| Battle of the Piave River | |||||||
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| Part of theItalian Front (World War I) | |||||||
 Map of the Second Battle of the Piave River | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Italy United Kingdom France United States |  Austria-Hungary | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Armando Diaz | Arthur Arz von StraußenburgSvetozar BoroevićConrad von Hötzendorf | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 946,000 personnel[1] 6,833 artillery pieces | |||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 87,181:[2] 8,396 dead 30,603 wounded 48,182 captured | 118,042:[2] 11,643 dead 80,852 wounded 25,547 captured | ||||||
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TheSecond Battle of the Piave River (orBattle of the Solstice), fought between 15 and 23 June 1918, was a decisive victory[3][4] for theItalian Army against theAustro-Hungarian Empire duringWorld War I, as Italy was part of the Allied Forces, while Austria-Hungary was part of the Central Powers. Though the battle proved to be a decisive blow to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and by extension theCentral Powers, its full significance was not initially appreciated in Italy. YetErich Ludendorff, on hearing the news, is reported to have said he 'had the sensation of defeat for the first time'.[5] It would later become clear that the battle was in fact the beginning of the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.[6]
With theexit of Russia from the war in 1917,Austria-Hungary was now able to devote significant forces to theItalian Front and to receive reinforcements from theirGerman allies. The Austro-Hungarian emperorKarl reached an agreement with the Germans to undertake a new offensive against Italy, a move supported by both the chief of the general staffArthur Arz von Straußenburg and the commander of theSouth Tyrolean Army GroupConrad von Hötzendorf.[7] In the autumn of 1917, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians defeated the Italians at theBattle of Caporetto. After Caporetto, the Italians fell back to thePiave and were reinforced by sixFrench infantry divisions and fiveBritish infantry divisions as well as sizeable air contingents.
Italy's defeat at Caporetto led to GeneralLuigi Cadorna's dismissal and GeneralArmando Diaz's replacement of him asChief of Staff of the Italian Army. Diaz set up a strong defense line along thePiave. Up until this point in the war, the Italian army had been fighting alone against theCentral Powers; with the defeat at Caporetto,France andBritain sent reinforcements on the Italian front. These, besides accounting for less than a tenth of the Italian forces in theater, had however to be redirected for the major part to theWestern Front as soon as theGerman spring offensive began in March 1918.
The Austro-Hungarian Army had also recently undergone a change in command, and the new Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff,Arthur Arz von Straußenburg, wished to finish off the Italians. After Caporetto, the Austro-Hungarian offensive put many Italian cities, includingVenice andVerona, under the threat of the Central Powers. Austria-Hungary's army had since then longed to achieve these strategic prizes and force Italy into an armistice. Straußenburg'sarmy group commanders,Conrad von Hötzendorf (the former Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff) andSvetozar Boroević von Bojna, both wished to make a decisive assault against the Italians, but could not agree on where. Conrad wanted an attack from the South Tyrolean Alps[8] towards theAsiago Plateau andVicenza. Boroević first favored a defensive action, but then when pressed preferred a frontal attack along the Piave River.[8] Straußenburg himself was in favour of an attack on the western part of the front (the "Giudicarie" sector) leading toBrescia. Conrad and Boroević disliked each other, and Straußenburg and the emperor, unable to decide between these two strong personalities, divided the army equally between them, reserving only a small part of the forces for a diversionary action on the Giudicarie sector. The preparation of the offensive began in February 1918, after a meeting inBolzano between the Austro-Hungarian and German high commands. It was strongly recommended by the Germans, as Ludendorff hoped that it could force the increasing American forces in France to be diverted to the Italian front, so Straußenburg modeled the attack afterErich Ludendorff's offensive on theWestern Front.[citation needed]
The Austro-Hungarians, differently from their previous success atCaporetto and from the subsequent attempts to break through onMonte Grappa, did not prepare the attack as a pinpoint one, but as an all-out frontal attack, employing the entire residual strength of their army all along the front. The Austro-Hungarian formations were trained to employthe tactics developed by the Germans on the Western Front forOperation Michael, as Austro-Hungarian officers returning from theEastern Front were extensively trained alongside their German counterparts. There were also innovations on the Italian side. Analyzing the defeat of Caporetto, the staff of Armando Diaz concluded that the main tactical causes of it were the lack of mobility of Italian units, caught in a too rigid defensive scheme, the too centralizedcommand and control system, and the lack ofdepth of Italian defences, where too many soldiers were simply stuck on the frontline. The new schemes prepared for the battle led to the abolition of thecontinuous entrenchment and in the development of a highly mobile defence system, in which even the smaller units were allowed to freely move between previously recognizedstrongpoints, independently decide to retreat or counterattack, or directly call the support of the artillery. Moreover, 13 divisions, equipped with 6,000 trucks, were organized in a central reserve, ready to be sent where it was needed.
Conrad, who had been demoted from commander-in-chief after a series of disastrous failures in the Balkans and on the Eastern Front, continued in Italy the same patterns of poor planning—disregarding troop strength, terrain and weather conditions. He did, however, come to the realization that he needed more men, at least 15 infantry divisions and two of cavalry. Straussenburg and other commanders in Vienna, dealing with the consequences of nearly a million casualties from Conrad's earlier campaigns, denied his requests until early June.[9]
General Diaz learned the exact timing of the Austro-Hungarian attack: 3:00 a.m. on 15 June, so at 2:30 a.m., the Italian artillery opened fire all along their front on the crowded enemy trenches, inflicting heavy casualties. In some sectors theartillery barrage had the effect of delaying or stopping the attack, as Austro-Hungarian soldiers began to retreat to their defensive positions, believing they had to face an unexpected Italian attack, but on the greater part of the front the Austro-Hungarians still attacked as planned. Boroević launched the first assault, moving south along theAdriatic coast and in the middle course of the Piave River. The Austro-Hungarians were able to cross the Piave and gained a bridgehead 15 miles (24 km) wide and 5 miles (8 km) deep[8] in the face of Italian heavy resistance, before Boroević was finally stopped and forced to order a retreat. The Japanese writerHarukichi Shimoi recounts:
Thick bursts all around me, very close. I saw many who died and who were wounded. I will never forget those two days. A young soldier fell wounded; a piece of shrapnel had entered his right leg, another under the right eye and another in the right ear...[10]
On the subsequent days Boroević renewed the assault, but the artillery barrage destroyed many of the river's bridges; the Austro-Hungarian formations that had crossed the river were unable to receive reinforcement and supplies. To make matters worse, the swollen Piave isolated a great number of units on the west bank of the river, which made them an easy target for the Italian fire. It was reported that a large number of Austro-Hungarian soldiers drowned while trying to reach the east bank.[11] On 19 June, Diaz counterattacked and hitBoroević in the flank, inflicting heavy casualties.
In the meantime Conrad attacked along the Italian lines west of Boroević on theAsiago Plateau (on 15 June), with the objective of capturingVicenza. His forces gained some ground, but came upon stiff resistance from Italian units;[8] the front-line troops were stationed fromMount Zovetto and Mount Lemerle to the Tre Monti ("Three Mounts"). Mount Zovetto hosted both Italian and Scottish positions, connected by underground tunnels.[12] 40,000 casualties were added to the Austro-Hungarian total. In the aftermath, Boroević was particularly critical of the behavior of Conrad who, after the complete failure of the first attack, preferred to continue the assaults in the subsequent days but with diminished strength, rather than send reinforcements to the Piave sector.[8]
Lacking supplies and facing attacks by armored units, the Austro-Hungarians were ordered to retreat by Emperor Karl, who had taken personal command, on 20 June.[8] By 23 June, the Italians recaptured all lost territory on the southern bank of the Piave and the battle was over.
After the Austro-Hungarian retreat Diaz was pressed by the allies, particularly by GeneralFerdinand Foch, to press on and try an assault to break the Austro-Hungarian defences and gain a decisive victory over the Empire. However, the Italian General recognized that the same tactic, that proved so effective on defence, prevented an immediate offence, as the Italian formations at that time were too scattered and mixed up to be effectively coordinated in a decisive assault. Moreover, once the Italian Army crossed the river, they would have to face the same logistic problems as the Austrians. For these reasons, in the subsequent days, only limited actions were fought to gain better start positions for the decisive assault.
On the other side, the Battle of the Piave River was the last great military offensive of Austria-Hungary. A clear failure, the operation struck a major blow to the army's morale and cohesion and had political repercussions throughout war-weary Austria-Hungary.[13] The battle signaled the beginning of the end of the imperial-royal army as an effective fighting force and foretold the internal political collapse of the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was finished off at theBattle of Vittorio Veneto four months later.[14][15] The army offered stiff resistance for four days from 24 to 28 October during the Allied offensive but collapsed as word reached the troops of the Empire's disintegration at which point there was little point to continue resisting.
The battle also dealt a severe blow to the German Empire strategy, who considered a separate peace with Italy (and exploiting Italian resources in the affluentPo Valley) as a viable way to concentrate efforts in the western front to finally overcome the Allied forces. Ludendorff wrote:[16]
This unsuccessful attack was extremely painful. I could no longer hope that relief on the Western Front might be secured in Italy itself.
Conrad was dismissed from military service entirely on 15 July, as a result of the battle.[9]
Italy (Armando Diaz) (east to west)
In reserve:
Austria-Hungary (Arthur Arz von Straußenburg) (east to west)
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