La grande retata della prigione - Disaster at Caporetto

Hello,

This is my first attempt at contributing a timeline to your forum. This particular topic is one I have been greatly interested in and hope I can offer a fun alternate history to:


University of Colorado 400 level History Class October 2017, Professor Dennis Showalter:

DS: Who here is familar with La grade retata della prigione? Yes Nathan
NR: It translates to ~the great prison roundup~
DS: Excellent Nathan, and were did this term come from? Yes
SB: It refers to the mass surrender of Italian armies to the central forces during the battle of Caporetto


DS: Ms. Borke is absolutely correct, now as we sit on the 100th anniversary of the battle of Caporetto I ask you class, was the collapse of the Italian army, a uniquely Italian problem or part of something greater, Mr Taylor?
RT: I believe it is both Dr. Showalter
DS: How so?
RT: The Italian war effort sustained tremendous casualties without the front moving much if it all. Their soldiers where also subject to much more violent discipline than other countries. The commander in Chief of their army conducted sustained and unpopular purges all of which wore heavily on the entire army's morale
DS: That's a compelling case to say Italy's army was burdened with a great deal of problems, but how do you see it as part of something greater?
RT: I think it ties in with our other lessons concerning 1917 Dr Showalter. 1917 was a destructively transformative year for the entente, Russia and France and Italy suffered full scale mutinies; they all emerged for similar reasons to Italy's, even if Italy's dynamic was arguably the worst, word got around despite censorship, and there was bitterness at home as much as there was in the trenches


DS: Class, I believe Mr. Taylor's point is worth discussing further, I have attended lectures, read and written papers about whose war situation was worse in 1917, France, Russia or Italy; and comparing them I found made me lose perspective on their being interconnected. Obviously news of the sequential collapses and problems did get around despite their being aggressive censorship, but how else might they be connected? Go ahead Randall


RF: They where militarily connected, France's descent into Mutiny following the failed Nivelle offensive, and their slow response to addressing the soldier's demands and restoring order took their army out of the fight in the second half of 1917 while they had to deal with their desertion, morale and discipline problems. That was coupled with a conscious decision to not risk the testy army again without large scale American ground troops.
French inability to attack alongside the British allowed the Germans to more effectively respond to the attacks at Ypres, and heavy British losses forced their fall attacks to be far smaller in scale, and a mutiny was feared from the commonwealth formations if they continued as they had up to that point


DS: How does that play into the great prison roundup?
RF: The Germans where able to filter their elite foot guard corps off the line from facing the French and add them to the forces that attacked Caporetto
DS: I expect you will say Russia's military reverses lent much the same fortune to the central powers
RF: Well when the Kerensky offensive failed, the Central power's launched their long delayed assault on Riga, which demonstrated then and it would prove to be completely that Russia was done fighting and that the Central powers could transfer their striking power to more decisive theaters


DS: Were the Julian Alps a decisive theater?
RF: Given what happened after the mass surrenders I would say so
DS: Speaking of which, we have been looking at the big picture of what happened, let us bring our lecture in the battle itself, which will be more interesting to discuss and review with the strategic situation we have discussed in mind
 
Chapter 2

University of Colorado 400 level History Class October 2017, Professor Dennis Showalter


DS: Randall had mentioned the German footguards corps being pulled off the Hindenberg line and placed into the Caporetto, can someone tell me why they were so significant to the battle? Sophie?
SB: They were an elite and experienced formation
DS: What else?
SB: They had largely been rested for several months after the Nivelle Offensive failed
DS: Thats certainly true but not the key I am looking for; Mr. Taylor

RT: They where the Kaiser's personal troops, and as such they received a steady stream of replacements who where typically the best recruits
DS: What else came with being the Kaiser's personal formation?
RT: They where the best equipped and the best fed
DS: Bingo that's what I was looking for, the best fed. The foot guards where more effective than even the other elite formations like the Bavarian Lieb Regiment and the Wurtembourg Mountain formation. An army marches on it's belly, a quote attributed to Napoleon but no less true in 1917. It was the fact that the footguard where fresh and well fed that made them the key formation in the battle

DS: Take a look at the map on the projector showing the positioning of the foot guards on the left wing of the 14th army, look at their day to day movements as I shuffle the slides foward. See how they surge through the Isonzo bulge north of Gorizia and then conduct the bold left hook reaching Latisana by October 29th trapping part of the Italian 2nd army and nearly all of the 3rd army between themselves, the Austrian 2nd army and the sea. We know they had full bellies, which helped them assemble in the best order of the central powers formations, but how did they advance so far so fast when in the previous 11 battles of the Isonzo advances could be measured in 10s of meters. Nathan?

NR: They used stormtrooper and infiltration tactics
DS: That is certainly a key element, explain those to the class
NR: The strongest and most aggressive soldiers were grouped together into special battalions. They advanced behind short hurricane artillery barrages instead of week long suppression attacks.


DS: Good, I would like to describe their tactics even further. They relied on excellent recon to identify soft or poorly manned sections of the line, and would send the special troops forward covered by creeping artillery barrages, the troops themselves were well equipped with carbines, grenades flamethowers and light for the period machine guns. Their officers were trained to use their own initiative to continue advances deep behind the lines without regard for their flanks, and to advance as deep to the enemy rear as possible disrupting command and control, loosening up resistance to less skilled follow on formations. The Central powers barrage at Caporetto was one of the most effective of the war; why was this?
RF: They had good air photos of the proposed battlefield
DS: Yes these were well interpretted in the layout of the attack, additional the Germans made excellent use of behind the line pre registration of their guns and spherical geometry to put the rounds on target without having to register their guns on the line, therefore reducing their vulnerability to counter battery fire. Randall describe other items that made the barrage so effective
RF: The Italians broadcast their weather reports in clear on the radio so the Germans could plan their gas attacks with very good knowledge of the wind patterns, the terrain itself was also very conducive for heavier than air gas poisons to linger in the Italian trenches

DS: Beyond the gas lingering in Italian trenches and being launched by surprise in favorable wind conditions; why else was the gas so strongly effective at Caporetto?
RT: The standard issue Italian gas masks were not effective prevent inhalation of poisons for any sort of sustained period of battle, those that stayed to man their defenses died, and the remainder were forced to flee to the rear as their comrades masks began to fail creating the first layer of panic in the Italian retreat out of the Alps
DS: Not all of them fled to the rear, especially in the sectors in which the foot guards advanced. The foot guard storm trooper battalions were well equipped with filtration masks and advanced right behind the poison fog; collecting prisoners in the first wave of the great jail roundup, particularly as the wind conditions drifted the poison to the Italian rear, and were their attack spear points happened to hit the junctions of the 2nd and 3rd Italian armies, numerous Italian companies begin streaming towards the footguards and the Austrians on their right seeking to surrender and get away from the gas; loosening up opposition, and allowing a much more generalized advance on the central power's left. The progress of the footguards was so rapid and the disorder in their sector so widespread that they were able to capture several military bridges over the Taliamento river in tact, and firmly place themselves along the Italian lines of retreat. They captured many guns and even more importantly vast quantities of food stuffs in this advance

DS: We will pick up here in Friday's lecture
 
Chapter 3


University of Colorado 400 level History Class October 2017, Professor Dennis Showalter

DS: Class today's format will begin with a lecture on the events taking place to the right of the foot guards in the sector of the 14th Central Power's Army, then we can have some fun discussing the more colorful exploits of the foot guards in the second stage of the battle

The Italian second army commanded by General Capella disregarded Supreme Commander Cadorna's order to adopt a defensive posture which had been issued following the heavy losses of the 11th battle of the Isonzo, and packed nearly of of his troops in the front line, with very little manpower in the 2nd and 3rd lines of defense. What was even more shortsighted was that he broke down his reserve formations to pure infantry brigades with no organic artillery support, very handy to feed them in as reinforcement's for an offensive but too small to effectively counter attack the Central power's penetrations of the Isonzo front.

Given as we discussed on Wednesday, that the Central power's barrage on the Italian front line was so effective at the outset of Caporetto, the 2nd army was in trouble from the first minutes of the assault. The Italian troopers knew the defects of the masks; that when subjected a powerful phosgene poison saturation, that their masks would fail within 2 hours or less. This presented the Italian soldiers, overcrowded in the front line trenches with the following options: 1. Stay in their trenches and die from poison gas 2. Flee to the rear, which turned out to be just as deadly, with the wind patterns drifting the gas into their 2nd and 3rd lines that morning; with the added problem of German Storm troop battalions advancing directly behind the fog and infiltrating their formations; disrupting all command cohesion, annihilating or capturing formations that became isolated in the confusion and 3. Fleeing forward towards the Central powers to surrender to get out of the poison clouds,

The Italians of the 2nd army chose option 2 in the vast majority of cases, and what befell them was the part of the true disaster at Caporetto. The dispositions as we first talked about where a debacle waiting to happen. Once the German storm battalions collapsed the troops before them at Plezza, there were almost no military formations between them and Udine where the Italian supreme command was located along with huge supply dumps. Many of the second army's subordinate commander's saw the danger such as Pietro Badaglio who bemoaned that the Italian 2nd and 3rd line trenches where too close to the front and that if the first line was overwhelmed that the Germans would have little difficulty reaching his artillery lines and causing catastrophic strategic damage to his formation.

The 2nd army's command structure was largely defective in the period leading up to and during the battle; we will discuss this in more detail when we talk about the strategic picture of the Italian army in the next lecture. General Capella was in an out of the hospital for weeks prior the Central Powers offensive, and during the battle was bed ridden with a fever and periodically hallucinating, in his absence General Montuori exercised some temporary command of the 2nd army. Orders flew back and forth between the 2nd army's 2 different commanders and Cadorna at supreme command that were often conflicting and routinely ignored or willfully misunderstood. It is a fair criticism to say the 2nd army's formations where leaderless past the army corp level.

The Italian army as a whole unfortunately had no defensive doctrine other than holding every piece of ground stubbornly to the last man, they had not adopted the elastic defense models the Austrian's had used so effectively in the 11th battle of the Isonzo; nor had they given troops any type of training regarding what steps to take if they where surrounded or what they should do in the event of loss of communication with command. Some of this may be forgiven because the Italian army up to that point had been on the offensive for the entire war, however, they had been stung badly by Austrian counter attacks in the 11th battle of the Isonzo, and were sitting in extremely exposed saliants, and were remiss to not consider the possibility of having to withstand a large offensive

As I mentioned before command and control was extremely lacking and the German bombardment was effective. In the outset of the battle in the critical 27th Corps sector in the Tomino bridgehead the central powers artillery was able to suppress nearly all head quarters and cut all telephone communication. Without orders the Italian artillery held it's fire, and the storm trooper battalions advancing directly behind the poison fog were able to pass through the 3 defensive lines quickly in the confusion of the retreating soldiers and charge at the quiet artillery batteries, over running or capturing them. These actions were repeated all along the front, leading to Italian artillery as a whole being totally ineffective in the opening stage of the battle.. The German 12th division launched a pincer attack against the Italian 19th division at Tolmino. The 19th, overwhelmed by gas crumpled and largely surrendered, this opened the way to Mt. Jeza which was a critical terrain feature in the area.

This opened the roads parallel to the Isonzo valley and allowed German and Hungarian formations to surge nearly unopposed into Caporetto and link up the jaws of their pincer at Saga, hopelessly trapping numerous Italian formations in the front line trenches

The confusion following the rapid German advance in this sector lead to serious mistakes in divisional and corps command on October 24th. This was also augmented by news of the heavy defeats to the south in the foot guards sector lowering morale triggering defeatism and large scale surrenders. Nearly all of the bridges over the Isonzo were not blown in time; allowing them to fall into Central powers hands, with the one notable exception of the bridge at Caporetto itself, which in one way was futile as the Germans were already over the river in other sectors, but in another way, was a debacle typical of the campaign, as this bridge was needed to evacuate the 43rd and 46th divisions out of the front line. With the loss of the bridge and the Germans stampeding their rear areas, the 43rd and 46th were compelled to surrender being among the first but by no means largest groups taken in the great prison round up. The Central powers captured over 2 million ration tins and numerous other food stuffs as they collapsed the 27th corps. General Badaglio himself, despite his fore sight in seeing his position as extremely vulnerable, reacted with the same amount of panic as his men, frequently relocating his headquarters, which prevented subordinate formations messengers from finding him; in that fog of war that he created, he began to broadcast in the clear, allowing German radio intercept platoons to triangulate his position, and call in artillery which on the third round of cat and mouse flattened his headquarters, and killed Badaglio and his staff

Italian reserve brigades were committed one by one piece meal into this fire storm with conflicting or uninformed orders which led them to march head on, unsupported directly into the storm trooper battalions and be immediately consumed or compelled to surrender. Corporal Attilio Frescura's description of the sheer panic at the Caporetto bridge which I have shown on the projector here gives us a vivid example of just how bad things where in the 27th corps sector:

~ a lt col. on one side of the bridge telling everyone to advance, a captain on the soon to be enemy side of the bridge telling everyone to run for their lives, wagons being dumped into the river to clear the bridge, engineers stringing explosives along it, soldiers throwing their weapons away because armed soldiers where being turned around back to the front, but unarmed support personel were being allowed to stream to the rear, and panicked news of the collapse to the south. The aggressive lt col. cross the bridge and began trying to force the 46th's troops to turn around and rejoin the fight, and the soldiers shot him, and the military police and engineers on seeing this then blew the bridge in their faces sentencing the 46th division to their fate with the Germans~

... lets take a 5 minute coffee break and we will resume
 
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So you take pretty much the worst possible option and try and say "let's make it worse"? I fail to see how, because Caporetto was already pretty much as bad as it could be. Hell, the defense on the Piave was organized from scratch, because the High Command had abandoned the idea of resisting the assault in its entirety and had started plans to retreat to the Mincio instead. A knockout blow in late 1917 really requires morale to be way lower than it was OTL, and that's really hard to accomplish.

In short, I'd argue that there isn't any realistic way to go but up for any Italian Caporetto ATL, excluding extreme variations to the original situation (which brings about butterflies, and those are always a problem). You already have the Germans free to send their stormtrooper batallions, the Austrians feeling a bit more free to move with the Russian collapse, wind in favor, Italian gas masks being faulty, probably the worst Chief of Staff of the entire war, morale being basically underground and digging, equipment being outdated, and the entire high command abandoning the front rather than organizing a coordinated defense. It wasn't enough.
 
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So you take pretty much the worst possible option and try and say "let's make it worse"? I fail to see how, because Caporetto was already pretty much as bad as it could be. Hell, the defense on the Piave was organized from scratch, because the High Command had abandoned the idea of resisting the assault in its entirety and had started plans to retreat to the Mincio instead. A knockout blow in late 1917 really requires morale to be way lower than it was OTL, and that's really hard to accomplish.

In short, I'd argue that there isn't any realistic way to go but up for any Italian Caporetto ATL, excluding extreme variations to the original situation (which brings about butterflies, and those are always a problem). You already have the Germans free to send their stormtrooper batallions, the Austrians feeling a bit more free to move with the Russian collapse, wind in favor, Italian gas masks being faulty, probably the worst Chief of Staff of the entire war, morale being basically underground and digging, equipment being outdated, and the entire high command abandoning the front rather than organizing a coordinated defense. It wasn't enough.

It was really that bad as you described in your second paragraph

The main point of departure I have instituted here is the French taking longer to sort themselves out following the mutinies, and not launching their supporting attacks for 3rd Ypres, allowing the Germans to pull the Foot Guards Corps off the line opposite them and put them into the Caporetto order of battle. Augmenting the Germans with three fresh, fed full strength divisions I feel could create an even more catastrophic situation at Caporetto.

Despite nearly everything going wrong for the Italians the moment the battle started, there were places where it could have gone even worse (for example, Badaglio's headquarters was shelled several times on the 24th and 25th in the original timeline, but he very luckily avoided being killed, in this scenario he was not so fortunate, which would cause even further confusion to his formations)bringing the German contribution to 11 divisions instead of 8 does present the opportunity for more calamity to befall the Italians at Caporetto
 
It was really that bad as you described in your second paragraph
Yes. Yes, it was. The standard rifle was from 1891 (the Carcano M91 - extremely solid, but still a 1891 weapon), artillery was scarce (for logistical reasons as well, I'll concede), and Cadorna was literally convinced that the beatings should continue until morale improves, with decimation being a pretty standard measure. The night of Caporetto was also quite excellent for gas use, with wind carrying and keeping the cloud over the Italian lines, and said Italian lines were equipped with very short-duration gas masks, forcing them out of their defences.

The main point of departure I have instituted here is the French taking longer to sort themselves out following the mutinies, and not launching their supporting attacks for 3rd Ypres, allowing the Germans to pull the Foot Guards Corps off the line opposite them and put them into the Caporetto order of battle. Augmenting the Germans with three fresh, fed full strength divisions I feel could create an even more catastrophic situation at Caporetto.

Despite nearly everything going wrong for the Italians the moment the battle started, there were places where it could have gone even worse (for example, Badaglio's headquarters was shelled several times on the 24th and 25th in the original timeline, but he very luckily avoided being killed, in this scenario he was not so fortunate, which would cause even further confusion to his formations)bringing the German contribution to 11 divisions instead of 8 does present the opportunity for more calamity to befall the Italians at Caporetto
Killing Badoglio could possibly help the Second Army, as the man made several critical mistakes that improved the Allied chances at Caporetto. If the Second Army routes, it means there are more Italians on the Piave, as the choice to try and hold the Tagliamento was pretty suicidal and only managed in stopping said men from retreating safely (the order only came when retreat was all but impossible).

The Guards would probably be a wash: OTL, Germany already had problems supplying the men they had sent by the time they reached the Piave, and more men is going to mean more problems. Now, does it mean Italy can't break in WW1? Well, of course it doesn't. Caporetto, though, isn't the way to go for that, because it already was a shining success for the Allied capabilities. You either need France knocked out of the war for way longer than OTL, giving Germany time to build their supply lines in Veneto and a chance to keep their troops there (if not flat-out increasing them), or the RN blockade being broken, which by itself improves the logistic situation (but is, probably, a lot less likely).
 
Yes. Yes, it was. The standard rifle was from 1891 (the Carcano M91 - extremely solid, but still a 1891 weapon), artillery was scarce (for logistical reasons as well, I'll concede), and Cadorna was literally convinced that the beatings should continue until morale improves, with decimation being a pretty standard measure. The night of Caporetto was also quite excellent for gas use, with wind carrying and keeping the cloud over the Italian lines, and said Italian lines were equipped with very short-duration gas masks, forcing them out of their defences.


Killing Badoglio could possibly help the Second Army, as the man made several critical mistakes that improved the Allied chances at Caporetto. If the Second Army routes, it means there are more Italians on the Piave, as the choice to try and hold the Tagliamento was pretty suicidal and only managed in stopping said men from retreating safely (the order only came when retreat was all but impossible).

The Guards would probably be a wash: OTL, Germany already had problems supplying the men they had sent by the time they reached the Piave, and more men is going to mean more problems. Now, does it mean Italy can't break in WW1? Well, of course it doesn't. Caporetto, though, isn't the way to go for that, because it already was a shining success for the Allied capabilities. You either need France knocked out of the war for way longer than OTL, giving Germany time to build their supply lines in Veneto and a chance to keep their troops there (if not flat-out increasing them), or the RN blockade being broken, which by itself improves the logistic situation (but is, probably, a lot less likely).

I have had the foot guards installed on the 14th army's left flank, letting them hit the junction between the 2nd and 3rd Italian armies. Having this striking force at that spot would present the Germans with the opportunity to wheel around the 3rd army and pin them against the sea and force them to surrender instead of just disarming themselves and running terrified to the rear and eventually reforming under Diaz leadership

The Italian second army was basically battle axed in half the first three days of the attack, the Germans lacked the follow on exploitation forces or breadth in their attack to wheel to the left and knife through the panic retreating third army and encircle them; the foot guards perform this action in this timeline
 
Chapter 4

University of Colorado 400 level History Class October 2017, Professor Dennis Showalter

DS: Ok let us resume, when we left off the 27th corps had been routed by the 14th Central powers army, let us look at the events local and strategic that followed that were the great prison round up

Luigi Cardona, perhaps the Nero of his time, due to his previous infighting with the 2nd army's command wrote them off as, as good as dead and denied them any priority in roads and bridges, as he eventually after far too much procrastination ordered the army as best it could to fall back to the Tagliamento river.

General Cardona issued his communication to the Commando Supremeo regarding initial events at Caporetto, it's up on the whiteboard; have you ever seen a general have such disdain for his troops:

"Due to the lack of resistance of some units of the 2nd army, who cowardly retreated without fighting, or ignominously surrendering to the enemy has allowed the German - Austrian forces to break through our left flank on the Julian front. The valorous efforts of other troops were not able to stop the enemy from penetrating our country's sacred soil

Our line will fall back according to the established plan, the warehouses and depots of the abandoned territory have been destroyed.
....."

As we have discussed there had been nothing cowardly about the Italian soldier in their previous 11 head long charges uphill into the teeth of the enemy in the war; and the 2nd army through no fault of the rank and file had been placed into a tactical and strategic death trap, were the only real options before there were surrender or death

The announcement that the supply depots had been destroyed was also a lie, by this point the Germans had captured nearly 10 million ration tins, and thousands of tons of grains, cereals, pasta, eggs etc. They also captured nearly 2000 artillery pieces and 200,000 prisoners and 30,000 killed and wounded just by this point alone

This message was rebroadcast in the clear to trapped soldiers of the 3rd army by the central powers, telling them that their army had abandoned them and was retreating without them; and it was rebroadcast all across the line telling them their generals had abandoned them. A small surviving company of the 46th division and some stragglers from the shattered counter attacking brigades flowed into Udine; after briefly pillaging the high command alcohol stocks, they formed a soldiers committee, surrounding Cadorna's HQ as it was preparing to depart south and arrested General Cadorna.

It was tense, and in another situation the Caribinerri military police would have surrounded the drunk furious survivors and restored order, however all was chaos as the army retreated, and unfortunately for General Cadorna, one of the survivors who had merged into the shattered remains of the 46th was the commander of the Foggia brigade. This formation had been marched head first with no support or intelligence briefings of any value directly into the spear point of the German attacks on the Tagliamento plain, and before they had realized they had even arrived on the battlefield their ranks were disrupted by other 27th corps survivors fleeing back through them, and the German 12th division and the Alpenkorps appeared out of a poison fog on both flanks and destroyed them with interlocking machine gun fire and mortars; barely 60 men were able to stream back before the Caporetto bridge was blown in their face.

The leader of that brigade, drunk, exhausted and traumatized burst into the command post of the supreme commander and shot him and a number of staff officers before walking outside the command post and shooting himself. The committee disorganized and just as drunk in it's own right with no officers left to lead them began broadcasting in the clear that the war was over.

German and Austrian leaflets responded to Cadorna's message blaming the 2nd army nearly immediately; praising the Italian army for it's valor and pointing out that their generals had abandoned them to die in large numbers, and that they deserved better than their generals and their government had given them

Drunken messages from the 46th committee on 26th of October sowed mass confusion in the Italian army, not only did they broadcast the war was over they encouraged their comrades to depose their officers and form soldier's committees of peace,

The 1st and 4th army's were the least affected by this and only isolated battalions had their officers deposed or turned themselves in for captivity. Unfortunately for Italy's war making power though, with their right flank dangerously in the air they retreated as fast as they possibly could abandoning all depots and heavy guns to the central powers, with millions more food stuffs, war material, wagons, horses trucks and railroad equipment being captured by pursing Austro Hungarian forces.

The real collapse was in the sector of the third army. It was their sector which turned the Central powers victory from something greater than Gorlice Tarnow and into the great jail roundup, and the colorful actions of the foot guards played an enormous part in that, which we will discuss next...
 
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Chapter 5

University of Colorado 400 level History Class October 2017, Professor Dennis Showalter

DS: I think we have had a productive discussion on events as they occurred on the northern end of the 14th Central Power's army attacking front, lets dive in to the footguards to the south. As you can see on the map I have up on the screen, they burst out of Bainsizza plateau crossed the Isonzo. You can see by the end of the 3nd day they are just 20 miles from Udine where General Cadorna was about to be executed, here under General Below's orders, they execute the radical left turn, cut the main North-South rail line feeding the 3rd army from the main depots at Udine and knife through the entire Italian right wing's rear areas and capture Latisana by the 29th; completely cutting off the 3rd army's line of retreat

The 3rd Italian army was not a small force, nearly 300,000 men, and the footguards who had reached Latisana barely numbered 50,000. How where they able to compel their surrender. Yes Ms. Borke?

SB: The third army lost a lot of transport and supplies when the footguards over ran their rear areas which made it hard for them to pull back with their equipment

DS: Albeit this is a long debated historical question, I will ask you Sophie did the 3rd army want to successfully retreat?

SB: I think their left formations that were assaulted where they met the 2nd army really had no choice in the battle. The footguards captured nearly all of their artillery by the start of the second day, and they were already nearly encircled once the Austrian 2nd army began applying frontal pressure in those areas. Even though the 3rd army had more balanced defensive spacing, the concentric attacks on their left wing and the gas attacks on the defensive trench lines were a lot to take on for any army, let alone one that didn't receive orders to pull back until after their supply lines were cut, and then received drunk broadcasts telling them the war was over

DS: So just the general calamity of the situation caused their collapse? Randall?

RF: No the Foot Guards and 14th army high command used very clever psychological attacks against them

DS: You mean the leaflets we spoke about earlier and the rebroadcast of General Cadorna's tirade against the troops?

RF: Yes Dr. Showalter, those, but also the Foot Guards commander used his own initiative and broadcast to the 3rd army promising them fair treatment and early parole... and the Salerno brigade's...delivery... of confiscated supplies; sorry I cannot think of a more polite way to phrase that

DS: It's ok Randall, you can just say they sent the Salerno Brigade and 1/4 of the army's wine and cognac stocks into the rear of the third army, and that they got a lot of people drunk

RF: They claimed it was a peaceful gesture, but along with the bizarre series of orders and later counter orders originating from their high command, the 14th army and the 2nd army were able to use the Italian 3rd army's drunkeness to tighten their grips on their rear areas and begin a process of starving them out

DS: The Salerno brigade is perhaps one of those stranger than fiction portions of history. They like the Foggia Brigade were pulled off the line as a quick reinforcement group, but at the last moment they were diverted from a reinforcement mission towards 27th corps and instead diverted to the 3rd army's left wing, where they ran head long into all 3 divisions of the Footguards who quickly surrounded them. The Salerno brigade had extremely low morale, as assessed by Italian domestic spy agency reports and by what was borne out in the field. They very quickly discarded their weapons and surrendered en masse to the Footguards over 3000 in all.

What was more the Footguards were informed by Salerno soldiers about the huge army stockpiles of alcohol at Palmonova which they dispatched the Kaiser's personal 1st Footguards regiment to go capture under the strictest orders not to partake. General Schlobittin, their commander had heard the drunken broadcasts that kept coming from General Cadorna's former command post a saw that opportunity; turning over the booze the Salerno brigade and telling them to deliver it to their suffering friends in the 3rd army, which they did all too happily

The Italian 3rd army, and the Italian army as a whole were by no means the only army, especially in 1917 to let low morale and the horrible conditions of trench warfare allow them to lapse into sustained periods of drunkeness, Alcohol played a significant role in the French mutinies earlier in the year and was a continual fueling factor in Russia's political revolutions. Even German soldiers on the western front had given to drunkeness and other vices in fairly large scale

The rank and file, fueled with good Italian wine and cognac began to head the instructions from the 46th division, soldiers committee's formed, officers were deposed and arrested, and it was broadcast throughout the 3rd army that the war was over. Soldiers streamed, and... stumbled towards the Footguards and Austro Hungarians, disarmed to be marched off to captivity with Austrian General Boroevich stating that he had to open the world's biggest drunk tank to corrale the 275,000 prisoners taken by his forces and elements of the 14th army. This brought the total losses for Italy to 65,000 killed wounded and missing and 550,000 captured, marking the high point of LA Grande Retata Della Prigione for the central powers,

Italy was in real terms defeated as a war making power, she had lost over 4000 cannons and vast quantities of other weapons. 30 divisions had been erased from the Italian order of battle. Those forces that remained had lost most of their heavy equipment and were retreating in panic

The loss of the vast core of the 2nd and 3rd army prevented any type of defense on the Piave, as the 1st and 4th army's couldn't adopt that kind of spacing that fast particularly in the wild storm of orders that eminated from Rome and from what was once General Cadorna's headquarters; which had been taken over by one of Italy and history's more interesting figures; corporal Mussolini; we will look at Italy's strategic picture and the follow on tactical decisions in the next lecture; great work today class
 
Chapter 6

University of Colorado 400 level History Class October 2017, Professor Dennis Showalter

DS: Welcome again class, let us pick up where we left off. By October 30th, the Italian 2nd and 3rd armies had ceased to exist; with over 90 percent of the manpower being sent to POW camps in Austria. The heavy equipment, weapons and rations of the Italian army fell into German and Austrian hands as only the 1st and 4th Italian armies were able to fall back in some order through the Alps eventually linking up with rapidly arriving French at British divisions who were mobilizing at Verona.

The Austrian 10th and 11th armies pursued on their heals as best they could, but were slowed by a variety of factors not the least of which was mass capture of food stuffs which slowed or stopped their marches as they gorged on appropriated Italian pastas cheeses and eggs; for many representing their first decent meal in months

The 14th and 2nd Central Powers army were also slowed gorging on their windfall of food and also having to detail many units to provide security in newly captured areas; as well as having to drag their artillery forward, along with turning around and repurposing many captured Italian guns

By November 2nd all of their forces were across the Tagliamento river and marching with very little in front of them towards the Piave, their packs still full of their food booty.

Within Italy, a full crises of confidence emerged. The Commando Supremo declared that all soldiers committees were illegal and any mutineers would be summarily executed. With the death of Cadorna and many of his staff officers, they appointed Armando Diaz as the new Chief of staff with orders to establish a defensive line along the PO river anchored by the Italian 1st and 4th armies on the left and the French 10th army of 6 French and 5 British divisions on the right.

As the Italians retreated towards this line from the North, and their entente allies pushed to the East, the Venetian plain was abandoned to the central powers. Over 10,000 sq miles of sacred soil fell into enemy hands. With no resistance before them (the French 10th army refusing to advance past the PO river) on November 6th the Prussian Footguards streamed into Venice capturing again vast amounts of food stuffs as the city had been a main staging base for supplies feeding the forward armies on the Isonzo.

The capture of Venice did relieve some of the logistical burdens to the 2nd and 14th armies as they had advanced nearly 175 miles from their jump off points and were periodically starving and forced to live off the land as their field kitchens couldn't keep up with the pace of the advance. Several Austrian freighters stuffed with appropriated food booty steamed from Trieste into Venice refilling the cartridge pouches of the exhausted soldiers and returning some of their wounded to the rear.

The Kaiser declared a national holiday, the mood was euphoric as propaganda pictures returned home showing lined up rows of captured Italian cannons, and pictures of the footguards aboard appropriated skiffs in Venice; one would have thought they had reached Paris, London and Moscow that week

Diaz tried to established centralized control behind the Po, but the great oddity of war that befell the Italian army continued as the Austrians gave chase as best they could. The drunken remains of the chief of staff headquarters slowly streamed south; barely avoiding capture at the hands of the footguards who veered left just one days march from Udine.

The amorphous group of 46th division survivors was augmented with other stragglers and continued their broadcasts of the war being over and telling all of Italy's soldiers they could go home, playing a big part in the surrender of the 3rd army. They fell back across the Tagliamento as the 14th Central Powers army slowed to gorge and displace cannons forward; where they encountered some shattered remains of the 8th Bersaglieri regiment who were also retreating to the south

About 400 enlisted men of the Bersaglieri lead by a wounded Corporal attacked the 46th and retook the radio command equipment; lined up all the 46th personel against a wall in Coneltano and shot them.

The alcohol stocks were recaptured and set ablaze and Corporal Mussolini; who prior to the war had been one of the country's best know socialists took to the airwaves; broadcast in clear Italian the statement on November 3rd 1917 you see on the projector now:

~My fellow Italian warriors, it is I your teacher, friend and fellow disdained trench dweller Benito Mussolini. The drunken failed socialists and architects of defeat whom have been broadcasting to you for the last 5 and a half days are dead. These men, if they can be called that shot the butcher of Italian sons General Cadorna, a deed far overdue, but in their drunkeness, they called upon the Italian soldier to sacrifice the honor he had so justly built up these last 3 years and to surrender to the hated enemy; and for this they cannot be forgiven.

The Commando Supremo says our soldiers councils are illegal, I say our officers who sent us forward, over the top, over and over again without regard to our lives are illegal, I say our officers who sat far too comfortably in the rear, only coming face to face with the enemy now are illegal, I say our officers who enjoyed the finest food, warm and soft beds these last three years whilst we lay up to our asses in mud and snow with bullets and shells above our heads throughout the day and night are illegal

The Italian soldier is a lion brave and fierce, and our officers are cowardly asses sending us to our deaths; I say no more, I say every Army, Army Corps, Division, Brigade, Battalion, Company and Platoon needs to appoint a soldier's committee and depose their rear area cowards for the frauds they are. I say it is time for this war which has been fought so bravely by Italian soldiers, be commanded by Italian soldiers

I have unlimited faith and confidence in all of you to do what is right for Italy in these next trying days; Viva Italia

Let's take a 5 minute break then discuss the effect of Corporal Mussolini's speech and capture of the chief of staff's facilities
 
Chapter 7

University of Colorado 400 level History Class November 2017, Professor Dennis Showalter

DS: Ok class now that we have stretched our legs lets look at the dynamic born out by the arrival of Corporal Mussolini to the calamity befalling Italy in the Battle of Caporetto

Who can give me some type of explanation as to how to a wounded corporal could usurp the Italian Army and later on all of Italy? Yes Sophie?

SB: Benito Mussolini was a well known political writer and leader up to the start of the war as a member of the socialists. He did however split with them on joining the war and his politics turned into a hybrid nationalist socialist compilation that drew off followers from many of his old and new camps. He served with distinction in the war itself.

DS: What else is important to know about Mussolini's background?

RT: He was widely traveled and read. He spoke fluent Italian German French and English; he was very well educated and informed about Italy's politics and the world stage.

DS: Do you think he was a better prospect to lead Italy than Vittorio Orlando or Armando Diaz?

RT: Once the committees got started up anyone associated with Cadornas staff or regime was never going to be acceptable to the rank and file. If he had been in the command post with Cadorna when the Foggia Brigade commander shot the place up, Diaz would have been shot just the same. And Orlando was an uninspired choice to be the leader of Italy in a coalition war. He didn't speak English or French, and again after the committees started forming anyone who had touched the previous government in any way or were part of the previous command structure was never going to hold sway over the rank and file

DS: So was it that Mussolini was the man for the job or there was no reasonable alternative

RT: I think the answer is both Dr. Showalter. His service in the trenches earned him credit and respectability among the troops and his wide ranging political writings and newspaper columns showed the establishment that he was more than a rabble rousing corporal. He fit what Italy needed AND they needed someone not tainted from all of the pre Caporetto failures; Diaz enforced all of Cadorna's diabolical disciplinary measures that were largely responsible for the low morale of the Italian army; and Orlando was a part of the government that vested that power in Cadorna's hands

DS: Well put Randall, I have always subscribed to the idea that if one had to invent someone on paper November 1917 to lead Italy out of the darkness that you wouldn't find someone as circular for the round hole as Mussolini. Tim what did you find most striking about his introductory broadcast?

TC: That he portrayed himself as their father and brother, those two things are normally so distinctive from each other, but it speaks to the turbulence of the time that he could make himself all things to all people

DS: Well his speech did have its desired outcome. The remaining Italian soldiers of the 1st and 4th army after resisting the initial calls from their inebriated comrades of the 46th division and retiring in the best order they could, heeded Mussolini's call and began systematically arresting their officers as they streamed back over the Piave and eventually towards the Po river. Mussolini's stream of broadcasts telling them to reform on the Po and begin to dig in and to stop panicking and that they would be reinforced by British and French divisions on their right were well received. Arrested officers were sent back in shame to the rear as formations were systematically taken over by senior NCO's. A few platoon and company commanders who had born the common sacrifice were retrained, but in the end nearly 90 percent of the 1st and 4th army's officers were deposed and sent to the rear.

Mussolini reformed the 8th Bersaglieri brigade which marched and drove in appropriated vehicles rapidly to the rear, disarming caribinerri formations trying to march north and restore order until they reached Diaz's command post in Verona which was preparing to retreat to the south. There one of the more bizarre episodes of the entire great prison roundup occurred as Mussolini's elite troopers marched with their eagle plumed hats into Verona and with a wounded corporal at their head, he deposed and arrested Armando Diaz. The French commander General Fayolle was stunned when Mussolini made this entrance, but then even more stunned when Mussolini in fluent french told the General that he was assuming command of the armies of Italy, and that the route and retreat would stop; and that he could not be more thankful for the presence of General Fayolle and his troops.

When we meet again lets talk about the reaction in Rome as this unfolded; see you all tomorrow
 
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