Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 12, 2025
Twenty-four hours beforehand the Austrians, goaded at length out of their long sleep by the prodding of their Allies, suddenly launched that great attack on practically the whole of the front, which was the last offensive effort of the Hapsburg dynasty. After a somewhat alarming initial success on the Montello and the lower Piave, it changed into a complete failure.
Buonaparte found the Archduke posted behind the river Tagliamento, in front of the rugged Carinthian mountains, which guard the passage in that quarter from Italy to Germany. Detaching Massena to the Piave, where the Austrian division of Lusignan were in observation, he himself determined to charge the Archduke in front. Buonaparte then attempted and effected the passage of the Tagliamento.
Venice is, as I assured my readers it would be, about thirty miles distant from the Piave, which falls, as I expected it would, into the Adriatic." Startling Prophecy in Paris. All Paris is wildly excited over the extraordinary prophecy of Madame Cleo de Clichy that the war will be over in four weeks.
So clearly had Foch foreseen what would happen in the Venetian plain, that he had his plan of French reinforcement perfected long in advance, even to the schedule for dispatching troop trains to the Piave front. In January, 1917, Marshal Joffre reached the age of retirement . He was venerated and loved throughout France as few men have ever been.
The auxiliary force, under Lusignan, was now to the westward on the Piave, while the main force, under Charles, was waiting for reinforcements in the broad intervales on the upper reaches of the Tagliamento, through which ran the direct road to Vienna.
It was soon seen, however, that the Tagliamento line could not be successfully held against the enemy and a further retirement was carried out, Southward through the mountainous country to a shorter line along the Piave River East of Venice and Northwesterly to the Trentino boundary.
Bonaparte, determined not to permit a junction of the two Austrian armies, moved with Augereau's division to reinforce Masséna and drive Alvinczy back into the valley of the Piave. Augereau fought all day on the sixth at Bassano, Masséna at Citadella. This first encounter was indecisive; but news of Vaubois's defeat having arrived, the French thought it best to retreat on the following day.
The chief command of both armies was assigned to Alvinczy, an experienced but aged general, one of the same stock as that to which Wurmser belonged. About October first, the two forces moved simultaneously, one down the Adige, the other down the Piave, to unite before Vicenza, and proceed to the relief of Mantua.
A rapid stream, a branch of the Piave, tinged of a light and somewhat turbid blue by the soil of the mountains, came tumbling and roaring down the narrow valley; perpendicular precipices rose on each side; and beyond, the gigantic brotherhood of the Alps, in two long files of steep pointed summits, divided by deep ravines, stretched away in the sunshine to the northeast.
The one who was not wounded went out that same morning and spent hours repairing telephone lines under very heavy fire, for which act he won the Military Medal. The other, months later, when his wound was healed and he had returned to the Battery, also won the Military Medal for gallantry on the Piave. The conduct of the two lorry drivers afforded a strong contrast in psychology.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking