Page - 787 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Operation ‘Loyalty to Arms’ 787 14th Army were also needed. From the unloading stations in the Villach area to Tarvi- sio (Tarvis) and from Jesenice (Aßling) to Ljubljana (Laibach), weapons, ammunition and war materials had to be transported approximately 40 kilometres on in some cases poor mountain roads, and finally in areas which, while not visible to the Italians, could certainly be subjected constantly to harassment fire. First came the attack artillery, then a million shots of ammunition for the guns, the heavy war equipment and the provi- sions. Finally, the infantry was to advance. The mountain fortifications were reinforced in the same way, while the materials were provided in the basin areas. In the higher re- gions, this meant that around eight days were needed in order to transport a heavy gun to its pre-arranged position. Once the canons, mortars and howitzers were at the top, thousands of cartridges, powder and grenades had to be brought up after them. This took time, and naturally also meant that the Italians would not fail to notice. By mid-September, the Italians had recognised the reinforcements on the Aus- tro-Hungarian front and the influx of fresh troops. However, they failed to take their own reconnaissance results sufficiently seriously. Here, the problem for the Italians was that they had in the interim already gained years of experience of the operational procedures of the Imperial and Royal Army, but were unable to imagine how they might be changed to any significant degree. It had all become very familiar. In eleven Battles of the Isonzo, and in several limited offensives on the mountain front, the Italians had always been the attackers and, only once, during the South Tyrol offensive of 1916, had they been forced into a defensive position. With the exception of this one offensive, the Austrians had always been the defenders. The soldiers on both sides had become used to surviving in the mountains, had attempted to dig into the karst and conducted positional warfare that was occasionally interrupted by heavy raids. The experience of the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo, which allowed the Italians to conclude that the Imperial and Royal front was in the process of collapsing, gave them confidence and, aside from this, the commanders at the front also failed to implement the precautionary measures recommended to them by the Chief of the General Staff of the Italian Army, Luigi Cadorna. However, overall the Allies succumbed to an erroneous estimation of the situation, since they reckoned that the chances of an Austrian-German offensive were very low. The strength of the troops of the Central Powers between the Isonzo and Natisone Rivers was classified as dangerous, and the prospect of the Italians withstanding an attack was not regarded as very high. However, what might cause the Austrians to wish to conduct an offensive was not apparent, at least to the British liaison officer at the Comando Supremo, General Delmé-Radcliff. In his view, beyond their losses to date, they would also suffer further heavy setbacks, and would,therefore, be in thoroughly weakened by the end.1835 The Central Powers planned to attack in a section which until then had been part of the front zone, namely the territory between Bovec and Tolmin, in the area of the upper