7/10/2023 0 Comments Battles of isonzo![]() Italy would suffer half of their 600,000 killed and Austria-Hungary would suffer 200,000 of their WWI total of 1.2 million dead along the Isonzo. ![]() These disadvantages combined with the Italian determination to achieve their expanisionist war aims plus the defensive skills of General Boroevic von Baojna, Commander of the Austro-Hungarian Fifth Army, would turn the Isonzo into one of the greatest killing zones of the First World War. The Bainsizza is described as "not flat, but traversed by ridges which rise to a considerable height above the general level" and the Carso is depicted as "a howling wilderness of stones sharp as knives." Here the denuded plateaux, known to fame as the Bainsizza and the Carso, the wooded Selva di Ternova lying back between them, form enormous natural fortresses, towering 2,000 ft or more over the surrounding lowlands. The British Official History of the Italian Front describes this brutal region:Įast of the the arid limestone uplands sloping gently westwards are deeply cut into a tangle of ridges and valleys. The Carso: Typical Terrain of Lower Isonzo Sector The lower coastal zone seemed to present more possibilities for advancing, but it featured some peculiar geography that aided defending forces. ![]() In the more mountainous northern sector of the Front a dilemma confronted the Italian high command which they never managed to resolve: To cross the river successfully, they needed to neutralize the forces atop the overlooking mountains but to occupy those mountains, they had to cross the river first. The river itself was susceptible to flooding and the war years featured record rainfalls and snow melts. The Isonzo sector, however, presented its own difficult obstacles. Secondarily, further to the North they believed they could leap frog the mountains bracketing both sides of the River and strike a strategic blow against their opponent's rear. But by attacking across the coastal plain east of the lower end of the River, they could, so judged Supreme Commander Luigi Cadorna, feasibly acquire a series of territorial objectives from Gorizia to Trieste down to the Dalmation Coast. A Delimitation Commission following the war of 1866 had intentionally given Austria a highly defensible frontier. Throughout most of the rest of the mountainous 400-mile length of the S-shaped Italian Front the dominating positions almost everywhere were in the hands of the Austro-Hungarian forces. The sixty mile long valley of the Isonzo River running from the Julian Alps south to the Adriatic Sea bisected the only practical area for offensive operations by the Italian Army during the Great War. La Grande Guerra: The Italian Front, 1915 -1918 - The Eleven Battles of the Isonzoįocal Point of Italian Offensive Operations
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