On the eve of the First World War in Europe, there were two military alliances: the Entente (France, Great Britain, Russia) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy). However, when the Old World got bogged down in bloodshed, this diplomatic balance changed. The kingdom on the Apennine Peninsula refused to support Germany and Austria-Hungary when they started the war, first with Serbia, and then with the Entente. As a result of the demarche, the entry into the First World War of Italy was postponed. The country, not wanting to get involved in a fight between its neighbors, declared its neutrality. But she still failed to stay away.
Goals and interests of Italy
The political leadership of Italy (including King Victor Emmanuel III) even before the First World War sought to implement several geopolitical plans. Colonial expansion in North Africa came first. But the kingdom had other aspirations, which eventually became the reason for the country's entry into the First World War. His northern neighbor was Austria-Hungary. The monarchy of the Habsburg dynasty controlled not only the middle course of the Danube and the Balkans, but also the territories claimed in Rome: Venice, Dalmatia, Istria. In the second half of the 19th century, Italy, in alliance with Prussia, robbed some of the disputed lands from Austria. Among them was Venice. However, the conflict between Austria and Italy was not completely resolved.
The triple alliance, which included both countries, was a compromise. The Italians hoped that the Habsburgs would sooner or later return their northeastern lands to them. Especially in Rome they relied on German influence. However, the "older sister" of Austria has not settled the relationship between her two allies. Now, when Italy entered the First World War, she directed weapons against her former partners in a crumbling alliance.
Arrangements with the Entente
In 1914-1915, while in the European trenches they were only accustomed to shedding blood on an unprecedented scale, the Italian leadership was torn between the two conflicting parties, vacillating between their own great-power interests. Of course, neutrality was very arbitrary. Politicians only had to choose a side, after which the militaristic machine would work by itself. Italy, like all other major European countries, had been preparing for several decades for a new widespread and unbelievable war for contemporaries.
Roman diplomacy was determined for several months. Finally, previous grievances against Austria and a desire to return the northeastern regions won. On April 26, 1915, Italy entered into a secret London pact with the Entente. According to the agreement, the kingdom was to declare war on Germany and Austria and join the union of France, Great Britain and Russia.
The Entente guaranteed Italy annexation of certain territories. It was about Tyrol, Istria, Goritsa and Hradishka and the important port of Trieste. These concessions were the payment for entering into conflict. Italy issued a declaration of declaration of war on May 23, 1915. The Roman delegates also agreed to discuss the status of Dalmatia and other Balkan provinces of interest to them after the end of the war. The development of events showed that even after a nominal victory, the Italians could not get new territories in this region.
Mountain warfare
After Italy entered the First World War, a new Italian front appeared, which stretched along the Austrian-Italian border. Here lay impassable ridges of the Alps. The mountain war demanded that the parties to the conflict develop tactics that were markedly different from those practiced on the Western or Eastern Front. To supply the troops, the opponents created a system of cable cars and funiculars. Artificial fortifications were built in the rocks, which the British and French, who had fought in lowland Belgium, did not even dream of.
Italy in the First World War created special units for combat climbers and assault squads. They captured fortifications and destroyed wire fences. Mountain conditions of the battle made reconnaissance aircraft habitual then. Austrian technology, effectively used on the Eastern Front, in the Alps acted very badly. But Italy in the First World War began to use aerial photo reconnaissance and special fighter modifications.
Positional fights
At the beginning of the campaign on a new front, the Isonzo River Valley became a key area of the clash. The Italians, acting under the leadership of Commander-in-Chief General Luigi Cadorna, launched an offensive immediately after the official declaration of war on May 24, 1915. In order to restrain the enemy, the Austrians had to urgently transfer to the west the regiments that fought in Galicia with the Russian army. One building was provided by Germany. Austro-Hungarian units on the Italian front were commanded by General Franz von Getzendorf.
In Rome, they hoped that the surprise factor would help the troops advance as far as possible, deep into the territory of the Habsburg empire. As a result, in the first month of the Italian army managed to capture the bridgehead on the Isonzo River. However, it soon became clear that the ill-fated valley would become the site of the death of thousands and thousands of soldiers. In total for 1915-1918. almost 11 battles took place on the banks of the Isonzo.
Italy in the First World War made several gross blunders. Firstly, the technical equipment of her army was clearly behind the opponents. Particularly noticeable was the difference in artillery. Secondly, in the early stages of the campaign, there was a lack of experience of the Italian army compared to the same Austrians and Germans who had fought for the second year. Thirdly, many attacks were scattered, and tactical impotence of staff strategists was manifested.
Battle of Asiago
By the spring of 1916, the Italian command had already made five attempts to go further than the Isonzo Valley, but all of them suffered a fiasco. Meanwhile, the Austrians were finally ripe for a serious counterattack. Preparation for the attack lasted several months. In Rome they knew about it, but Italy during the First World War always looked back at its allies, and in 1916 believed that the Austrians would not risk active operations in the Alps when they did not know peace because of the Eastern Front.
As planned by the military of the Habsburg monarchy, a successful counterattack in a secondary direction was to lead to the encirclement of the enemy in the key valley of Isonzo. For the operation, the Austrians concentrated in the province of Trentino 2 thousand guns and 200 infantry battalions. The unexpected offensive, dubbed the Battle of Asiago, began on May 15, 1916 and lasted two weeks. Before that, Italy during the First World War had not yet encountered the use of chemical weapons, which had already earned notoriety on the Western Front. Gaseous attacks shocked the whole country.
At first, luck was smiling at the Austrians - they advanced 20-30 kilometers. However, in the meantime, the Russian army began active operations. The famous Brusilovsky breakthrough began in Galicia. In a matter of days, the Austrians retreated so far that they had to re-transfer units from west to east.
Italy in World War I was distinguished by the fact that it could not take advantage of the opportunities that the situation provided for it. So during the battle of Asiago, the army of Luigi Cadorna launched a counterattack under the most successful circumstances, but she could not return to her former defensive positions. After two weeks of fighting, the front in Trentino stopped approximately in the middle of the path that the Austrians traveled. As a result, as in other theaters of war, not a single side of the conflict on the Italian front was able to achieve decisive success. The war became more and more positional and prolonged.
Battle of Caporetto
In the following months, Italians continued fruitless attempts to change the front line, while the Austro-Hungarians carefully defended themselves. Such were several more operations in the Isonzo Valley and the battle of Monte Ortigara in June - July 1917. The order of things that has already become familiar has changed dramatically that same fall. In October, the Austrians (this time with the serious support of the Germans) launched a large-scale offensive in Italy. The battle lasting until December (the Battle of Caporetto) became one of the largest in the entire First World War.
The operation began with the fact that on October 24, numerous Italian positions, including command posts, communications and trenches, were destroyed by powerful shelling. Then the German and Austrian infantry went on a terrible attack. The front was broken through. The attackers captured the city of Caporetto.
The Italians rushed into a poorly organized retreat. Thousands of refugees left with the troops. Unprecedented chaos reigned on the roads. Germany and Italy after the First World War were equally affected by the crisis, but in the fall of 1917 it was the Germans who could celebrate the long-awaited triumph. They and the Austrians advanced 70-100 kilometers. The attackers were stopped only on the Piave River, when the Italian command announced the most massive mobilization in the entire war. Unfired 18-year-old boys were at the front. By December, the conflict again became positional. The Italians lost about 70 thousand people. It was a terrible defeat, which could not remain without consequences.
The battle of Caporetto went down in military history as one of the few successful attempts by the Germans and Austrians to break through the position front. They achieved this, not least with the help of effective artillery preparation and strict secrecy in the movement of troops. According to various estimates, about 2.5 million people were involved in the operation on both sides. After the defeat in Italy, the commander-in-chief was replaced (Armando Diaz took the place of Luigi Cadorna), and the Entente decided to send auxiliary troops to the Apennines. In the mass consciousness of contemporaries and descendants, the battle of Caporetto was remembered, among other things, thanks to the world-famous novel “Farewell to arms!”. Its author Ernest Hemingway fought on the Italian front.
Battle of Piave
In the spring of 1918, the German army last tried to break through the positional Western Front. The Germans demanded that the Austrians launch their own offensive in Italy in order to forge as many Entente troops there as possible.
On the one hand, the Habsburg empire was favored by the fact that in March the Bolsheviks pulled Russia out of the war. The eastern front was no more. However, Austria-Hungary itself was already significantly depleted by a long war, which was shown by the Battle of Piave (June 15-23, 1918). The offensive choked just a few days after the start of the operation. It affected not only the decomposition of the Austrian army, but also the crazy courage of the Italians. The fighters, who showed incredible restraint, were called the "Piave caimans."
The final defeat of Austria-Hungary
In the fall, it was the Entente’s turn to attack the enemy’s position. Here we should recall the causes of the First World War. Italy needed the northeastern regions of her country, which belonged to Austria. The Habsburg Empire by the end of 1918 had already begun to disintegrate. A multinational state could not withstand a long war of attrition. Internal conflicts broke out inside Austria-Hungary: the Hungarians left the front, the Slavs demanded independence.
For Rome, the current situation was the best to achieve the goals for which Italy ended up in the First World War. A brief acquaintance with the numbers of the last decisive battle at Vittorio Veneto is enough to understand that the Entente mobilized for the victory all the remaining forces in the region. More than 50 Italian divisions were involved, as well as 6 divisions of the allied countries (Great Britain, France and the United States).
As a result, the onset of the Entente almost met no resistance. The demoralized Austrian troops, alarmed by scattered news from their homeland, refused to fight division after division. In early November, the army surrendered entirely. A ceasefire was signed on 3 numbers, and on 4 numbers, hostilities ceased. A week later, Germany admitted defeat. War is over. Now is the time for the diplomatic triumph of the winners.
Territorial changes
The negotiation process that began after the end of the First World War was no less long than the bloodshed itself that swept the Old World. The fate of Germany and Austria was discussed separately. The Habsburg Empire collapsed even despite the onset of the long-awaited peace. Now the Entente countries were negotiating with the new republican government.
The diplomats of Austria and the Allies met in the French city of Saint-Germain. Discussions took several months. Their result was the Saint-Germain peace treaty. According to him, Italy after the First World War received Istria, South Tyrol and some parts of Dalmatia and Carinthia. However, the delegation of the victorious country wanted big concessions and tried in every possible way to increase the size of the territories seized from the Austrians. As a result of backstage maneuvers, it was possible to achieve the transfer of some islands off the coast of Dalmatia.
Nevertheless, contrary to all diplomatic efforts, the results of the First World War for Italy did not satisfy the whole country. The authorities hoped that it would be possible to begin expansion in the Balkans and get at least part of the neighboring region. But after the collapse of the former Austrian empire, Yugoslavia formed there - the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was not going to concede an inch of its own territory.
Consequences of war
Since the goals of Italy in the First World War were never achieved, there was public dissatisfaction with the new world order established by the Saint Germain Peace Treaty. She had far-reaching consequences. The frustration was compounded by the tremendous sacrifices and destruction inflicted on the country. According to estimates held by Italy after the First World War, it lost 2 million soldiers and officers, and the number of killed was about 400 thousand people (also killed about 10 thousand civilians in the northeastern provinces). A huge stream of refugees has formed. Some of them managed to return to their previous lives in their native places.
Although the country was on the same side with the winners, the consequences of World War I for Italy were more likely negative than positive. Public dissatisfaction with the senseless bloodshed and the economic crisis that followed in the 1920s helped Benito Mussolini and the fascist party come to power. A similar sequence of events awaited Germany. Two countries wishing to review the outcome of World War I eventually unleashed an even more monstrous World War II. In 1940, Italy did not abandon allied obligations to the Germans, as she refused them in 1914.