circa 1914: A group of Alpine Infantry soldiers camped at the foot of Mount Vilau in the Italian Alps during World War I. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
As we remember the centenaries of World War One it is understandable that we are most familiar about the Western Front. After all it was our grandfathers and great-grandfathers who fought at the Somme and Passchendaele. We also hear about our English-speaking cousins and their sacrifices at Gallipoli or Vimy Ridge. Perhaps that’s the reason we see so little about centenary commemorations from other fronts: whether at Tannenberg, Galicia, the Carpathians or countless other battlefields. We also hear next to nothing about the southern front, which pitted Italy against Austro-Hungary and was just as bloody as anywhere else, but took place in the Alps. To this day it is the biggest ever conflict in mountains in the history of mankind with over one million casualties.
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This week marks the decisive anniversary of the war on the Italian Front, when one of the only breakthrough battles of the war led to “the greatest defeat in Italian military history”. Participants included the future German General Erwin Rommel, the soon to be Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and American writer Ernest Hemingway who set “A Farewell to Arms” in the conflict.
Conscripted Italians were sent to the front, many seeing the Alps for the first time. This was the same for troops from across the Habsburg Empire including many German-speakers, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Hungarians, Ruthenes, Bosnians and Croats.
For two years after Italy entered the war in 1915 there was a stalemate along the Dolomites and Julian Alps. Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops were dug in along alpine valleys, ridges and on the high mountain peaks. Conditions were horrendous, especially in the freezing winter, with tens of thousands killed by avalanches alone. The trenches were dug into the rock of the hillsides and tunnels were driven into the mountain sides, to lay explosives and literally blow the enemy off the hilltops.
The trenches and emplacements are visible to this day, especially along the Isonzo valley in Slovenia which was the most contested area on the front. Given the outstanding beauty of the region which includes a National park, it is hard to imagine the carnage of a century ago. Anyone interested in the conflict should visit the award-winning museum in Kobarid which explains things from the perspective of the participants on all sides.
Very little has been written in English about the southern front compared to the other World War One theatres of conflict. A recent exception is ‘The White War’ by Mark Thompson, who recounts repeated stories of defenders who stopped shooting during suicidal attacks and urged their enemy to return to their line. In one example: “An Austrian captain shouted to his gunners, ‘What do you want, to kill them all? Let them be’. The Austrians stopped firing and called out: ‘Stop, go back! We won’t shoot any more. Do you want everyone to die?”
Twenty years ago I first covered the conflict for the BBC and met the last Slovenian veteran who ironically lived in the same valley as the worst fighting: “My name is Ivan Kova?i?,” he said. “I joined the army in 1916, and served with the 97th Regiment of the Austro-Hungarian forces, the Bad Radkersburg Regiment as a machine gunner”.
He recounted the horrors of the 11 inconclusive battles on the Isonzo and then the breakthrough 12th battle, which started on 24th October 1917 – one hundred years ago this Tuesday. After a massive artillery and gas attack, the Austro-Hungarian troops and their German allies successfully broke through the Italian defences and pushed them back all of the way to the Piave river north of Venice.
It all counted for nothing because the Austro-Hungarian empire was on the brink of collapse, defeat and disintegration. Millions of people lost their lives for no gain whatsoever.
As on the Western Front today, there are well tended cemeteries, ossuaries and memorials across the contested region. Commemorations described as ‘A Farewell to Arms’ have been taking place throughout this year, something no doubt that would have been welcomed by Slovene veteran Ivan Kova?i?. During his lifetime he lived under ten flags without leaving his home. Speaking before reaching the age of 103 he told me: “If somebody said you should go through the same things as I did on the front and I’d be given 50 decorations I’d say I don’t want them”.
There is a special place in Hell for anyone responsible for WWI. I have read books, articles and commentaries and still don’t have a good explanation for how such a horrific event could take place or why. Sad.
JLW you are 100% correct. But also remember that all of them thought that they’d be home for Christmas and in some cases the fall harvest.
It also spawned World War 2……
alliances and politicians who did not have either sense enough or nerve enough to back up–
“still don’t have a good explanation”
That is easy: WWI was a war the Anglos instigated to contain/destroy German hegemony on the continent and prohibit an alliance between Germany and Russia and delay their own demise. Smart as they are, they made others do the dirt job. Till today. Devils.
This was the seismic event that sealed the fate of western civilization along with the 1939 aftershock.
Greetings,
WWI was fought within walking distance from my grandmother’s home. On a single day, she lost her father, and two uncles at Caporatto. I walk those battlefields whenever I return to the family home.
Her mother had 10 children to raise but it was Mussolini and the fascists that provided my grandmother the money she needed to pay for books so she could go to school. That simple act turned her into a lifetime Italian fascist.