page_title: Italian front (World War I)
section_title: 1917: Germany arrives on the front
hierarchical_section_title: Italian front (World War I) / History / 1917: Germany arrives on the front
caption_attribution_description: Map of the Italian Front, en:Battle of Caporetto.
context_page_description: The Italian front or Alpine front involved a series of battles at the border between Austria-Hungary and Italy, fought between 1915 and 1918 in the course of World War I. Following secret promises made by the Allies in the 1915 Treaty of London, Italy entered the war aiming to annex the Austrian Littoral, northern Dalmatia, and the territories of present-day Trentino and South Tyrol. Although Italy had hoped to gain the territories with a surprise offensive, the front soon bogged down into trench warfare, similar to that on the Western Front in France, but at high altitudes and with very cold winters. Fighting along the front displaced much of the local population, and several thousand civilians died from malnutrition and illness in Italian and Austrian refugee-camps. The Allied victory at Vittorio Veneto in November 1918, the disintegration of Austria-Hungary and the Italian capture of Trento, Bolzano and Trieste ended the military operations. Italy also refers to the Great War as the "Fourth War of Independence", which completed the last stage of Italian unification.
context_section_description: The Italians directed a two-pronged attack against the Austrian lines north and east of Gorizia. The Austrians checked the advance east, but Italian forces under Luigi Capello managed to break the Austrian lines and capture the Banjšice Plateau. Characteristic of nearly every other theater of the war, the Italians found themselves on the verge of victory but could not secure it because their supply lines could not keep up with the front-line troops and they were forced to withdraw. However, the Italians despite suffering heavy casualties had almost exhausted and defeated the Austro-Hungarian army on the front, forcing them to call in German help for the much anticipated Caporetto Offensive.
  The Austrians received desperately needed reinforcements after the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo from German Army soldiers rushed in after the Russian offensive ordered by Kerensky of July 1917 failed. The Germans introduced infiltration tactics to the Austrian front and helped work on a new offensive. Meanwhile, mutinies and plummeting morale crippled the Italian Army from within. The soldiers lived in poor conditions and engaged in attack after attack that often yielded minimal or no military gain.
  On 24 October 1917 the Austrians and Germans launched the Battle of Caporetto (Italian name for Kobarid). Chlorine-arsenic agent and diphosgene gas shells were fired as part of a huge artillery barrage, followed by infantry using infiltration tactics, bypassing enemy strong points and attacking on the Italian rear. At the end of the first day, the Italians had retreated 19 kilometres (12 miles) to the Tagliamento River.
  When the Austrian offensive routed the Italians, the new Italian chief of staff, Armando Diaz  ordered to stop their retreat and defend the fortified defenses around the Monte Grappa summit  between the Roncone and the Tomatico mountains; although numerically inferior (51,000 against 120,000) the Italian Army managed to halt the Austro-Hungarian and German armies in the First Battle of Monte Grappa.
caption: The Battle of Caporetto
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