The heaviest fighting occurred around Gorizia. However, they were unable to dislodge the Austro-Hungarian troops from the high ground between Tolmino and the Isonzo, which would later form a launching off point for the Caporetto Offensive. They partially took Monte Nero (Monte Krn), took Monte Colowrat, and captured the heights around Plezzo. The Austro-Hungarians had the advantage of fighting from uphill positions barricaded with barbed wire which were able to easily resist the Italian assault. The aim of the Italian Army was to drive the Austrians away from its defensive positions along the Isonzo and Soča rivers and on the nearby mountains and hopefully capture the port of Trieste.Īlthough the Italians enjoyed a 2:1 numeric superiority, their offensive failed because the Italian commander, Luigi Cadorna, employed frontal assaults after impressive (but short) artillery barrages. The First Battle of the Isonzo was fought between the Armies of Italy and Austria-Hungary on the northeastern Italian Front in World War I, between 23 June and 7 July 1915. 2nd Piave River (Taking of the Col Moschin).The essay concludes that serious structural problems within the Italian army, along with material shortages, made it difficult to provide effective training in the period 1914-1917, and that the weaknesses in the system caused measurable damage to the army’s performance. It then analyses standard training during the first two years of the war, assessing its duration, the level of tactical instruction provided, familiarisation with equipment, and the impact of Italian command culture. The paper explores the Italian army’s preparation for war, considering pre-war debates over doctrine and training practices as well as the adaptations made during the period of neutrality (August 1914-May 1915). Training also exerts a considerable influence on troop morale, another area in which the Italian army has been subject to much critique. This essay proposes that one explanation of poor or inconsistent battlefield outcomes was inadequate training in the infantry and other service branches. The performance of the Italian army under the command of General Luigi Cadorna has been a matter of debate ever since the defeat at Caporetto in 1917. In letters that drew on both religious imagery and the traditional peasant concerns of land, terrain and basic survival, soldiers expressed their fears of death, isolation, suffering and killing in surprisingly vigorous terms. The language and imagery commonly deployed offer insights into the ways in which Italian socio-cultural norms shaped expressions of personal war experience. Focusing on fear, horror and grief as recurrent themes, this article finds that these emotions were processed and expressed in ways which show similarities to the combatants of other nations but which also display distinctly Italian features. Although Italian stereotypes of passivity and resignation dominated contemporary discourse concerning the feelings and reactions of peasant conscripts, letters reveal that Italian soldiers vividly expressed a wide range of intense emotions. Theories on the functioning of emotions vary, but an exploration of Italian soldiers’ emotions during the First World War highlights both cognitive and cultural elements in the ways emotions were experienced and expressed. Emotion plays a vital role in any rounded history of warfare, both as an element in morale and as a component in understanding the soldier's experience.
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