Author: John Macdonald Publisher: Pen and Sword ISBN: 1781599300 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
This illustrated WWI history sheds light on a major campaign fought along the significant yet often neglected Italian Front. From 1915 to 1917 the armies of Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were locked in a series of battles along the River Isonzo, a sixty-mile front from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea. The campaigns were fought in unforgiving terrain, with casualty counts that exceeded those of the Great War’s more famous battles. The twelfth and final battle, Caporetto, was a major victory for the Central Powers as they broke through the Italian Front. Historian John Macdonald chronicles the Isonzo battles with vivid descriptions of the battlefields and of the atrocious conditions in which the soldiers fought. The text is supported by a selection of original photographs that record the terrible reality of the conflict. The intervention of British, French and German troops is covered, as are the parts played by famous individuals, including Erwin Rommel, Benito Mussolini, Pietro Badoglio and Luigi Cadorna, the notorious Italian commander in chief. Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign examines an aspect of the First World War that was pivotal in the history of Italy, Austria and the Balkans.
Author: John MacDonald Publisher: ISBN: 9780369361639 Category : Languages : en Pages : 342
Book Description
 From May 1915 to October 1917 the armies of Italy and the Austro - Hungarian empire were locked into a series of twelve battlesalong the River Isonzo, a sixty - mile front from the Alps to the Adriatic. The campaign was fought in the most appalling terrain forcombat, with horrendous casualties on both sides, often exceeding those of the more famous battles of the Great War. The twelfth and final battle, Caporetto, resulted in a devastating defeat for Italy and led to one of the greatest breakthroughs achieved during the entire conflict. Yet this massive struggle is too often neglected in histories of the war which focus on the fighting on the Western and Eastern Fronts. John Macdonald, in this accessible and highly illustrated account, aims to set the record straight. His description of theIsonzo battles, of the battlefields and of the atrocious conditions in which the soldiers lived and fought is supported by a graphicselection of original photographs that record the terrible reality of the conflict.The impact of the intervention of British, French and German troops is covered, as are the parts played by famous individuals - among them Rommel, Mussolini, Badoglio and Cadorna, the notorious Italian commander in chief. But it is the front - line experience of the common soldiers on both sides that is most powerfully portrayed.Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign gives a fascinating insight into a conflict that was a pivotal moment in the history of Italy, Austria and the Balkans.
Author: Zeljko Cimpric Publisher: ReadHowYouWant ISBN: 9781459688025 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 265
Book Description
From May 1915 to October 1917 the armies of Italy and the Austro - Hungarian empire were locked into a series of twelve battlesalong the River Isonzo, a sixty - mile front from the Alps to the Adriatic. The campaign was fought in the most appalling terrain forcombat, with horrendous casualties on both sides, often exceeding those of the more famous battles of the Great War. The twelfth and final battle, Caporetto, resulted in a devastating defeat for Italy and led to one of the greatest breakthroughs achieved during the entire conflict. Yet this massive struggle is too often neglected in histories of the war which focus on the fighting on the Western and Eastern Fronts. John Macdonald, in this accessible and highly illustrated account, aims to set the record straight. His description of theIsonzo battles, of the battlefields and of the atrocious conditions in which the soldiers lived and fought is supported by a graphicselection of original photographs that record the terrible reality of the conflict.The impact of the intervention of British, French and German troops is covered, as are the parts played by famous individuals - among them Rommel, Mussolini, Badoglio and Cadorna, the notorious Italian commander in chief. But it is the front - line experience of the common soldiers on both sides that is most powerfully portrayed.Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign gives a fascinating insight into a conflict that was a pivotal moment in the history of Italy, Austria and the Balkans.
Author: Mario Morselli Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1136333363 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 192
Book Description
This work concerns the Battle of Caporetto in October 1917, where the Austro-German Army broke through the Italian lines forcing them to retreat after losing half their force. The book examines why, having routed the Italian Army, the Central Alliance forces were not capable of forcing the surrender of Italy.
Author: Mark Thompson Publisher: Faber & Faber ISBN: 0571250084 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 475
Book Description
In May 1915, Italy declared war on the Habsburg Empire, hoping to seize its 'lost' territories of Trieste and Tyrol. The result was one of the most hopeless and senseless modern wars - and one that inspired great cruelty and destruction. Nearly three-quarters of a million Italians - and half as many Austro-Hungarian troops - were killed. Most of the deaths occurred on the bare grey hills north of Trieste, and in the snows of the Dolomite Alps. Outsiders who witnessed these battles were awestruck by the difficulty of attacking on such terrain. General Luigi Cadorna, most ruthless of all the Great War commanders, restored the Roman practice of 'decimation', executing random members of units that retreated or rebelled. Italy sank into chaos and, eventually, fascism. Its liberal traditions did not recover for a quarter of a century - some would say they have never recovered. Mark Thompson relates this nearly incredible saga with great skill and pathos. Much more than a history of terrible violence, the book tells the whole story of the war: the nationalist frenzy that led up to it, the decisions that shaped it, the poetry it inspired, its haunting landscapes and political intrigues; the personalities of its statesmen and generals; and also the experience of ordinary soldiers - among them some of modern Italy's greatest writers. A work of epic scale, The White War does full justice to one of the most remarkable untold stories of the First World War.
Author: Emilio Lussu Publisher: Rizzoli Publications ISBN: 0847842797 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 278
Book Description
A rediscovered Italian masterpiece chronicling the author's experience as an infantryman, newly translated and reissued to commemorate the centennial of World War I. Taking its place alongside works by Ernst JŸnger, Robert Graves, and Erich Maria Remarque, Emilio Lussu's memoir is one of the most affecting accounts to come out of the First World War. A classic in Italy but virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, it reveals, in spare and detached prose, the almost farcical side of the war as seen by a Sardinian officer fighting the Austrian army on the Asiago plateau in northeastern Italy, the alpine front so poignantly evoked by Ernest Hemingway in A Farewell to Arms. For Lussu, June 1916 to July 1917 was a year of continuous assaults on impregnable trenches, absurd missions concocted by commanders full of patriotic rhetoric and vanity but lacking in tactical skill, and episodes often tragic and sometimes grotesque, where the incompetence of his own side was as dangerous as the attacks waged by the enemy. A rare firsthand account of the Italian front, Lussu's memoir succeeds in staging a fierce indictment of the futility of war in a dry, often ironic style that sets his tale wholly apart from the Western Front of Remarque and adds an astonishingly modern voice to the literature of the Great War.
Author: John R. Schindler Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 0313075662 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 435
Book Description
This is the first account in English of a much-overlooked, but important, First World War battlefront located in the mountains astride the border between Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Not well known in the West, the battles of Isonzo were nevertheless ferocious, and compiled a record of bloodletting that totaled over 1.75 million for both sides. In sharp contrast to claims that neither the Italian nor the Austrian armies were viable fighting forces, Schindler aims to bring the terrible sacrifices endured by both armies back to their rightful place in the history of 20th century Europe. The Habsburg Empire, he contends, lost the war for military and economic reasons rather than for political or ethnic ones. Schindler's account includes references to remarkable personalities such as Mussolini; Tito; Hemingway; Rommel, and the great maestro Toscanini. This Alpine war had profound historical consequences that included the creation of the Yugoslav state, the problem of a rump Austrian state looking to Germany for leadership, and the traumatic effects on a generation of young Italian men who swelled the ranks of the fascists. After nearly a century, Isonzo can assume its proper place in the ranks of the tragic Great War clashes, alongside Verdun, the Somme, and Passchendaele.
Author: John Gooch Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 0521193079 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 401
Book Description
A major new account of the role and performance of the Italian army in the First World War. Setting military events in a broad context, Gooch explores pre-war Italian military culture, and reveals how an army with a reputation for failure fought a challenging war in appalling conditions - and won.
Author: John Macdonald
Author: John MacDonald
Author: Zeljko Cimpric
Author: Mario Morselli
Author: 
Author: Mark Thompson
Author: Emilio Lussu
Author: John R. Schindler
Author: Alessandro Gualtieri
Author: John Gooch