Mark thompson the white war life and death 919 (v5 0)

The White War Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915–1919 MARK THOMPSON For Noel, George, and Sanja – in time and always Contents List of Illustrations List of Maps Note on Sources Introduction: ‘Italians! Go back!’ A Mania for Expansion ‘We Two Alone’ Free Spirits Cadorna’s Clenched Fist The Solemn Hour Strikes A Gift from Heaven Walls of Iron, Clouds of Fire Trento and Trieste! From Position to Attrition 10 The Dreaming Barbarian 11 Walking Shapes of Mud 12 Year Zero 13 A Necessary Holocaust? 14 The Return Blow 15 Victory’s Peak 16 Starlight from Violence 17 Whiteness 18 Forging Victory 19 Not Dying for the Fatherland 20 The Gospel of Energy 21 Into a Cauldron 22 Mystical Sadism 23 Another Second of Life 24 The Traitor of Carzano 25 Caporetto: The Flashing Sword of Vengeance 26 Resurrection 27 From Victory to Disaster 28 End of the Line Appendix: Free from the Alps to the Adriatic Bibliography Acknowledgements Index About the Author By the same author Copyright Illustrations Prime Minister Antonio Salandra Baron Sidney Sonnino Gabriele D’Annunzio (Archivio ‘Fotografie storiche della grande guerra’ della Biblioteca civica Villa Valle, Valdagno, image no 0087) Benito Mussolini in 1915 (Mary Evans Picture Library) General Cadorna visiting British batteries in spring 1917 (Museo Storico Italiano della Guerra, Rovereto, photo no 8/2892) Mount Mrzli (MSIG, 94/19) Austro-Hungarian troops on the Carso View from Mount San Michele to Friuli Trieste and its port in 1919 10 A farming family in Friuli 11 Approaching Gorizia 12 View from Mount San Michele to the River Isonzo 13 The relief 14 Mount Tofana and the Castelletto (MSIG, 121/45) 15 Italian second-line camp 16 The ‘road of heroes’ on Mount Pasubio (MSIG, 124/98) Infantry attack on the Carso, 1917 (Imperial War Museum, London, image no Q 115175) Boccioni’s ‘Unique Forms of Continuity in Space’ (1913) (Tate, London) Italian first line on the southern Carso, 1917 (IWM, HU 97058) Emperor Karl and General Boroević (By courtesy of Sergio Chersovani, Gorizia) Italian wounded below Mount San Gabriele Bosnian prisoners of war (IWM, HU 89218) Panoramic view of the Isonzo valley and Mount Krn (MSIG, 94/19a) Italian dead at Flitsch, 24 October 1917 (IWM, Q 23968) Third Army units retreating to the River Piave, early November 1917 (MSIG, 2/450) 10 Italian prisoners of war (IWM, Q 86136) 11 Italian cavalry crossing the River Monticano (MSIG, 107/240) 12 Entering Gorizia, November 1918 13 The Big Four in Paris, 1919 (Mary Evans Picture Library) 14 The Adriatic Sea, from the edge of the Carso Maps Territory promised to Italy by the Allies in April 1915 Front lines, 1915–18 The Carso and the Gorizia sector The Twelfth Battle (Caporetto), October–November 1917 The Battle of Vittorio Veneto, October–November 1918 Note on Sources References refer to the books from which the quotations have been taken as listed in the bibliography, and can be found at the end of each chapter INTRODUCTION ‘Italians! Go back!’ Some of the most savage fighting of the Great War happened on the front where Italy attacked the Austro-Hungarian Empire Around a million men died in battle, of wounds and disease or as prisoners Until the last campaign, the ratio of blood shed to territory gained was even worse than on the Western Front Imagine the flat or gently rolling horizon of Flanders tilting at 30 or 40 degrees, made of grey limestone that turns blinding white in summer At the top, Austrian machine guns are tucked behind rows of barbed wire and a parapet of stones At the bottom, Italians crouch in a shallow trench The few outsiders who witnessed this fighting believed that ‘Nobody who hasn’t seen it can guess what fighting is needed to go up slopes [like these].’ This front ran the length of the Italian–Austrian border, some 600 kilometres (almost 400 miles) from the Swiss border to the Adriatic Sea On the high Alpine sectors, the armies lived and fought in year-round whiteness As on other fronts, the armies were separated by a strip of no-man’s land Peering at a field cap bobbing above the enemy trench, an Italian soldier reflected on the conditions that made the carnage possible: We kill each other like this, coldly, because whatever does not touch the sphere of our own life does not exist … If I knew anything about that poor lad, if I could once hear him speak, if I could read the letters he carries in his breast, only then would killing him like this seem to be a crime If the anonymity was mutual, so was the peril Better than anyone in the world, the enemy who wants to kill you knows your anguish The deafening preliminary barrage, the inconceivable tension before ‘zero hour’, the pandemonium of no-man’s land: trench assaults did not vary much in the First World War Likewise, the patterns of collusion which made life more bearable between the battles – shooting high, staging fake raids, respecting tacit truces to fetch the wounded and bury the dead, even swapping visits and gifts Another kind of collusion was so rare that very few instances were recorded on any front It happened when defending units spontaneously stopped shooting during an attack and urged their enemy to return to their line On one occasion, the Austrian machine gunners were so effective that the second and third waves of Italian infantry could hardly clamber over the corpses of their comrades An Austrian captain shouted to his gunners, ‘What you want, to kill them all? Let them be.’ The Austrians stopped firing and called out: ‘Stop, go back! We won’t shoot any more Do you want everyone to die?’ Italian veterans described at least half a dozen such cases In an early battle, the infantry tore forward, scrambling over the broken ground, screaming and brandishing their rifles The Austrian trench was uncannily silent The Italian line broke and clotted as it moved up the slope until there were only groups of men hopping from the shelter of one rock to the next, ‘like toads’ Then a voice called from the enemy line: ‘Italians! Go back! We don’t want to massacre you!’ A lone Italian jumped up defiantly and was shot; the others turned and ran A few weeks earlier, in September 1915, the Austrians urged the survivors of an Italian company to stop fighting and go back to their own line, taking their wounded, or they would all die ‘You can see there is no escape!’ Eventually the Italians gave up, and the Austrians hurried down with stretchers and cigarettes The Italians gave them black feathers from their plumed hats and stars from their collars as souvenirs A year later, a Sardinian battalion attacked positions on the Asiago plateau where, unusually, no-man’s land sloped downhill towards the Austrians As the Italians stumbled over boulders, the enemy machine gunners had to keep adjusting their elevation; this saved the battalion from being wiped out As the survivors drew close to the enemy trench, an Austrian shouted in Italian: ‘That’s enough! Stop firing!’ Other Austrians looking over the parapet took up the cry When the shooting stopped, the first Austrian, who might have been a chaplain, called to the Italians: ‘You are brave men Don’t get yourselves killed like this.’ If there is any proof that such scenes were played out on other fronts, I have not found it A Turkish officer may have shouted to the Australians attacking The Nek in August 1915 during the Gallipoli campaign, telling them to go back Even if he did so, the Turkish machine gunners kept shooting and the Australians kept dying The following month, German machine gunners may eventually have stopped firing on Hill 70, in the Battle of Loos, when the British columns ‘offered such a target as had never been seen before, or even thought possible’ The incidents reported on the Italian front went further than this To take their measure, bear in mind that there was no shortage of hatred on this front, that soldiers could relish the killing here as much as elsewhere, the Austrians were outnumbered and fighting for their lives, and any officer or soldier caught assisting the enemy in this way would face a court martial These deterrents could be overcome only by the spectacle of a massacre so futile that pity and revulsion forced a recognition of oneself in the enemy, thwarting the habit of discipline and the reflex of self- interest Half a dozen cases over three years might not mean much if other fronts had thrown up examples of the same thing As it is, they suggest that courage, incompetence, fanaticism and topography combined on this front to create conditions unlike any others in the Great War, and extreme by any standard in history This is the story of those conditions Think of Italy: the clearest borders in mainland Europe From Sicily by the toe, past Naples and Rome, up to Florence and Genoa, that long limb looks like nothing else on the globe Further north, the situation is less distinct Above the basin of the River Po, Alpine foothills rise sharply in the west, more gradually to the east The eastern Alps not crown the peninsula tidily; they run parallel to the northern Adriatic shore, curving down to the sea after 200 kilometres The rivers rising on the south side of these ranges flow through foothills that drop a thousand metres to the coastal plain, some 60 kilometres from the sea Flying into Trieste airport on a clear day, you see the rivers’ stony courses like grey braids: the Piave in the distance, then the Livenza and the Tagliamento Closest of all, passing only a couple of kilometres from the runway, is the River Isonzo Rising in the easternmost Alps, the Isonzo follows geological faultlines, piling through gorges only a few metres wide, bisecting steep wooded ridges, then emerging near Gorizia Its lower course, strewn with rubble from the mountains, follows a wide curve to the sea The water threads the white detritus like a turquoise ribbon through a sleeve of bones In dry summers, the ribbon vanishes altogether East of Sei Busi, Mount, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Serra, Ettore, Sforza, Count Carlo, 1, 2, Sief, Mount, Siena Brigade, Slataper, Scipio, 1, 2, socialism, socialist, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 Soffici, Ardengo, Solstice, Battle of the, 1, 2n Sondhaus, Lawrence, Sonnino, Sidney: Albania forces, 1, 2; background, 1, 2, ; Cadorna relationship, 1, 2, 3, 4; character, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; fall, 1; Fiume issue, 1, 2, 3; foreign minister, 1, 2; intervention policy, 1, 2, 3; neutrality policy, 1; Orlando relationship, 1; PoW policy, 1; press policy, 1, 2; Slav policy, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; territorial demands, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; Treaty of London, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; on Trieste, 1; on war, 1; on Wilson’s Fourteen Points, Sorley, Charles Hamilton, Stallworthy, Jon, Stevens, Wallace, Strachan, Hew, Stuparich, Carlo, 1, Stuparich, Giani: account of war, 1, 2, 3; career, 1; Isonzo First Battle, 1; at Monfalcone, ; on Slataper, 1, 2; in Trentino, 1; on Trieste, Sugana valley: Austrian strategy, 1, 2, 3; Italian positions, 1, 2, 3; landscape, 1, Sun Tzu, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Svevo, Italo, 1, 2, 3n Tagliamento, River: Austrian retreat, 1; border proposal, 1; executions, 1; German strategy, 1, 2; Italian advance, 1; Italian campaign (1866), ; Italian defences, 1, 2; Italian positions, 1, 2; Italian retreat, 1; Italian strategy, 1; landscape, Tedaldi, Lieutenant Guido, Timavo, River, 1, Times, The, Timeus, Ruggero, Tito (Josip Broz), 1, Todero, Fabio, Tofana, Mount, 1, Tolmein (Tolmin): Austrian position, 1, 2; Austrian strategy, 1, 2, ; decimation of farmers, 1; German attack, 1, 2; Isonzo, 1n; Isonzo Eleventh Battle, ; Isonzo Twelfth Battle, 1, 2; Italian bombardment, 1, 2; Italian front, 1, ; Italian offensives, 1, 2; Italian strategy, 1, 2, ; landscape, 1; massacre, 1; Mrzli assault, ; strategic importance, 1, Toscanini, Arturo, 1n Trenker, Luis, Trentino, the: Austrian command, 1n; Austrian defences, 1, 2; Austrian forces, 1, 2, 3; Austrian position, ; Austrian rule, ; Austrian strategy, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10; Battisti’s activities, ; Cadorna’s visits, 1, 2; cost to Italy, 1; German forces, 1; German strategy, 1, 2, 3; Italian defences, 1, 2; Italian demands, 1, 2, 3; Italian forces, 1, 2, 3, 4; Italian position, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8; Italian strategy, 1, 2, 3; landscape, 1, 2; population, 1, 2, 3, 4; refugees, 1; territory, 1n, 2; Triple Alliance, 1; war reporting, Trento (Trent): border, 1; city, 1; D’Annunzio’s demands, 1; Italian feelings toward, 1, 2, 3; Italian liberation, 1; Italian moves toward, 1, 2; Italian strategy (1866), ; Italian strategy (WWI), 1, 2, ; leaders, 1; population, 1, 2; war aims, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; war cry, 1, 2, 3, Trevelyan, George, 1, Trieste: anti-Slav prejudice, 1; Austrian defences, 1, 2; Austrian forces (1866), 1; Austrian naval base, 1; city, 1, 2; Conrad’s life, 1, 2n; cost to Italy, 1; Crispi’s stance, 1; D’Annunzio’s demands, 1; demarcation around, 1; evacuation issue, 1; execution of Oberdan, 1; forces from, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; Garibaldi’s views, 1; German policy (1866), 1, 2; German policy (WWI), 1; Habsburg governor’s departure, 1; Italian advance, 1; Italian claims, 1, 2, 3; Italian feelings towards, 1, 2, 3; Italian government, 1, 2; Italian liberation, 1; Italian population, 1, 2, 3; Italian rule, 1; Italian strategy (1866), 1, 2, 3; Italian strategy (WWI), 1, 2, 3, 4, ; Italian volunteers, 1, 2, 3; King’s views, 1; landscape, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; Mazzini’s views, 1; novel set in, 1; population, 1; satirical rhyme, 1; Slataper, ; Sonnino’s demands, 1; Treaty of London, 1; war aims, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12; war cry, 1, 2, 3, 4, Triple Alliance (1882): Crispi’s policy, 1; end of, 1, 2; Italian views, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; signing, 1; terms, 1; violation, 1, 2n, Triska, Jan, 1, 2, 3, Turati, Filippo, 1, Türr, Stefania, 1n Tyrol: Austrian defences, 1, 2, 3, 4; Austrian strategy, 1; Garibaldi’s campaign, 1, 2; Garibaldi’s views, 1; Italian demands, 1; Italian strategy, 1; Trentino’s role, ; troops, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Tyrol, south: Austrian control, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; Austrian defences, 1, 2; Austrian offer, 1; Austrian strategy, 1; border, 1; Crispi’s policy, 1; French policy, 1; German policy, 1; German population, 1, 2, 3; Italian counter-offensive, 1; Italian demands, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12; Italian strategy, 1; King’s views, 1; Lloyd George’s view, 1; Treaty of London, 1; volunteers, 1; see also Alto Adige, Trentino Udine: Boroević’s HQ, 1; Brusati’s visit, 1; Cadorna’s HQ, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; communications from, 1; evacuees, 1; internees, 1; Italian national holidays, 1; Italian return, 1; landscape, 1; retreat through, 1; Supreme Command, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; War of 1866, 1, 2, 3, Ungaretti, Giuseppe: appearance, 1, 2; career, ; poems, 1, 2, 3; political views, ; Rebora comparison, ; on snow, 1; war service, 1, 2n Vallone, the, 1, 2, 3, 4, Valona (Vlorë), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Valparola Pass, Vatican, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Veneto (Venetia): Austrian forces, 1; Austrian strategy, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; Austrian threat, 1, 2; border, 1, 2, 3; defences, 1, 2, 3; French policy, 1, ; German policy, 1; internees, 1; Italian forces, 1, 2; Italian gain, 1, 2, 3, 4, ; Italian strategy, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; landscape, 1, 2; plebiscite, Venice: Austrian rule, 1; Austrian strategy, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; Cavour’s plans, 1; D’Annunzio in, 1, 2; defences, 1, 2, 3; Franz Josef’s visit, 1; Italian advance on, 1; Italian gain, 1, 2; Italian troop movements, 1, 2; Italian retreat, 1; Marinetti’s view of, 1; refugees, 1; Trieste relations, 1, Verdi, Giuseppe, 1, Verona Brigade, 1, Victor Emanuel II, King, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Victor Emanuel III, King: Aosta relationship, 1; appeal to Tsar, 1; appearance and character, 1, 2; Cadorna relationship, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; D’Annunzio relationship, 1, 2; Delmé-Radcliffe relationship, 1; Diaz appointment, 1, 2; Fiume issue, 1; at front, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; Gadda’s view of, 1; military role, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; Mussolini relationship, 1, 2; political views, 1; population of kingdom, 1; speech (23 May 1915), ; speech (8 November 1917), 1; WWI entry, 1, 2, 3, 4, Villesse, 1, 2n Viola, Colonel, Vipacco, River: Austrian defences, 1, 2, 3, 4; Austrian forces, 1, 2; Carso boundary, 1; Italian advance, 1; Italian defence concerns, 1; San Michele, 1, 2; winter weather, vitalism, 1, 2, Vittorio Veneto, Battle of, 1, 2, 3, Vivante, Angelo, 1, Voce, La, Vodice, Mount, Weber von Webenau, General Viktor, 1, Wells, H G., 1n, 2, 3, 4, Western Front: Allied troops from, 1; artillery, 1, 2, 3; Austrian forces, 1, 2, 3; bombardments, 1; Cadorna on, 1; creeping barrage, 1n; deadlock, 1; focus on, 1, 2, 3; German guns, 1; lessons of, 1, 2; Lloyd George’s policy, 1; military police, 1; mines, 1n; relieving pressure on, 1; Robertson on, 1; slaughter, 1, 2; trenches, Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Wilson, Woodrow: armistice negotiations, 1, 2, ; declarations of war, 1, 2, 3; Fourteen Points, 1, 2, 3; Paris peace conference, 1, 2, 3, 4; propaganda campaign, 1; speech to Italian Parliament, 1; war aims, 1, Woodhouse, John, Wurm, General Wenzel, Yeats, W B., Yugoslav Committee, Zara, 1, 2, 3, 4, Zeidler, General Erwin: fortifications, ; at Gorizia, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; troops, 1, 2, Zincone, Brigadier, Zita, Empress of Austria, Zuccari, General Luigi, Zupelli, General Vittorio, 1, 2, Author biography Mark Thompson was born in Sheffield and lives in Oxford He is the author of A Paper House and Forging War, the first book a much-praised account of the fall of Yugoslavia and the second a study of the media's role in stirring up war fever in the Balkans Forging War was chosen as a Book of the Year in the Guardian and Observer He worked for the UN in Croatia for much of the 1990s by the same author A PAPER HOUSE: THE ENDING OF YUGOSLAVIA FORGING WAR: THE MEDIA IN SERBIA, CROATIA, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA Copyright First published in 2008 by Faber and Faber Limited Queen Square London WC1N 3AU This ebook edition first published in 2009 All rights reserved © Mark Thompson, 2008 Maps © András Bereznay, 2008 The right of Mark Thompson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 ISBN 978—0—571—25008—0 [epub edition] This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly .. .The White War Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915– 1919 MARK THOMPSON For Noel, George, and Sanja – in time and always Contents List of Illustrations... braids: the Piave in the distance, then the Livenza and the Tagliamento Closest of all, passing only a couple of kilometres from the runway, is the River Isonzo Rising in the easternmost Alps, the. .. summers, the ribbon vanishes altogether East of the river and the airport, a ridge of high ground rises ‘like a great wall above the plains of Friuli’ This is the Carso plateau, and it marks the edge