…No one expected that it would be the Italian front that would see the first major assault of 1919, the front against the Ottomans being considered little more than a sideshow and the Russian Civil War being ignored. More than half of the front there lay within the alps and the winter snows would make it difficult to campaign. It was expected that the Italians would have to wait for the snow to melt, then wait for spring floods to end before launching a campaign against the Austrians. Certainly the Austrians were privately expecting to have until mid-April at the very least before they felt the Italians would risk an attack.
Had matters purely been up to General Diaz they would have had until May. However they were not, Diaz had higher orders. Prime Minister Orlando was worried that if they waited that long then there might be severe consequences for Italy. The Austrians still held Venice, one of the most important cities in the country and a considerable amount of territory. If the offensives in France, scheduled for late March, did as well as planned, then it was possible that by the time the planned offensive started in May the Germans may be suing for peace. If that was the case the Austrians were sure to follow in an instant. With the Austrians squatting on a considerable amount of Italian territory, and an intact army in the field, the Italian bargaining position would be much weaker.
Italy would still make considerable gains in that event, however given the opposition that the Americans, and to a lesser extent the British, were showing to Italian aims they may not get half of what was promised. This was unacceptable for a nation that had sacrificed so much, for a cause that many were not entirely sure of. No, Venice had to be retaken and the Austrian Army shattered as soon as possible.
This left Diaz with a problem; he was confident he could breach the Brenta line and retake Venice with the troops and equipment he had on hand. However the Austrians would just fall back onto the Piave with a damaged but intact army. It would then take time to bring up the heavy engineering and artillery units needed to force that river, by which point the river would likely be at the flood stage and prevent a crossing until it abated. If he wanted to destroy the Austrian Army he would have to think more audaciously. A plan he had considered several months prior was looked at, with additional months of preparation the specialist units necessary for it were now present. While risky the sheer audacity of the plan would be its best defense, nothing like it had been attempted before.
On March 10th the Italian assault began. Launched in four places, each assault targeted the seam between two ethnically Slavic units where deserters provided good intelligence. Firewall bombardments cut off forward positions for Arditi to attack, and airpower and heavy artillery interdicted reinforcements. The initial strongpoints were cleared and perimeters were established Italian Engineers quickly threw up bridges while follow up waves headed inland at three of the crossings.
The Austrians did not question their good fortune at the failure of the fourth crossing, they had more immediate worries. Too many of the units they had planned on for counterattacking and crushing the Italian attack were still refitting in the rear, with many soldiers on leave. They could not be brought up fast enough to crush the Italian beachheads as had been planned. What was worse was that the second-rate units they had holding the front were performing even worse than they had expected. Any chance of holding the Brenta line was gone, what was worse was that they would likely have to abandon plans to try an active defense of the Piave. Rather than be reserved for counterattacks, the first-rate divisions would be needed to hold the river line.
Unbeknownst to the Austrians the Italians had throw up additional bridges at that fourth lodgment and transferred over large stockpiles of supplies and most of the Bersaglieri. Once the Austrians were confirmed to be in retreat Diaz unleashed them. Attacking in a quiet sector of the front the ferocity of the assault quickly took the defenders by surprise. The Italians rapidly broke through and motorized elements of the Bersaglieri, formerly cyclist troops, punched into the gap along with the majority of the Italian Army’s Armored Car strength, with the rest of the fast-marching Bersaglieri following.
Simultaneously the Italian Air Corps “Bomber Mass”, supported by the “Fighter Mass”, attacked the closest bridge over the Piave. However rather than bombs they dropped men and arms, almost half of the men were incapacitated by the jump, and others were unable to retrieve their weapons. Despite this they were able to overpower the small force defending the bridge and take up positions to guard it. The first parachute assault in history had just occurred and the Austrian high command had no idea to react.
The Italian air corps continued to drop men and supplies on the bridgehead while attacking nearby Austrian positions. The remnants of the Austrian air arm made a vain attempt to disrupt the process but were mostly destroyed in the process. The paratroopers were able to fight off a few small, disorganized counterattacks on the first two days. By the evening of the second the Austrian High Command had determined what had happened and ordered a full division scale assault on the Italian paratroopers. By then it was too late, the armored thrust had relieved the paratroopers several hours before the counterattack could go in. Lacking anti-armor weapons the Italian armored cars proved decisive and stopped the Austrian counterattack cold.
With the Italians over the Piave the river’s use as a defensive line was untenable. The Austrian reserves had already started moving to take up defensive positions on the river. Redeploying them to contain the bridgehead would take longer than it would take for the Italians to bring up reinforcements with their superior motorization. The decision was regretfully made to fall back to the Tagliamento.
The retreat turned into a rout almost on par with Caporetto. Austrian morale, already low hit rock bottom. Ethnically German and Hungarian units held together in the main, but were forced to abandon much of their equipment, as while plans existed for a retreat to the Piave, none existed for a withdrawal to the Tagliamento. Other units disintegrated outright due to desertion and mass surrenders; the other nationalities being unwilling to fight anymore for a realm that did not adequately represent them and was clearly lost. Three divisions were forced to surrender almost intact because they had been cut off by the rapidity of the Italian advance to the Piave, and a second bridge was captured intact by sheer negligence. Venice was liberated on March 20th to thunderous cheers by the San Marco Marine brigade.
The Italians suffered 40,000 casualties, with the paratroopers and Arditi paying particularly high butchers bills. The Austrians lost 80,000 dead and wounded and an incredible 400,000 captured or deserted, along with the loss of 3500 artillery pieces. While a lesser bill than the Italians paid at Caporetto, there would be no foreign aid to hold the line, no extreme national effort combined with foreign purchases to rebuild shattered units. Confidence in the Dual Monarchy was shattered, both in the Army and in the country at large.
Orlando had his victory and Diaz sighed in relief. His crazy gamble had worked, for the near loss of a relative handful paratroopers he had almost completely destroyed the Austro-Hungarian Army as a fighting force. Only the spring floods were stopping him from an advance that would break the Dual Monarchy once and for all…
-Excerpt from European Wars for Americans, Harper & Brothers, New York, 2004
A/N: Okay second time I managed to copy/paste without having to manually adjust formatting, but my browser is not letting me adjust properly and I have to do a new one to get the bold right. Also I apologize for any random accounting jargon that may have missed my editing