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…The First Corps of the American Expeditionary Force, having had late September and October to rest and refit after heavy combat over the summer was transferred to Italy in early November. Intense deception measures were carried out to maintain the secrecy of the move as it was a key part of Diaz’s plan to force the Adige and move up to the Brenta River, liberating Padua and Vicenza and putting Venice within striking distance.

The Americans were going to be the primary hammer of the assault, elite Italian Arditi, Italian equivalents of the Stormtroopers of the Central Powers, would make breaches and the Italian Army would provide the mass to follow through, however the Americans would be the first to exploit the breaches. Diaz did not yet trust that the majority of his army was ready to sustain the heavy casualties a breakthrough of the Adige line would entail, the all-volunteer Arditi and some of the other elite units involved in the first wave were one thing, however the experiences of Caporetto left deep scars in the regular units of the Italian Army.

On November 1st the Italians launched the first of a serious of distractionary firewall bombardments. Followed up only by the most tentative of infantry probes, they were followed by attempts to aerially direct long range artillery onto the reserves assembled to stop the assaults the Austrians thought were forthcoming. Very quickly the Austrians began to underreact to the bombardments, viewing them as a way for the Italians to try to inflict additional attrition and logistical exhaustion on them.

On November 14th a firewall bombardment was carried out, and the Austrians only mobilized a token response, more concerned about losses in infantry and transport units to long range artillery than the possibility of an assault. As such the Arditi and other units were able to cross the Adige at points identified by local guides and were able to seize lodgments over the River for pioneers to construct pontoon bridges while punching breaches into the Austrian lines. By the end of the day the bridges were up and the Austrians were only just starting to react to what was now obviously a major attack.

The Americans crossed during the night and at first light attacked through the breaches the Arditi had created the previous day. There they met the Austrian reserves in a no holds barred battle of attrition. The Austrians were taken aback by the appearance of the Americans of all people on the front, with the oversized nature of the American units present convincing them that there was a full field army present. After two days of brutal fighting the Emperor again ordered a retreat, better to lose Padua and Vicenza than risk having the front collapse and losing Venice he again reasoned.

The Americans had taken 20,000 casualties in the assault, the Italians 25,000 though disproportionately in their elite units and the Austrians 75,000, a large chunk of which had been captured. The Battle of the Adige was notable in that Diaz had at one point considered an even more ambitious plan to trap and destroy a large portion of the Austrian Army, however he did not feel that the Italian military was ready, especially the specialist assets needed for the plan, they would have to wait until spring to be unleashed…

…By November of 1918 the United States had suffered over 135,000 deaths among its military, more than in every other American war put together, with the exception of the American Civil War. Approximately 60,000 of those deaths were due to disease and accident, mainly the former with the Spanish flu sweeping through the packed army camps with their inadequate hygiene. These casualties fed into the temporarily marginalized narrative that the United States should not have gotten involved in the war.

President Wilson’s heavy handed censorship policies did limit knowledge of the casualty figures and prevented widespread discussion of antiwar positions. By Fall that was starting to break down and it was increasingly known how badly the war was going, and the antiwar views were starting to gain wider spread traction among the population….

…Wilson called for Americans to vote Democrat in the 1918 elections to win the war then win the peace. Wilson’s message did not resonate with the American people. To many blamed his for either getting involved or mismanaging the war and his heavy-handed behavior had won him no friends. Republicans had been able to sell that they would do a better job of both, gaining 6 seats in the senate, 31 seats in the House, one non-voting house delegate and 5 governorships, recapturing both houses of Congress in the process and ending America’s first coalition government.

The resounding defeat of Wilson’s agenda at the polls, including for his postwar plans for a League of Nations was a heavy blow to Wilson. Along with the negative results of the war it proved too much for his constitution. On November 21st Wilson was having a heated argument during a cabinet meeting when he suddenly seized up for a few moments then collapsed, smashing his head against a table. The President of the United States had suffered a stroke and the Republic had just entered a constitutional crisis at one of the worst possible times…

-Excerpt from The Loss of Innocence: America in the Great War, Harper & Brothers, New York 2014