly hard for both sides to turn the flank of the other. In the Italian campagin, it's because the war is being fought in the Alps. Which is about the worst place possible to try to fight with cavalry. It's not exactly great to fight with infantry in either. So on the Western Front, soliders would climb out of trenches and cross no-man's land. Here, they climbed out of their trenches and kept climbing. Like this.
Uphill, into machine gun fire and artillery. On the Western Front the shells hit the ground and the dirt absorbed some of the blast. In the Alps you hit rock. Which doesn't absorb the blast but becomes even more shrapnel. Some of the estimates place the killing power of a shell on the Italian front to be between 50 to 60% greater. It's into this hell that Italian troops found themselves.
Next time we'll get start getting into more detail.
*Yes, this is a history joke.
**I'll cover the Treaty of London at some point. It's kind of a big deal. And it's one of those things that would cause shit tons of issues down the line.
***Literally not worth the paper they are written on. Much like the Sykes-Picot Agreement
+13
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
So first we need to talk about the Italo-Turkish War. It's one of those little wars that builds up to WWI and has a lot of the things that we see in the end of second generation warfare. But for the Italians, the big part about this that in the two years between the end of the Italo-Turkish war over Libya to the outbreak of WWI, the Italians hadn't managed to restore their stocks of almost everything. They were particularly short of artillery shells. They also were short horses, but that's okay because they were short carts for those horses to pull. Oh and artillery. Machine guns. Medical supplies weren't great shape. You get the idea.
So what does Italy have going for it. Well they have a 3 to 1 advantage in numbers over the Austrians in Isonzo front. Their officer corps is pretty good with the exception of the important bits at the top. And the Austria-Hungry has the bulk of their army tied up in Eastern front with the Russians. So there are some positives. You'll just note that they aren't great positives.
Now I'm going to cover the front at a high level for two reasons. First is that breaking it down in detail is really the work of a full book. And second, it's not an interesting front from a tactics level until the Germans show up.
1915 to 1916.
During the early part of the war the Italians made some forward gains. Nothing spectacular but some terrain. But then they managed to out run their supply chain. This is a pretty frequent issue in WWI, you make a breakout, you move forward then out run your supplies. By the time they catch up, the enemy has dug in again. Except in this case, they dug into mountains. And thus the Italian front becomes like the Western front. Except instead of mud filled trenches, you have rock filled trenches. Oh and at a higher elevation, so it's colder and filled with snow. Oh and going over the top means climbing a mountain up hill.
Isonzo Front:
Battles 1 and 2 of the Isonzo Front. Luigi Cadorna was determined that sending enough bodies at the Austrians would break them. It didn't. So he tried again. The clever among you may see a pattern here.
Asiago Front:
The Austrians launch a counter attack with the goal of cutting off several Italian corps. This doesn't work and a stalemate happens.
Isonzo Front:
Having stalled the Austrian counter-attack, Cadorna decides that if his plan didn't work the first two times, then enemy clearly won't expect it a third time. Or a fourth. Or a fifth. Literally the exact same plans with different units. The sixth time however the Italians managed to take Gorizia. Which didn't matter that much from a strategic level but it did make them feel like they accomplished something. Having been emboldened by success, Cadorna launches the seventh, eighth and ninth battles of the Isonzo. Again using the same battle plan. Cadorna has used the exact same plan 9 times so far. I'd love to tell you that he stopped here but not so much.
Asiago Front:
While stalemated, guides from both sides engaged in harassing campaigns. Sniping and throwing grenades from above the trenches. But on December 13th, a series of avalanches started. No one is quite sure if they were triggered by men or natural ones. But 10,000 soldiers would be buried in them. This would become known as White Friday.
So 1917 rolls around. But lets recap so far. Every terrible thing people attribute to the Western Front is happening in the Italian front. But we add in mountain fighting, snipers with high ground, frostbite and the odd soldier just freezing to death. So it's a bit worse. And sadly it's going to get even worse.
We've got the Tenth Battle of Isonzo. It's pretty much exactly like the other nine. This would be followed by some actual gains that involved the Italian army attacking somewhere that wasn't on the Isonzo river. They managed to take the Banjšice Plateau. And here again we run into the fundamental issue of the Italian and Western Fronts. The Italians manage a serious break through, advance and then out run their supply lines. People have a tendency to assume all of the generals in WWI were mostly morons and that's why you had carnage. The reality was that no one could manage the kind of break through to achieve strategic victories. They could win tactical victories but not strategic.
And for a change of pace, we've got the Eleventh battle of Isonzo. Note what I said about WWI generals being brighter then most people assume? This totally doesn't apply to Luigi Cadorna. He's a fucking idiot. Much like the previous 10 battles of Isonzo, not much happens. Unless you were there. If you were then congrats on surviving this. Clearly Death finds you too damn hard to kill. The losses in this battles are pretty bad. Morale among the Italian Armies is pretty damn low. You're starting to see some mutinies at this point. They aren't organized or particularly political, just men saying fuck it and refusing to fight. There are some interesting parallels to units in the Vietnam War.
The Eleventh Battle leaves both armies pretty exhusted. If either side could have made any sort of push, they could have shattered the other. But neither side had the ability to launch one. Then the Western Front collapses and Germany suddenly finds itself with troops with nothing to do. So they send some to aid Austria-Hungry. They are still convinced that the Western Front is the key to victory, but they agree to help push the Italians back. Then things get god awful. So far the one redeeming value about fighting in the mountains was no one was using gas.* This comes to an end with the coming of the Germans.
Besides bringing poison gas into the mix, the Germans also start introducing infiltration attacks. Normally I hesitate to do what I about to do because it reeks of great man theory. But I'm gonna mention that Rommel fights as an officer here. And I mention it because he talks pretty extensively about this in Infantry Attacks (Infanterie greift an). So if you want to get into the nitty-gritty aspect of tactics here, he's an excellent source.
With German support, the Battle of Caporetto begins. Cadorna gets word it's likely to happen and tells the field staff there to prepare defenses. This is followed up by him wandering off to other areas where he might find glory.** The field staff ignored him and planned their own glorious offensives. The Italian army has spectacularly low morale brought lower by gas attacks and it basically gives up. This isn't hyperbole. Almost 300,000 troops are taken prisoner. The only thing stopping the Austrian advance is their own supply lines. They got 12 miles before they had to stop. At which point the Italian army regroups and reforms. Cadorna loses his job.
The German and Austrian forces attempt to cross the Piave River and are stopped. Quite a bit of this is due to the Battle of Monte Grappa. It really probably deserves a right up in and of itself, and honestly in a lot of histories gets skimmed over. But a group of Italian Alpine troops make a stand at the fort there against a lot of German Alpine troops and managed to hold. This becomes the anchor for the Italian defense of the Piave River and causes the first Battle of the Piave River to be a draw.
Thus ends 1917.
With 1918, you start seeing a flood of Allied supplies and a trickle of Allied troops to support Italy. The 99 boys were called up. A draft went out for all of the men born in 1899 who were then 18. The Allies push for an offensive. Diaz, the leader of the Italian forces, tells them not yet. While the Italians are building up forces, so are the Austrian-Hungarians. The Second Battle of the Piave happens and the Austrians were pushed back. Things quiet down for a bit on the front but are getting worse at home. Unrest was common in all of the countries during the war. But the Austrian-Hungarian Empire has it bad. You've got lots of general strikes and protests. Riots.
During the middle of October the Austrian-Hungarian Empire began to feel out terms for an armistice based on Wilson's 14 points. The Empire would be broken up by ethnic group. But there wasn't a lot of trust and you see Czechoslovakia reaching out to the Allies on their own. The Southern Slavs had already started their independence movement. But the Austrian-Hungarians were rebuffed. The idea of a more federalized empire was shot down. And the Battle of Vittorio Veneto is kind of an after point. An armistice would be signed on November 3rd. And what had been a lot of theoretical countries up till that point like Czechoslovakia became real countries.
1 million dead. 2.1 million wounded. The area depopulated. Many of the dead were left up there, then covered in snow and ice. During the 90's the glaciers and snow in the area retreated and the Italians began gathering the dead. Bunker complexes that had been frozen over were exposed. The horrors of war preserved.
* Emperor Franz-Joseph found them to be horrifying weapons and banned their use. The Italians decided they had better use of limited industrial production. It does pop up a few times in 1915 and 1916 but the Italian response to Austrian atrocities was pretty strong. The Austrians clubbed to death those Italian soldiers who were choking from gas.
** Isonzo. At this point, if you're shocked by this, you shouldn't be.
Simonworf has not posted in 3 hours. Why not zoidberg?
How is monetization not a word but demonetization is?
I am not pleased with this.
I think you have the wrong Kennedy there
You are correct, sir.
SINCE WHEN HAS SPELL CHECK BEEN INCONSISTENT?
WHY, BACK IN MY DAY, THIS WAS NOT THE CASE AT ALL.
#thestrugle
I wonder if it works off the "who is online" thing that has always been a bit wonky.
I prefer unsalted, then I can eat enourmous amounts without getting worried about my salt intake
Oh and they can be used in cooking too
Dr Eddy Fang.
what happened to the bespoke chats of yesteryear, where an honest poster could carve their own clacking monkey of a chat, full of imperfection and charm
abolish the pre-made chat system
That's every candy though.
Have you tried salted licorice? Salted things sound good. But licorice ...
I understand what this map is meant to say
But I find it far funnier to imagine it's saying all of those places are Austria-Hungary except the center
And we think Finland went too far.
I like my jokes a little more on the nose. Maybe we can pretend he is a vampire dentist? Or I guess werewolf works too.
It looks like the Australian Golden Gaytime.
It went downhill from there.
i saw these advertised in Sweden and took a pic to show people because I didn't think they'd believe me
Of course Australia called an ice cream bar "golden gaytime". Of course they did.
Nogger Black
That is just ripe for terrible, terrible abuse
They are the best. Really delicious.
How about that.