{
 "slug": "caporetto",
 "title": "Battle of Caporetto",
 "status": "draft",
 "era": "1900–1918",
 "date_text": "24 October – 19 November 1917",
 "start": "1917-10-24",
 "end": "1917-11-19",
 "war": "World War I",
 "cdb90_war": "WORLD WAR I",
 "place": {
  "name": "Upper Isonzo (Soča) valley between Plezzo (Bovec) and Tolmino (Tolmin), around Caporetto (Kobarid, Karfreit), Austrian Littoral (now Slovenia); the retreat ran across Friuli to the Piave",
  "lat": 46.2144,
  "lon": 13.6425,
  "wikidata": "Q242644"
 },
 "lede": "On 24 October 1917 an Austro-German army broke the Italian front on the upper Isonzo with gas, surprise and infiltration, and drove the Italians back to the Piave. It remains the worst defeat in Italian military history, and the source of a byword for disaster.",
 "result": "Decisive Austro-German victory; Italian retreat to the Piave",
 "result_cdb90": "attacker win",
 "belligerents": [
  {
   "role": "attacker",
   "name": "Austro-German Fourteenth Army, with Army Group Boroević",
   "commanders": [
    "Otto von Below (Fourteenth Army)",
    "Konrad Krafft von Dellmensingen (chief of staff)",
    "Svetozar Boroević (army group on the lower Isonzo)",
    "Archduke Eugen",
    "Alfred Krauss (I Austro-Hungarian Corps)",
    "Hermann von Stein (III Bavarian Corps)"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 353000,
    "low": 353000,
    "high": 353000,
    "source": "s2"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 50000,
    "low": 50000,
    "high": 70000,
    "source": "s3"
   }
  },
  {
   "role": "defender",
   "name": "Italian Second Army, with the Third and Fourth Armies in the retreat",
   "commanders": [
    "Luigi Cadorna (chief of staff, until 8 November)",
    "Armando Diaz (from 8 November)",
    "Luigi Capello (Second Army)",
    "Pietro Badoglio (XXVII Corps)",
    "Alberto Cavaciocchi (IV Corps)"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 667000,
    "low": 667000,
    "high": 667000,
    "source": "s2"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 305000,
    "low": 300000,
    "high": 340000,
    "source": "s1"
   }
  }
 ],
 "sections": {
  "background": "By the autumn of 1917 Italy had fought eleven battles on the Isonzo. In the Eleventh, in August, Cadorna's armies took the Bainsizza plateau, and the Austro-Hungarian command concluded that it could not hold another such attack. Emperor Karl asked Germany for help. The Germans had treated Italy as a sideshow and at first refused, but the prospect of an Austro-Hungarian collapse changed their minds. Sources disagree over whether Ludendorff drove the decision or was overruled on it.\n\nThe Germans sent Lieutenant-General Konrad Krafft von Dellmensingen, a mountain-warfare specialist, to reconnoitre, and a team including the chemist Otto Hahn to find a site for a gas attack. They chose the quiet sector around Caporetto, where a good road ran west down a mountain valley towards the Venetian plain. A new Fourteenth Army of Austro-Hungarian and German divisions was formed under Otto von Below, with Krafft as his chief of staff. Its German divisions came largely from the Riga front. The plan was to break through between Plezzo and Tolmino, then strike down the valleys to Cividale and the upper Tagliamento, while Boroević's armies attacked on the lower Isonzo.\n\nCadorna had reports of the build-up from deserters and air reconnaissance. In mid-September he called off his own attacks, and on 18 September he ordered a defensive stance. The orders were vague and were not enforced. Capello, commanding the Second Army, kept his troops forward for a counter-offensive. The attack was set for 22 October. Bad weather and unready Austro-Hungarian artillery put it back two days.",
  "forces": "Below's Fourteenth Army had about nine Austro-Hungarian and six German divisions, by the usual count; one source says up to eight German. In the north, Krauss's I Austro-Hungarian Corps held the line from Monte Rombon to Monte Nero, with the Edelweiss Division and the 22nd Schützen Division. Stein's III Bavarian Corps held from Monte Nero to Mengore, with Lequis's Silesian 12th Division on the valley floor. The Alpenkorps and the 200th Division faced the Kolovrat ridge, and the Württemberg Mountain Battalion was attached to the Alpenkorps. Kosak's 2nd Isonzo Army stood further south. Boroević's army group, holding the lower Isonzo, was to join the attack there.\n\nThe method mattered more than the numbers. The bombardment was short and violent, aimed at cutting communications rather than flattening the trenches. Picked assault units carried the new MG 08/15 light machine gun, light trench mortars, mountain guns, flamethrowers and grenades. They advanced in small, independent groups, bypassed strongpoints and pushed deep into the rear. The sources credit this infiltration as the decisive element.\n\nThe Italian Second Army was weak where the blow fell. Cavaciocchi's IV Corps held from Plezzo to Gabria and Badoglio's XXVII Corps the ground south of Tolmino. A weak VII Corps had been hurriedly placed between them. Capello was ill with fever. Italian gas masks were good for two hours or less, and troops were worn out and embittered by Cadorna's harsh discipline.",
  "course": "**The gas attack at Plezzo, 24 October.** At 02:00, near Plezzo (Bovec), 894 gas projectors dug into a reverse slope were fired electrically. Their canisters of chlorine-arsenic agent and diphosgene filled the Italian trenches with gas, and 500–600 defenders were killed. Elsewhere, gas and high-explosive shells fell on Italian positions and communications. The morning was windless and foggy, and a snowstorm on Monte Vrata delayed one attack there by an hour and a half. Mortars opened at 06:00, about 2,200 guns at 06:41, and at 08:00 two mines blew up strongpoints and the infantry went in. In Krauss's sector the Edelweiss Division was held at first by the Alpini on Rombon. The 22nd Schützen crossed the gassed ground, advanced about 5 km and stopped in front of the Italian 50th Division at the Saga narrows.\n\n**Down the valley from Tolmino.** The decisive thrust came from Lequis's 12th Division. It moved up the floor of the Isonzo valley, largely unseen from the Italian positions on the heights, and broke through between IV and XXVII Corps. It was at Idersko by 10:30, Caporetto five hours later, Staro Selo by 18:00 and Robič by 22:30. Some units advanced 25 km in the day. On hearing that Caporetto had fallen, the Italian commander at Saga withdrew at 18:00, and troops on Monte Nero were cut off. To the south the Alpenkorps took Na Gradu-Klabuk at 17:30 and the 200th Division the Jeza by 18:00. The flank attacks did less well, and Kosak's group on the Bainsizza stalled. The Italian Supreme Command learned of the break only in the afternoon.\n\n**Kolovrat and Matajur, 25–26 October.** The attackers now cleared the ridges above the valleys. On the Kolovrat the Württemberg Mountain Battalion overran the Arno Brigade. Lieutenant Erwin Rommel led one of its three detachments, given as 150 or 500 men. His men climbed the slopes, took hundreds of surprised Italians and seized Monte Nagnoj, then went on to Monte Matajur. The Salerno Brigade there was caught in confusion over a withdrawal order, surrounded and surrendered. By Rommel's count, his detachment took about 9,000 prisoners and 81 guns for six dead and 30 wounded. This tally rests largely on his own account, *Infanterie greift an* (1937), which reviewers call occasionally self-serving. Credit for Matajur was first given to an officer of another unit, and Rommel complained before he received the Pour le Mérite.\n\n**To the Tagliamento, 27 October–4 November.** Cadorna's communiqué blamed the 'feeble resistance' of Second Army detachments. Cadorna ordered a retreat to the Tagliamento; sources date the order between the night of 26–27 October and 30 October. Cividale fell on 27 October and Udine on 28 October. The crossing took four days, and rearguards fought at Pozzuolo and Ragogna. On 2–3 November Austro-Hungarian troops crossed at Cornino, and Cadorna ordered the retreat to the Piave.\n\n**To the Piave, 5–19 November.** Below pushed hard to trap the retreating columns. At Longarone on 9 November, in an action Rommel also took part in, about 10,000 men and 94 guns of the Fourth Army were captured. But the attackers' supply lines were failing, and most Italian units reached the Piave and Monte Grappa, the last on 12 November. Attacks on the new line from mid-November were held. The battle is usually ended on 19 November.",
  "aftermath": "Italy lost about 300,000–340,000 men, the great majority of them prisoners, and 3,152 of its 6,918 guns. Hundreds of thousands more soldiers were separated from their units and drifted west before regrouping on the Piave. The attackers lost perhaps 50,000–70,000. The Italian army's effective strength fell from about 1.8 million to 1 million, and civilians fled the occupied provinces in huge numbers.\n\nThe Boselli government fell, and Orlando became prime minister on 30 October. At Rapallo on 5–7 November the Allies agreed to form a Supreme War Council, and six French and five British divisions were sent to Italy, though they saw no fighting in the battle. Cadorna's communiqué blaming his own troops became notorious. He was replaced by Armando Diaz on 8 November, with Badoglio, whose corps had been broken on the first day, as one of his deputies. When the decision to remove him was taken is disputed. A commission of inquiry reported in 1919, and Badoglio escaped its charges.\n\nThe line held. Under Diaz the army was rebuilt, held the Austrian offensive on the Piave in June 1918, and broke the Austro-Hungarian army at Vittorio Veneto a year after Caporetto. In Italian, 'Caporetto' still means a crushing defeat. Historians still argue over how far the collapse was a failure of command and how far a failure of morale. Abroad, the battle is remembered as a showcase of infiltration tactics and the first making of Rommel's name.",
  "wargaming": "Caporetto works at two very different scales. The breakthrough suits a tactical or grand-tactical game at company or battalion level, with turns of an hour or two. The key is the terrain: the valley floor from Tolmino to Caporetto against the ridges above it, Monte Nero, the Kolovrat and Matajur. The pursuit suits an operational game at division level, with daily turns on a map running from the Isonzo to the Piave, where the bridges over the Tagliamento are the prizes.\n\nThe interesting rules are about command and information. Italian units should start with communications cut, react slowly and be liable to break or surrender once outflanked, rather than fighting to the last. Fog, gas and the Saga withdrawal reward an attacker who keeps moving. Rommel's actions make a fine small-unit scenario on the Kolovrat, but a designer working from his own account should temper his results.\n\nThe what-ifs: Capello's request to fall back to the Tagliamento is granted on the first day; the reserves are placed in the valleys, not forward for a counter-offensive; the Fourteenth Army has the transport to reach the Tagliamento bridges before the Italians cross; or Boroević breaks through on the lower Isonzo, trapping the Third Army against the sea."
 },
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 "sources": [
  {
   "id": "s1",
   "title": "Battle of Caporetto",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Caporetto",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s2",
   "title": "Battaglia di Caporetto (Italian Wikipedia)",
   "url": "https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battaglia_di_Caporetto",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s3",
   "title": "Anna Grillini, 'Caporetto, Battle of', 1914-1918-online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War (2015)",
   "url": "https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/caporetto_battle_of",
   "kind": "article"
  },
  {
   "id": "s4",
   "title": "Michael Duffy, 'The Battle of Caporetto, 1917', FirstWorldWar.com (2009, archived)",
   "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20260323190036/https://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/caporetto.htm",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s5",
   "title": "Luigi Cadorna, official communiqué of 28 October 1917, in Source Records of the Great War, vol. V, ed. Charles F. Horne (1923), via FirstWorldWar.com",
   "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20250421083432/https://www.firstworldwar.com/source/caporetto_cadorna.htm",
   "kind": "primary"
  },
  {
   "id": "s6",
   "title": "J. Rickard, 'Battle of Caporetto, 24 October–12 November 1917', HistoryOfWar.org (2001)",
   "url": "https://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_caporetto.html",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s7",
   "title": "Erwin Rommel",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel",
   "kind": "web"
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   "id": "s8",
   "title": "Erwin Rommel (German Wikipedia)",
   "url": "https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s9",
   "title": "Harold E. Raugh Jr., review of John and Eileen Wilks, Rommel and Caporetto (Leo Cooper/Pen & Sword), Warfare History Network",
   "url": "https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/?p=96648",
   "kind": "article"
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  {
   "id": "s10",
   "title": "Mario Silvestri, Caporetto: una battaglia e un enigma (Mondadori, 1984; BUR, 2006)",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
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  {
   "id": "s11",
   "title": "Spencer C. Tucker and Priscilla Mary Roberts, World War I: A Student Encyclopedia (ABC-CLIO, 2005)",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
  },
  {
   "id": "s12",
   "title": "Micheal Clodfelter, Warfare and Armed Conflicts, 4th ed. (McFarland, 2017)",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
  },
  {
   "id": "s13",
   "title": "David Stevenson, 1917: War, Peace, and Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2017)",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
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  {
   "id": "s14",
   "title": "Erwin Rommel, Infanterie greift an (Voggenreiter, Potsdam, 1937)",
   "url": null,
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   "licence": "Public domain",
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   "file": "File:2. gorski strelski polk koraka čez reko Tilment.jpg",
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   "caption": "Avstro-ogrske predstraže ob 12. soški bitki proti Italiji",
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   "file": "File:Bitwa pod Caporetto (22-497).jpg",
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   "caption": "Żołnierze austro-węgierscy na przedmieściach Wenecji",
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   "caption": "captured italian artillery pieces 1917",
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   "caption": "Austria-hungarian soldiers and Italian POW, battle of Caporetto",
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   "file": "File:Zaplenjeni italijanski topovi po preboju soške fronte (1).jpg",
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 "photos_kind": "photographs",
 "newspapers": {
  "slug": "caporetto",
  "query": "Isonzo",
  "from": "1917-10-24",
  "to": "1917-12-03",
  "total": 1244,
  "rights": "Library of Congress, Chronicling America: newspapers published before 1931, in the public domain. Text machine-read from the scanned page.",
  "pages": [
   {
    "date": "1917-10-25",
    "paper": "Douglas daily international (Douglas, Ariz.)",
    "place": "Douglas, Arizona",
    "url": "https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn95060770/1917-10-25/ed-1/?sp=1",
    "snippet": "... OF THE ENEMY ON THE [[tag]]ISONZO[[/tag]] FRONT; LOSE 6,000 General Cadorna’s skill and strategy, which made possible the capture of the heights on the eastern bank of [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]], is being put to the test by a strong Austro- German offensive on the front from Flitsch to Bainsizza Plateau, northeast of Morizian. Austria’s army could do little against the Italians who were pressing forward steadily and breaking the morale of the Austrian army. Uhiapavano valley already had been entered and soon the Austrian forces would have been cut in two. Triest was threatened seriously and Pola, the great Austrian port was in danger. Italian efforts were having their effect. Germany, which up to this time has ..."
   },
   {
    "date": "1917-10-26",
    "paper": "The Seward gateway and the Alaska evening post (Seward, Alaska)",
    "place": "Seward, Alaska",
    "url": "https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn87062015/1917-10-26/ed-1/?sp=1",
    "snippet": "... that the Austro-Germans on the [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]] front alone, have captured over 30,000 Italian pris oners. Three hundred guns have en taken in the terrific attacks that have hei i lai a n the Itali ans during the past twenty-four hours. ITALIANS WITHDRAWING ON PLATEAU VIENNA, Oct. 26.—Under the Austro-German lues sure on the [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]] front, the Italians are withdrawing to the border of the sector and are said to be preparing for the evacuation of the Bainsizzia Plateau upon which there iias been so much hard lighting for the past six weeks. The Austro-German forces today began using air craft in their attacks upon the Italians. f ROME ADMITS TROOPS BEING WITHDRAWN ROME, Oct. 26."
   },
   {
    "date": "1917-10-26",
    "paper": "The sun (New York [N.Y.])",
    "place": "New York, New York",
    "url": "https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030431/1917-10-26/ed-1/?sp=1",
    "snippet": "... against the Italians on the [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]], but it is not clear that they have won as much as they claim. Rome admits no great loss. It is certain that the battlt south of Tolmino. which has passed to the west bank of the [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]]. is still raging and that the Italians are making the most desperate re sistance to the German advance. GERMANS USING 20 DIVISIONS IN DRIVE AGAINST ITALIANS I.ONPOV, Vt. 2.\";. The tremendous v...,,,,r .v.. w .-..i prrnani against the Italians on the Isoimo front Is now becoming apparent. Many Herman divisions have recently i appeared on the. twenty-live mile line from Tolmino to the Oarso and It Is known that there are ..."
   },
   {
    "date": "1917-10-27",
    "paper": "The Fargo forum and daily republican (Fargo, N.D.)",
    "place": "Fargo, North Dakota",
    "url": "https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn85042224/1917-10-27/ed-1/?sp=1",
    "snippet": "... the Italian forces on the [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]]. The latest Teuton effort has not yet pro gressed far enough, however, to be called dangerous to the future sue cees of the allied arms. General Cadorna's men were overwhelmed seemingly by the massed blow of reinforced Austrian divisions under the command, It is Marshal von Mackensen, the keader of two very sue* cessful offensives against the Russians. The Italian leader probably con sidered it better to withdraw his battered soldiers from the sharp curve in the [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]] northwest and southwest of Tolmino, to a line from Monte Maggiore to Auzza than to attempt to hold the Austro-German» where, if they were able to continue their successes, the whole ..."
   },
   {
    "date": "1917-10-29",
    "paper": "The daily banner (Cambridge, Md.)",
    "place": "Cambridge, Maryland",
    "url": "https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn88065731/1917-10-29/ed-1/?sp=4",
    "snippet": "... Italians have retired across the! [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]]. The German official statement says/ j “Rapid development of the nnitec j attack on the [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]] again broughtj entire success. The Italian forces which sought to prevent our divisions! from emerging from the mountains i were thrown back by powerful thrusts In tite evening German troops forced their way into the burning town ol Cividale. the first town fn pcint ol i position in the plain. “The Italian front as far as the Adri i atic Sea is wavering. Our troops arf pressing forward on the whole line Gorizia. the much-disputed town in the [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]] battles, was taken early in the I morning by Austro-Hungarian dlvis ’.ons. “The number ..."
   },
   {
    "date": "1917-10-30",
    "paper": "The Chitina leader (Chitina, Alaska)",
    "place": "Chitina, Alaska",
    "url": "https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn95060001/1917-10-30/ed-1/?sp=1",
    "snippet": "... Austro German pressure on the [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]] front the Italians have withdrawn to the border in one sector and are preparing for the evacuation of Bainsizza pla teau, so it is officially announced. BERLIN. Oct. 26. The Austro Germans on the [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]] front have cap tured more than 30,000 prisoners and 300 guns. Your eyes fitted. Compound and astigmatic lenses replaced. See Os borne. NIVAL BASE AI t (By Associated Press) PETROGRAD, Oct. 26. The civil population is evacuating the naval base at Kronstadt. which is probably a military measure. The civil popula tion is also moving from Petrograd, from which city the seat of govern ment will be moved to Moscow. (m 55] Cm Tr ..."
   },
   {
    "date": "1917-11-01",
    "paper": "The Brookings register (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.)",
    "place": "Brookings, South Dakota",
    "url": "https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn85042792/1917-11-01/ed-1/?sp=2",
    "snippet": "Austro-German armies on [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]] front are fast developing their offen sive against General Cadorna’s forces. Already Italians on northern wing of the front have been forced back at several places across [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]] north and south of Tolmlno, where the battle Is W’aglng on Italian territory. To south situation of Italians ad mittedly is precarious. Even Italian war office announces that evacuation of the Balnsizza-Heiligem ist plateau is necessary -a retirement vluch will render null in a great measure bril liant advance of Italians in the sum mer campaign. Combined German and .Austro Hun garian forces up to present are de clared by the Berlin war office to have captured in excess of 30.000 ..."
   },
   {
    "date": "1917-11-02",
    "paper": "Highland recorder (Monterey, Highland County, Va.)",
    "place": "Monterey, Virginia",
    "url": "https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn95079246/1917-11-02/ed-1/?sp=2",
    "snippet": "... in the Tyrolian, Carnia and [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]] regions. German artillery took part in the artillery battle, and German and Austro-Hungarian infan irymen captured the foremost Italian positions near Flitch and Tolmino and In the northern portion of the Bain sizza plateau.\" The ^vening statement only says: \"On the Italian front the combined attacking operations are taking their intended course. Up to the present some thousands of prisoners have been reported.\" A front of more than twenty miles is represented by -this Teutonic blow. Flitch is about 12 miles north of Tol mino. It is near the headwaters of the [[tag]]Isonzo[[/tag]] and on the main road which leads to Udine, the Italian headquarters. It was announced from ..."
   }
  ]
 }
}