United States or Netherlands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Italian superiority with that arm was of little use at Caporetto, and our superiority did not materially further our advance in Flanders in the autumn of 1917 or retard the German offensive at St. Quentin in the spring of 1918.
It had been taken last November in the mountain offensive which followed Caporetto. At one perilous moment the Austrians had held San Sisto and their patrols had passed Pria dell' Acqua, but they had been thrown back by Italian counter-attacks to the line they now held.
The Socialists Turati and Treves, the latter the author of the famous phrase, "nessuno in trincee quest' inverno," who before Caporetto had criticised the war as aggressive, imperialist and unnecessary, said now that all Italians must unite and fight on to drive back the invader from Italian soil.
Through that bloody series of offensives the Italians slowly but steadily gained ground, and drew ever nearer to Trento and Trieste. Only those who went out to the Italian Front before Caporetto, and saw with their own eyes what the Italian Army had accomplished on the Carso and among the Julian Alps, can fully realise the greatness of the Italian effort.
On the great day when new members are chosen, every one assembles on the campus, where the new members are tapped on the shoulder by old members and told to go to their rooms. Croix de Guerre. The French War Cross, a decoration given by France to soldiers for extreme bravery and self-sacrifice. Caporetto disaster.
Moreover, just before Caporetto, a number of German Divisions, with a powerful mass of artillery and aircraft, were thrown into the Austrian scale, while from the Italian was withdrawn the majority of that tiny handful of French and British Batteries, which were all the armed support which, up to that time, her Allies had ever lent her.
And, as in a dream, I saw Udine, unspoilt and radiant as she was fifteen months ago, before Caporetto, and poor little Palmanova, as I last saw her, wreathed in the black smoke of her own burning, and the cypresses and the great church of Aquileia and the lagoons of Grado.
So I stood on the step of a tram and talked to the conductor about the war, and tried to cheer him up by telling him that the Germans were on their last legs, and were making their last great effort, and that the Allies had only to hold together a little longer, and throw sufficient force against the enemy here in Italy, in order to see a far bigger and more precipitate and disastrous retreat than Caporetto, and next time in the other direction.
The Caporetto disaster would have broken the hearts and annihilated the resistance of a less courageous people than the Italians.
Italian troops crossed the river at five different points, Caporetto, Plava, Castelnuovo, Gradisca, and Monfalcone. Considering the immense strength of the Austrian defenses this was considered a good start.
Word Of The Day