Page - 517 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Attack 517 1 May, disagreed : the fighting had shown that the greatest successes had been achieved when the most artillery had been used. At the other sections, there had been far less progress, and there had also been significantly higher losses there. Dankl refused to abandon the systematic preparation of the artillery and did not forward the order to his corps commanders to change tactic and begin the pursuit. However, he also declined to inform the Army Group Command of this fact. The XX Corps inserted a rest day on 20 May, since, as Dankl had wished, the artillery was first to be brought up from behind before the advance was resumed.1218 The events on this day in particular also showed that the Italians, in their constructed positions, in caverns and on mountain slopes, could not be dealt with by the infantry alone. The 11th Army was unable to move any further forward, and the Italians were only forced to surrender further mountain ridges to the III Corps, which was able to amass its 300 guns. Asiago and Arsiero, depopulated piles of rubble in the Italian defence and Aus- tro-Hungarian attack areas, were taken. Now it really did seem to be simply a matter of descending into the lowlands. In Cieszyn, there was confidence that the breakthrough to Thiene and Bassano would succeed. Then, however, the Imperial and Royal 5th Army on the Isonzo River was also to go on the offensive and bring about the finale of the ‘guerra alle fronte ital- iana’. Cadorna was already planning to establish a new army, the Italian 5th Army, as a disaster force in the Vicenza and Padua area.1219 It was conceivably uncertain whether the Italian brigades in the Vallarsa Valley, on the Zugna ridge and in the Pasubio region would succeed in keeping the divisions of the Imperial and Royal XXI Corps (under Major General von Lütgendorf) at bay. The Italian formations had withdrawn so quickly from the XX Corps that contact with them was even lost. However, time and again, the greatest problem for the Austro-Hungarian forces was bringing up the artillery and spurring the troops on to make a rapid pursuit. If the ‘Heir Apparent’ Corps lost not a single man on 23 May,1220 then this may be regarded as particularly sparing of human life, but equally, it meant that there was practically no fighting, and that the corps did not move up behind the enemy. There was ‘quiet ahead of the front’. However, the dynamic of the offensive continued to dwindle. Now, the Army Group Command tried other means : the Chief of Staff, Major General Alfred Krauß, travelled from Bolzano to Trento in order to persuade the 11th Army in particular to advance more rapidly. He wanted it to push through the valleys and to keep harassing the Italians. However, General Dankl rejected the idea of conducting such a ‘valley thrust’ without previously having occupied the accompanying mountain ridges. (There it was again, the theory of warfare regarding occupation of the heights !) Krauß was unable to enforce the implementation of the order from the army group, and finally had to remain content to threaten Dankl that he would have to answer for not obeying the command.1221