Page - 394 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

394 The Third Front By June 1915, the Italian Army had already reached a strength of over 31,000 officers, and 1,058,000 NCOs and troops, with a fair number more under its command than Austria-Hungary, which had nothing remotely comparable with which to confront it. During its war preparations, Italy was also able to draw on the conditions agreed in the Treaty of London, however, and in the military conventions that had been concluded separately. The most important of these was the naval agreement between the Entente powers and Italy of 4 May 1915. Here, it was agreed that a first Allied fleet was to be created under the supreme command of the Italian naval forces, with its main base in Brindisi, which aside from the most up-to-date Italian units should also comprise a dozen French destroyers and six submarines. Following cessation of operations against Turkey, Great Britain also wanted to contribute four older battleships and four light cruisers to this first fleet. As a reserve, a second fleet was to be formed behind the Adriatic Fleet, in Taranto, Malta and Bizerta in Tunisia, comprising French and Italian battleships and, later, an additional four English ironclad warships. This second fleet was to come under French supreme command. All these measures were designed solely to eliminate the Imperial and Royal Navy. The preparatory measures also included the military convention with Russia, con- cluded on 21 May 1915 in Baranovichi, which was also agreed to by the western En- tente powers. The parties to this agreement undertook to relieve the Italian front by binding the German and Austro-Hungarian troops to their sections, making it impos- sible to be able to release divisions for the Italian front. However, a major offensive in the Balkans that had been planned by the Allies for some time, and which was designed to bring additional relief on Italy’s entry into the war, proved impossible to realise. The idea had already surfaced in January in the British War Cabinet, and was connected to the issue of whether the armies, which had been newly deployed by Lord Kitchener, with half-a-million men, could not be brought to Serbia instead of to France. This would have conformed in particular to the indirect strategy of the British and to the doctrine of threatening the enemy flank.933 However, the proposal was quickly dropped. Attempts by the Russians, Italians and above all the British to encourage Serbia to attack Austrian territory also came to nothing.934 From this side, therefore, no relief for Italy was in sight. In the autumn of 1914, Cadorna had begun with the development of operational plans and had a choice of three versions : a thrust against Tyrol, a thrust towards Vienna across the Ljubljana (Laibach) valley and the Graz basin, and a thrust across the Fella valley towards Carinthia. Due to the difficulty of the operation in the high and low mountain ranges, the option of attacking Tyrol was very quickly already disregarded. The most attractive concept, the thrust towards Graz and Vienna via Ljubljana, was considered too ambitious due to its unforeseeable components. However, in its reduced variant in the form of an offensive in the area of Gorizia (Görz) and Gradisca d’Isonzo