Page - 507 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The ‘Punitive Expedition’ is Prepared 507 chiefs had anyway reduced the form of cooperation practiced until that point to a min- imum. The Central Powers appeared to have descended from being a brotherhood in arms to an association forged of necessity. And both Austria-Hungary and the German Empire hoped to be able to prove to each other that their own respective path was the right one and would lead to victory. On 3 December 1915, Conrad had held a large meeting at the Austro-Hungarian Army High Command in Cieszyn to discuss an offensive against Italy. The general conclusion was that the problem was not the weapons, which could be procured ; it was rather the people. The other fronts would have to be divested of troops in order to bring together the 14 divisions calculated by the Italy specialist Schneller. Conrad would have preferred to start the offensive as early as December, but this was of course illusory. The operations in the Balkans would continue until January 1916, and in February the thaw would begin in Italy, yet at the end of February the climatic conditions could make it possible for the offensive to begin, Conrad claimed. The Italians would have to be taken by surprise, he said, and should not be allowed time to recover from their failures of the first year of the war.1197 And these failures were evident : four offensives in the Isonzo River area, with huge losses, had brought a gain of only a few kilometres of ground. All talk of a push through towards Trieste (Triest) or even to Vienna via Lju- bljana (Laibach) had ceased long ago. And the barrier forts on the edge of the plateau of the Sette Comuni, which had been used to blow to pieces the Austro-Hungarian forts from Sommo to Verle in order to enable the Italian troops to advance in the Adige Valley, had at times made life difficult for the Austrians, but had in the interim been reduced to rubble themselves. The political approval for the offensive against Italy was given in January. From state- ments made by the Hungarian Prime Minister, and from a few isolated words recorded from the Joint Council of Ministers on 7 January 1916, it can be concluded that Con- rad must have been given the green light for his offensive. However, he had informed no-one even cursorily about the manner and direction of his approach. Not even the Army Supreme Commander had any specific information. And this was remarkable. Now the preparations began. Nothing was to be left to chance, and everything was planned down to the minutest detail. However, ultimately this only applied to the deployment. When naming the major operational goals, the Army High Command satisfied itself, as it had done in the months previously, with the observation that two- thirds of the Italian Army were caught up at the Isonzo River in an area of around 80 x 150 kilometres, and that even advancing only up to the edge of the plateau of Arsiero and Asiago would certainly lead to a withdrawal of the Italian front to the Piave River. This could be expected to lead to a reduction in the length of the Austro-Hungarian front by at least half and, in the most favourable scenario, the removal of Italy from the war, namely if the major part of the Italian Army could be enveloped and forced