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The Attack 519
The news of the successes in the South Tyrol offensive even held people like Josef
Redlich in thrall, who in the interim only very rarely occupied himself with military
developments in his diary records. ‘Wednesday, 24 May. Magnificent progress by our
splendid troops in South Tyrol : 24,000 prisoners, 250 cannon taken, almost the entire
line from the Brenta to the Adige Rivers on Italian soil. What our old Austria is still ca-
pable of after two years of war ! This will dampen the arrogance of those self-confident
gentlemen in Berlin somewhat.’1224 There they were again, the German phantoms. The
newspapers reported in as much detail as possible on the successes of the Imperial and
Royal troops. The war reports were embellished, individual achievements emphasised
and, once again, a sense of euphoria spread. However, towards the end of the month,
the names of the localities alone revealed that the attack was grinding to a halt.
With the slowing down of the Austrian offensive, for which to a certain extent it
only had itself to blame, the Italians were able to gain time, and with the aid of their
dense railway network set in motion a massive relocation of troops. They knew perfectly
well that the war hung on a knife edge – and perhaps it really had been lost for the
Central Powers on Mount Pasubio and around Asiago. Imagine that Conrad’s concept
would have proved successful, 250,000 Italians encircled and Italy were to have been
overthrown !
During the last days of May, the two Imperial and Royal armies were now only able
to make minor progress. And finally, the Italians were able to claim the two last massifs
before the exit into the lowlands at Bassano and Thiene. A large number of peaks and
mountain ridges that had achieved a symbolic character before had already been taken
by the Imperial and Royal troops, or had finally come under their control after days
and weeks of struggle : Monte Meletta, Monte Cimone, Monte Priafora and others. Al-
most the entire plateau of the Sette Comuni was in Austrian hands. The Italian barrier
forts, which, like the Austrian facilities, were the pride of the army command, Monte
Verena, Campolongo and Campomolon, which in 1915 had fired their deadly barrages
at the Austrian forts of Verle and Lusern, had in some cases been detonated, and in
others had fallen almost undamaged into the hands of the Austro-Hungarian troops.
However, the Austrians were then not only prevented from emerging into the lowlands,
but in some sections were thrown back. The Army High Command sent further rein-
forcements. One division was due to arrive from Boroević’s 5th Army on the Isonzo ;
the prospect was held out of sending a further war-ready division from the Russian
front.1225 However, it remained to be seen whether it could be made available, since in
the interim, a very different crisis began to rear its head on the north-eastern front. It
was then Italian members of parliament who in the Chamber of Deputies in Rome
found words to express the essential connection between South Tyrol and Russia : they
had been ‘saved by the Russians’.1226
THE FIRST WORLD WAR
and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
- Titel
- THE FIRST WORLD WAR
- Untertitel
- and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918
- Autor
- Manfried Rauchensteiner
- Verlag
- Böhlau Verlag
- Ort
- Wien
- Datum
- 2014
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-205-79588-9
- Abmessungen
- 17.0 x 24.0 cm
- Seiten
- 1192
- Kategorien
- Geschichte Vor 1918
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- 1 On the Eve 11
- 2 Two Million Men for the War 49
- 3 Bloody Sundays 81
- 4 Unleashing the War 117
- 5 ‘Thank God, this is the Great War!’ 157
- 6 Adjusting to a Longer War 197
- 7 The End of the Euphoria 239
- 8 The First Winter of the War 283
- 9 Under Surveillance 317
- 10 ‘The King of Italy has declared war on Me’ 355
- 11 The Third Front 383
- 12 Factory War and Domestic Front, 1915 413
- 13 Summer Battle and ‘Autumn Swine’ 441
- 14 War Aims and Central Europe 469
- 15 South Tyrol : The End of an Illusion (I) 497
- 16 Lutsk :The End of an Illusion (II) 521
- 17 How is a War Financed ? 555
- 18 The Nameless 583
- 19 The Death of the Old Emperor 607
- 20 Emperor Karl 641
- 21 The Writing on the Wall 657
- 22 The Consequences of the Russian February Revolution 691
- 23 Summer 1917 713
- 24 Kerensky Offensive and Peace Efforts 743
- 25 The Pyrrhic Victory : The Breakthrough Battle of Flitsch-Tolmein 769
- 26 Camps 803
- 27 Peace Feelers in the Shadow of Brest-Litovsk 845
- 28 The Inner Front 869
- 29 The June Battle in Veneto 895
- 30 An Empire Resigns 927
- 31 The Twilight Empire 955
- 32 The War becomes History 983
- Epilogue 1011
- Afterword 1013
- Acknowledgements and Dedication 1019
- Notes 1023
- Selected Printed Sources and Literature 1115
- Index of People and Places 1155