BlairWitch749
Banned
And, IIRC, the Italian Army eventually mutinied and all but fell apart sometime in 1917... I haven't had the chance to look that up for sure though.
Yea that would be caporetto where 14 assault divisions devastated the 52 division Italian army and tarnished their reputation for a century.
Tidbits:
The Italians got rolled for several reasons; low morale following their previously failed offensives... horrible officer relations with the enlisted men and nco's... Cadorna insisting they pack all their troops in the front lines because he was going to take the offensive again (which left them severely vulnerable to central powers hurricane artillery barrages)... not providing their troops with proper gas masks... and insisting that they dig in as close to central powers lines as possible, even if the Austro-Germans where holding much higher ground where they could lob mortars and gas shells on top of them
265k prisoners they gave up or roughly 20-25 men prisoners for every 1 casualty it was a defacto mutiny, and rightly so Cadorna was a complete sociopath with a massive Napoleon complex
The French and British had to take a full field army (ten divisions) off the western front and use them to bolster the Italian army at the Piave and keep them from quitting the war