…The Austrians scheduled their second offensive of the year for July 26th. Again they targeted the Mincio River, as the Po River was simply too wide to deal with using their limited engineering equipment. Once more they had concentrated their best troops into stormtrooper battalions to lead the assaults, however replacing those lost in their Spring offensive resulted in the best members of their line units being taken out. Their offensive force was about as potent as it had been in the Spring. Opposing them this time were the Italians, rather than the British or French who had withdrawn to France, less well equipped and with far lower morale. It was though that this would be enough to guarantee a victory by Conrad, the Italians had routed at Caporetto, the Tagliamento and the Piave, they would rout at the Mincio too.
However the Italians had learned from their mistakes, and Armando Diaz was not Luigi Cadorna. Diaz realized that he did not have the manpower to hold a continuous front, instead he had his forces set up in a series of strongpoints which would hold up enemy assaults long enough for mobile reserves to arrive. More importantly Diaz had every intent of preempting the Austrians. Thus when he received intelligence from Austrian deserters, mainly of Slavic minorities, that an attack was planned, he took the opportunity to hit first.
At two o’clock on the 26th Italian guns all along the Mincio opened up on their Austrian counterparts, catching them as they were preparing for the Firewall bombardment, often setting off ammo stacked from the bombardment. The heavy guns continued to pound their Austrian counterparts, while after an hour the field artillery switched to hitting the forward trenches, reaping a dreadful toll on the massed assault troops. At dawn the Italian Army Air Corps launched an extremely audacious attack on their Austrian Counterparts, taking off and flying at night they caught their counterparts on the ground at first light, reaping a dreadful toll on the grounded aircraft and seizing air superiority.
Despite the terrible casualties the Italians inflicted by preempting the assault, it went ahead as scheduled. Minor success was achieved and multiple bridgeheads were established across the Mincio. However the Italian mobile reserves were able to rapidly contain them and things became a battle of attrition. Conrad had hopes that his material superiority would eventually prevail.
Diaz was not content to sit back and be slowly slugged to death. Using his Marine Brigade and a hastily organized Brigade of former boatmen he launched an operation on the Po River on the 31st. Infiltrating in the night with small boats, they secured several points where pontoon bridges were erected. By the time the Austrian commanders were aware of the crossing elements of the Italian reserve had already started rolling up the second line divisions garrisoning the Po.
Conrad attempted to pivot his reserves from supporting the attack across the Mincio to smashing the breakthroughs on the Po on the second. However he took too much time and by the fifth when the redeployment was complete the Italians were well established and had reached the Adige in places. Conrad remained confident that he could crush the Italians, however Emperor Karl was not willing to risk the integrity of the front on a chaotic battle that may not be won. Karl ordered Conrad to withdraw behind the Adige and hold there. With the Adige strongly held Austria-Hungary would be in a good position when the peace treaty was negotiated Karl reasoned.
The Austrians had taken 125,000 casualties in the abortive offensive and subsequent counterattack and withdrawal, the Italians had taken 90,000. Worse from the Austrian point of view their losses had been concentrated in the elite assault troops and the ethnically German and Hungarian units, disproportionately effecting the strength of the army. The slow disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Army had truly set in.
The Italians had full rebuilt the morale which had been shattered at Caporetto, no longer seeing an inevitable defeat they had every intention seeing the war through to the end. The cities of Mantua and Verona had been liberated along with a great deal of territory, substantially more than any Entente offensive on the Western front had. Diaz was urged by many to continue the offensive and keep pushing the Austrians back, liberating Venice, Padua, Vicenza and more. However Diaz recognized the brittleness of his Army, which was still suffering from the disaster of the prior year. When he hit them again, he wanted to be sure his army would not disintegrate doing it…
…The Entente victories in August of 1918 showed many neutrals that a Central Powers victory was not inevitable. In Greece in particular it was to prove influential. The Pro Entente Venizelos had barely been able to hang on to a degree of power against the opposition of the pro-neutrality King, at the risk of bringing the country close to civil war. In August 1918 Venizelos saw an opportunity and spoke to the King. Venizelos was able to argue that if the Central Powers collapsed, like he though they might, Greece would have a narrow window to achieve some of its long-term geopolitical goals. By declaring war at the last minute on the Ottomans, and only them, the Greeks could get a seat at the victors table and seize ethnically Greek Ottoman territories that they had coveted for generations. The Germans and Austrians would be too busy to do anything about it and the Romanians and Bulgarians would find more value in a friendly Greece as a conduit for negotiating a separate peace with the Entente.
While the King disliked Venizelos he liked the prospect of a civil war even less. The idea of being able to expand his kingdom was also an appealing one, as was the idea of being able to claim the title of Emperor of Byzantium, which was possible if they could pull it off. However the king was adamant that this should only occur if the Germans and Austrians were on the verge of defeat and the Romanians and Bulgarians were neutral in the matter. Venizelos agreed wholeheartedly on that matter.
In September 1918 the Greek General Staff began plans for a war with the Ottomans while the Greek foreign ministry worked on opening back channel communications with the Entente, the Romanians and Bulgarians…
-Excerpt from European Wars for Americans, Harper & Brothers, New York, 2004
Got distracted, update written early but posted late
