The October episode of the digital calendar focuses on the Battle of Caporetto, which was carefully prepared by the Austro-Hungarian army.
Giuliano Casagrande analyzes the military aspects of the battle in detail and explains their consequences.
The Austro-Hungarian army, with support from German forces, broke into the Italian front on the Isonzo river forcing the Italian army, led by General Cadorna, to retreat, and bringing it on the verge of defeat.
The photo gallery provides further information on the events, with pictures taken by victorious Austro-Hungarian soldiers that capture the huge Italian defeat and the Austro-Hungarian progress into Friuli.
The panel depicts General Cadorna facing a firing squad composed of Italian soldiers.
Cadorna interpreted the defeat (refusing to take responsibility for it) as a “military strike” set up by the Socialists and the Pope.
In the testimonies section you can find a series of documents from the back of the front line on the Karst, some two-hundred km more to the west compared with where it was before Caporetto. Moments of relative quiet and rest in the trenches.
The infographic examines a little-known aspect of the war, that is the mass displacement of civilians due to military operations; hundreds of thousands of people abandoned Friuli and Veneto after the Battle of Caporetto looking for a safe shelter behind the Piave frontline.
The biographical section offers a portrait of General Luigi Capello, Commander of the II Army. He is considered among those responsible for the Caporetto defeat because of his inclination to attack rather than to defend and because his troops were totally unprepared to counter an Austro-German offensive despite the clear signs that an attack was being prepared.
Follow the calendar of the Great War on Facebook (La Grande Guerra più 100) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/GGpiu100).
Since May 2015 all website contents are available in English, with special in-depth content from historians from the universities of Innsbruck, Krakow and Montpellier, to learn about the other war fronts.
Follow the calendar month by month