1916 – Italian Front
June
The Austrian offensive popularly know as ‘Strafexpedition’ or Battaglia degli Altipiani (Battle of the Plateau) for the Italians; caused not only immense military repercussion for Italy but also political with the fall of the Salandra government the 12 of June and the dismissal of General Luigi Cadorna from the role of Chief of Staff (1).
The Hapsburg assault, strongly desired and planned by the Austrian Chief of Staff Conrad, started 15 May and lasted more than a month. Even if in the end was stopped at a very high cost (for both side) and the positions lost later regained at the end of June, the offensive made very apparent the great problems of the Italian army. Morale was at all time low, general lack of proper equipment and supply plus an inadequate leaderships only exacerbate the situation, made much worse by the strictly disciplinarian attitude taken by Cadorna…added by his habit of cashier any officer that disagree with him (or that can take the blame of his mistakes).
Already at the beginning of the conflict, relationship between the civilian and military leaderships were very tense and after almost two years of war the situation was much worse with the two side barely talking to each other. In this climate, the president of the council of ministers Antonio Salandra, knowing his time in office was coming to an end decided to concentrate all his effort in an single issue, the dismissal of Cadorna from his post; as the soon former president (and one of the men most responsible of the Dow of Italy) was not intentioned to be the only one to pay for this debacle.
The 10 of June General Cadorna received the letter containing not only the news of his dismal from the role of Chief of Staff of the Army and his reassignment to the command of the troops in Libya, but also the name of his successor General Guglielmo Pecori Girardi. While very few tears were shed over the departure of Cadorna, the rest of the officer corps nervously readied itself to his new commander as great was the fear for the unknown.
General Girardi, a veteran of the African and Libyan campaign, was chosen by Salandra with supervision of the King and other generals and politicians (first among them Paolo Boselli, the chosen substitute of Salandra) for various reason, first among them his greater capacity to work alongside the civilian administration and a much less caustic character. That the man, unlike his predecessor, was also an experienced veteran, greatly respected by his soldiers and that he distinguished himself during the recent offensive in Trentino, were just some added bonus for the politicians.
In his work to rebuild the Italian Army Girardi was assisted by the Generals Badoglio and Diaz; the first was an up and coming officials greatly supported by the House Savoy itself, while the latter having worked with Cadorna at the Staff had decided that the front was a better place but was recalled in his previous position due to great number of recommendations.
Girardi and all his staff know that they need time, time to rebuild and retrain the army, time to establish a new trust between army and government and more importantly time to let the soldiers rest. For this reason and among the great protest of the allied governments, it was agreed that until the end of the year no new offensive would be launched against Austria-Hungary.
As an olive branch towards Paris and London, in august, it was also decided to send two reinforced division oversea, one in support of the allied effort in Palestine and another to augment the Italian expeditionary force in the Balkans, so fulfilling the previous numerous request of his allies.
While give the new necessary equipment and supply to the army, like steel helmet, camouflage uniform and anything capable of alleviate the hard life in the trench, was an almost herculean task, in both monetary and logistical sense, paled if compared with the other job of the new Staff…rebuild the morale of the army. Cadorna during his tenure, had effectively build a vast army with little time and even less material but to do this had used an iron hand in a steel glove; subjecting the soldiers to the most rigid discipline of the Entente (and probably also of the CP), cashiering anyone that disagree with him almost to a ludicrous point and forcing the army to keep an offensive rate double than the rest of the alliance.
Girardi and his aides know perfectly that things cannot continue in this manner as the entire army was almost to a breaking point as the recent Austrian offensive demonstrated, with a great number of troops simply surrender or officer incapable to react quickly or in autonomy as ‘accustomed’ to receive order (or better micromanaged to use a modern term) by the higher echelon. Immediately a great effort was done to ameliorate the life of the common soldiers, trying to give them better food, better pay and a more stable turn-over regarding staying in the trench. Emphasis was given to the propaganda both military, so to motivate the men, and to the civilian, many trench journals were founded and various poets (like D’Annunzio), speakers and journalist were enrolled to make tour on the various military bases to motivate the men. The discipline while not relaxed by much was at least made consistent and not hard but very erratic as before.
Naturally, not only the morale aspect was touched, Badoglio worked to make training more uniform and to create a better coordination between infantry and artillery; more autonomy was given to the local command and the greatest amount possible of material was delivered to the front.
This kind of approach created a great strain between Italy and the rest of the Entente, as all the allied request of launching some offensive to relieve the pressure over Russia and Romania fallen on deaf ears, even during or after the famed Brusilov Offensive that almost broke the Austrian back. Girardi, supported by both Badoglio and Diaz was adamant, the Regio Esercito was not ready for any offensive at this stage and he needed time to fix things. While Boselli and the rest of the government understood his situation and continued to support his decision, the pressure from the allies was quickly became too great and soon something needed to be done; naturally it was very openly implied that in case this plan had failed Italy will be in quickly need of a new Chief of Staff for the Army.
1916 – Macedonian Front
September
Greece, unofficially, was a divided country, almost on the verge of a civil war. The situation between the neutralist, led by King Constantine I and who has instead desired take part at the war on the Entente side lead by Prime Minister Venizelos was very tense and anything can lit the powder keg.
Regardless of this situation or the desire of the local population, war had come in Greece in any case when the Entente occupied Thessaloniki to use her to deploy and support an expeditionary force in the almost desperate effort to aid Serbia or at least save her army.
Soon the hodgepodge army composed by units of various nationality (Serbian, French, British, Russian and Italian) was fused, almost in an autonomous manner, in a united army with an single chain of command, the Allied Army of the Orient under General Maurice Sarrail. The overall strategic objective of this front was to alleviate pressure from Romania and force Bulgaria to sign an armistice; the first attempt to do that ended even before starting as the pre-empetive Bulgarian offensive, even if stopped , forced Sarrail to scrap that plan.
A new attempt was scheduled for mid-September, with a combined push by all the various contingent.
The attack started on September 11 with a three day long bombardment of the enemy trench, followed by the infantry assault the 13th and by the next day and after a series of hard fought attack and counter-attack, the Bulgarian were forced to retreat towards Florina (or Lerin for the Bulgarian and Serbs) a Greeks town near the Serbian border. Crucial to this operation, at least for the Serbian part were the motorized transport units lent to them by the British, this allowed a quick transport of supply and men to the front, greatly helping the Serbian effort. While an important victory come the 18th of September with the conquest of Kamjmakcalan from the exhausted Bulgarian, there also movement behind the CP line, with some change in the overall command of the army, the shifting of troops from a zone to another to close some gap and the arrival on the front of General Otto von Bulow.
The 4th October in conjunction with the Romanian-Russian offensive against the third Bulgarian Army (that ironically was halted the day before due to bad weather and a too strong resistance), Sarrail launched an offensive towards the Monastir-Cherna Loop Line with the purpose of knock out Bulgaria out of the war. Despite the Entente numerical advantage the first series of assaults were repelled by the Bulgarians and soon the situation devolved in a series of attack and counterattack that slowly and costly grinded the CP positions, thanks to the continuous and generous use of artillery by the allies and despite Germans and Bulgarian redeployment of troops.
By the end of October Kenali was abandoned by CP troops, allowing Serbian, French and Russian troops to finally conquer the city…but the morale boosting effect lasted a very short time as the enemy new defensive line just a few miles north resisted any attempt of breakthrough.
It was during this initial probing attack that the Italian troops were firstly used en masse, more precisely the 35th infantry division (instead the newly created 36th division was kept on reserve).
During this period however general von Below had decided to also abandon Monastir and on 18 November, while the heavy fighting was still going on, General der Infanterie Winckler ordered the Eleventh Army to retreat to new positions to the north of Monastir. The Bulgarian commander in chief General Nikola Zhekov protested this decision but in the end, he could not stop its execution. On 19 of November, French and Russian soldiers entered the beleaguered town for the final time. The Bulgarians established a new position on the Chervena Stena - height 1248 - height 1050 - Makovo - Gradešnica defensive line, helped by a new German division (arrived from the Somme) and Bulgarians troops from Droubja. Almost immediately it came under attack but this time the new position held firm, because the Allies were exhausted, having reached almost the breaking point of their logistical capacity. Thus, all the initial French and Serbian attempts to break through the line were defeated; with the internal situation in Greece worsening, Serrail decided to attempt one last time to break the CP line, throwing all reserve on the fray. So 29 November the final attack was launched, with abundant use of artillery and after three days of heavy combat in a mud-covered terrain, finally succeed smiled to the Entente, at least a little (2).
The immediate allied objective was the town of Resna, an important depot of supply and communication node, just north-west of Monastir. Luckily the enemy was still in disarray and the troops protecting the depot put only a mild fight before an hastily retreat; this also allowed at the Italian and French troops to capture a good amount of food, ammunition and other important materials.
Naturally all luck run out and a few miles out of the city a new defensive line was created by von Bulow, and this time with the entire army exhausted and the first sign of winter starting to appear, it was decided to stop any further attack for the time being. Even because a new genre of problem recently was added to the multitude that plagued the Allied Army of Orient; in Athens armed fighting had started between supporter of the two side of the ‘National Schism’ and there were fear of some possible Greeks attack to the Entente line of communication.
For the duration of the offensive, the Allies suffered around 50,000 battle casualties, the bulk of those were Serbians. In addition, some 80,000 allied troops died or had to be evacuated due to sickness and disease. This brought the total casualties to as high as 130,000 men or just a little less than a third of all Entente forces in the theater.
The Bulgarians and German casualties totaled around 64,000 men and the fact that Monastir and Resna had to be abandoned (with the precious supplies) was an huge hit for their morale, even if the new positions a few kilometers from the city provided excellent conditions for defense; still many take pride in having resisted the Entente attack, suffering less than an half of their causalities.
Overall, the allied offensive had been a Tactical success but a Strategic failure as Bulgaria was still on the war and very little pressure had been relieved from the Romanian
1 – OTL the government fall quickier and there were a reluctance to change the man in command of the army at this junction. Here Salandra let his pettiness override this fear.
2 – OTL the lack of reinforcement was an important factor in the defeat of the attack, here the supplemental Italian division is the straw that broke the camel.
June
The Austrian offensive popularly know as ‘Strafexpedition’ or Battaglia degli Altipiani (Battle of the Plateau) for the Italians; caused not only immense military repercussion for Italy but also political with the fall of the Salandra government the 12 of June and the dismissal of General Luigi Cadorna from the role of Chief of Staff (1).
The Hapsburg assault, strongly desired and planned by the Austrian Chief of Staff Conrad, started 15 May and lasted more than a month. Even if in the end was stopped at a very high cost (for both side) and the positions lost later regained at the end of June, the offensive made very apparent the great problems of the Italian army. Morale was at all time low, general lack of proper equipment and supply plus an inadequate leaderships only exacerbate the situation, made much worse by the strictly disciplinarian attitude taken by Cadorna…added by his habit of cashier any officer that disagree with him (or that can take the blame of his mistakes).
Already at the beginning of the conflict, relationship between the civilian and military leaderships were very tense and after almost two years of war the situation was much worse with the two side barely talking to each other. In this climate, the president of the council of ministers Antonio Salandra, knowing his time in office was coming to an end decided to concentrate all his effort in an single issue, the dismissal of Cadorna from his post; as the soon former president (and one of the men most responsible of the Dow of Italy) was not intentioned to be the only one to pay for this debacle.
The 10 of June General Cadorna received the letter containing not only the news of his dismal from the role of Chief of Staff of the Army and his reassignment to the command of the troops in Libya, but also the name of his successor General Guglielmo Pecori Girardi. While very few tears were shed over the departure of Cadorna, the rest of the officer corps nervously readied itself to his new commander as great was the fear for the unknown.
General Girardi, a veteran of the African and Libyan campaign, was chosen by Salandra with supervision of the King and other generals and politicians (first among them Paolo Boselli, the chosen substitute of Salandra) for various reason, first among them his greater capacity to work alongside the civilian administration and a much less caustic character. That the man, unlike his predecessor, was also an experienced veteran, greatly respected by his soldiers and that he distinguished himself during the recent offensive in Trentino, were just some added bonus for the politicians.
In his work to rebuild the Italian Army Girardi was assisted by the Generals Badoglio and Diaz; the first was an up and coming officials greatly supported by the House Savoy itself, while the latter having worked with Cadorna at the Staff had decided that the front was a better place but was recalled in his previous position due to great number of recommendations.
Girardi and all his staff know that they need time, time to rebuild and retrain the army, time to establish a new trust between army and government and more importantly time to let the soldiers rest. For this reason and among the great protest of the allied governments, it was agreed that until the end of the year no new offensive would be launched against Austria-Hungary.
As an olive branch towards Paris and London, in august, it was also decided to send two reinforced division oversea, one in support of the allied effort in Palestine and another to augment the Italian expeditionary force in the Balkans, so fulfilling the previous numerous request of his allies.
While give the new necessary equipment and supply to the army, like steel helmet, camouflage uniform and anything capable of alleviate the hard life in the trench, was an almost herculean task, in both monetary and logistical sense, paled if compared with the other job of the new Staff…rebuild the morale of the army. Cadorna during his tenure, had effectively build a vast army with little time and even less material but to do this had used an iron hand in a steel glove; subjecting the soldiers to the most rigid discipline of the Entente (and probably also of the CP), cashiering anyone that disagree with him almost to a ludicrous point and forcing the army to keep an offensive rate double than the rest of the alliance.
Girardi and his aides know perfectly that things cannot continue in this manner as the entire army was almost to a breaking point as the recent Austrian offensive demonstrated, with a great number of troops simply surrender or officer incapable to react quickly or in autonomy as ‘accustomed’ to receive order (or better micromanaged to use a modern term) by the higher echelon. Immediately a great effort was done to ameliorate the life of the common soldiers, trying to give them better food, better pay and a more stable turn-over regarding staying in the trench. Emphasis was given to the propaganda both military, so to motivate the men, and to the civilian, many trench journals were founded and various poets (like D’Annunzio), speakers and journalist were enrolled to make tour on the various military bases to motivate the men. The discipline while not relaxed by much was at least made consistent and not hard but very erratic as before.
Naturally, not only the morale aspect was touched, Badoglio worked to make training more uniform and to create a better coordination between infantry and artillery; more autonomy was given to the local command and the greatest amount possible of material was delivered to the front.
This kind of approach created a great strain between Italy and the rest of the Entente, as all the allied request of launching some offensive to relieve the pressure over Russia and Romania fallen on deaf ears, even during or after the famed Brusilov Offensive that almost broke the Austrian back. Girardi, supported by both Badoglio and Diaz was adamant, the Regio Esercito was not ready for any offensive at this stage and he needed time to fix things. While Boselli and the rest of the government understood his situation and continued to support his decision, the pressure from the allies was quickly became too great and soon something needed to be done; naturally it was very openly implied that in case this plan had failed Italy will be in quickly need of a new Chief of Staff for the Army.
1916 – Macedonian Front
September
Greece, unofficially, was a divided country, almost on the verge of a civil war. The situation between the neutralist, led by King Constantine I and who has instead desired take part at the war on the Entente side lead by Prime Minister Venizelos was very tense and anything can lit the powder keg.
Regardless of this situation or the desire of the local population, war had come in Greece in any case when the Entente occupied Thessaloniki to use her to deploy and support an expeditionary force in the almost desperate effort to aid Serbia or at least save her army.
Soon the hodgepodge army composed by units of various nationality (Serbian, French, British, Russian and Italian) was fused, almost in an autonomous manner, in a united army with an single chain of command, the Allied Army of the Orient under General Maurice Sarrail. The overall strategic objective of this front was to alleviate pressure from Romania and force Bulgaria to sign an armistice; the first attempt to do that ended even before starting as the pre-empetive Bulgarian offensive, even if stopped , forced Sarrail to scrap that plan.
A new attempt was scheduled for mid-September, with a combined push by all the various contingent.
The attack started on September 11 with a three day long bombardment of the enemy trench, followed by the infantry assault the 13th and by the next day and after a series of hard fought attack and counter-attack, the Bulgarian were forced to retreat towards Florina (or Lerin for the Bulgarian and Serbs) a Greeks town near the Serbian border. Crucial to this operation, at least for the Serbian part were the motorized transport units lent to them by the British, this allowed a quick transport of supply and men to the front, greatly helping the Serbian effort. While an important victory come the 18th of September with the conquest of Kamjmakcalan from the exhausted Bulgarian, there also movement behind the CP line, with some change in the overall command of the army, the shifting of troops from a zone to another to close some gap and the arrival on the front of General Otto von Bulow.
The 4th October in conjunction with the Romanian-Russian offensive against the third Bulgarian Army (that ironically was halted the day before due to bad weather and a too strong resistance), Sarrail launched an offensive towards the Monastir-Cherna Loop Line with the purpose of knock out Bulgaria out of the war. Despite the Entente numerical advantage the first series of assaults were repelled by the Bulgarians and soon the situation devolved in a series of attack and counterattack that slowly and costly grinded the CP positions, thanks to the continuous and generous use of artillery by the allies and despite Germans and Bulgarian redeployment of troops.
By the end of October Kenali was abandoned by CP troops, allowing Serbian, French and Russian troops to finally conquer the city…but the morale boosting effect lasted a very short time as the enemy new defensive line just a few miles north resisted any attempt of breakthrough.
It was during this initial probing attack that the Italian troops were firstly used en masse, more precisely the 35th infantry division (instead the newly created 36th division was kept on reserve).
During this period however general von Below had decided to also abandon Monastir and on 18 November, while the heavy fighting was still going on, General der Infanterie Winckler ordered the Eleventh Army to retreat to new positions to the north of Monastir. The Bulgarian commander in chief General Nikola Zhekov protested this decision but in the end, he could not stop its execution. On 19 of November, French and Russian soldiers entered the beleaguered town for the final time. The Bulgarians established a new position on the Chervena Stena - height 1248 - height 1050 - Makovo - Gradešnica defensive line, helped by a new German division (arrived from the Somme) and Bulgarians troops from Droubja. Almost immediately it came under attack but this time the new position held firm, because the Allies were exhausted, having reached almost the breaking point of their logistical capacity. Thus, all the initial French and Serbian attempts to break through the line were defeated; with the internal situation in Greece worsening, Serrail decided to attempt one last time to break the CP line, throwing all reserve on the fray. So 29 November the final attack was launched, with abundant use of artillery and after three days of heavy combat in a mud-covered terrain, finally succeed smiled to the Entente, at least a little (2).
The immediate allied objective was the town of Resna, an important depot of supply and communication node, just north-west of Monastir. Luckily the enemy was still in disarray and the troops protecting the depot put only a mild fight before an hastily retreat; this also allowed at the Italian and French troops to capture a good amount of food, ammunition and other important materials.
Naturally all luck run out and a few miles out of the city a new defensive line was created by von Bulow, and this time with the entire army exhausted and the first sign of winter starting to appear, it was decided to stop any further attack for the time being. Even because a new genre of problem recently was added to the multitude that plagued the Allied Army of Orient; in Athens armed fighting had started between supporter of the two side of the ‘National Schism’ and there were fear of some possible Greeks attack to the Entente line of communication.
For the duration of the offensive, the Allies suffered around 50,000 battle casualties, the bulk of those were Serbians. In addition, some 80,000 allied troops died or had to be evacuated due to sickness and disease. This brought the total casualties to as high as 130,000 men or just a little less than a third of all Entente forces in the theater.
The Bulgarians and German casualties totaled around 64,000 men and the fact that Monastir and Resna had to be abandoned (with the precious supplies) was an huge hit for their morale, even if the new positions a few kilometers from the city provided excellent conditions for defense; still many take pride in having resisted the Entente attack, suffering less than an half of their causalities.
Overall, the allied offensive had been a Tactical success but a Strategic failure as Bulgaria was still on the war and very little pressure had been relieved from the Romanian
1 – OTL the government fall quickier and there were a reluctance to change the man in command of the army at this junction. Here Salandra let his pettiness override this fear.
2 – OTL the lack of reinforcement was an important factor in the defeat of the attack, here the supplemental Italian division is the straw that broke the camel.
, still it will not be an huge Italowank...more a series of nation that will be in a better shape.