Battle of the Piave River The Battle of the Piave River , fought between 15 and 23 June 1918 , was a decisive victory for the Italian Army during World War I . Background . With the exit of Russia from the war in 1917 , Austria - Hungary was now able to devote significant forces to the Italian Front and to receive reinforcements from their German allies . The Austro - Hungarian emperor Karl had reached an agreement with the Germans to undertake a new offensive against Italy , a move supported by both the chief of the general staff Arz von Straussenburg and the commander of the South Tyrolean Army Group Conrad von Hötzendorf . In the autumn of 1917 at the Battles of Caporetto and Longarone the Germans and Austrians had defeated the Italians who fell back to the Piave River . Prelude . Italy ' s defeat at Caporetto led to General Luigi Cadorna ' s dismissal and General Armando Diaz replaced him as Chief of Staff of the Italian Army . Diaz set up a strong defense line along Piave River . Up until this point in the war , the Italian army had been fighting alone against the Central Powers ; with the defeat at Caporetto , France and Britain sent small 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 the Western Front as soon as the German Spring Offensive began in March 1918 . The Austro - Hungarian Army had also recently undergone a change in command , and the new Austrian Chief of Staff , Arthur Arz von Straussenburg , wished to finish off the Italians . Straussenburg ' s army group commanders , Franz Graf Conrad von Hötzendorf ( the former Austrian Chief of Staff ) and Svetozar Boroević von Bojna , both wished to make a decisive assault against the Italians , but could not agree about the location of the attack . Conrad wanted an attack from the South Tyrolean Alps towards the Asiago Plateau and Vicenza . Boroević first favored a defensive action , but then when pressed preferred a frontal attack along the Piave River . Straussenburg himself was in favour of an attack on the western part of the front ( the " Giudicarie " sector ) leading to Brescia . Conrad and Boroević had a dislike for 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 in Bolzano between the Austrian 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 after Erich Ludendorff ' s offensive on the Western Front . The Austrians , differently from their previous success at Caporetto and from the subsequent attempts to breakthrough on Mount 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 employ the tactics developed by the Germans on the Western Front for the Operation Michael as Austrian officials , returning from the Eastern 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 centralized command and control system , and the lack of depth 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 the continuous entrenchment and in the development of a highly mobile defence system , in which even the smaller units were allowed to freely move between previously recognized strongpoints , independently decide to retreat or counterattack , or directly call the support of the artillery . Moreover , 13 divisions , equipped with 6000 trucks , were organized in a central reserve , ready to be sent where it was needed . Battle . General Diaz learned the exact timing of the Austrian attack : 3 : 00am on June 15 , so , at 2 : 30am , the Italian artillery opened fire all along their front on the crowded enemy trenches , inflicting heavy casualties . In some sectors the artillery barrage had the effect of delaying or stopping the attack , as Austrian 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 Austrians still attacked . Boroević launched the first assault , moving South along the Adriatic Coast and in the middle course of the Piave River . The Austrians were able to cross the Piave and gained a bridgehead fifteen miles wide and five miles deep in the face of Italian heavy resistance , before Boroević was finally stopped and forced to order a retreat . On the subsequent days Boroević renewed the assault but the artillery barrage destroyed many of the river ' s bridges and the Austrian formations that 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 of them an easy target for the Italian fire . An estimated 20 , 000 Austro - Hungarian soldiers drowned while trying to reach the east bank . On June 19 Diaz counterattacked and hit Boroević in the flank inflicting heavy casualties . In the meantime Conrad attacked along the Italian lines west of Boroević on the Asiago Plateau ( on the 15th ) , with the objective of capturing Vicenza . His forces gained some ground but came upon stiff resistance by Italian units ; 40 , 000 casualties were added to the Austrian total . In the aftermath , Boroević was particularly critical about 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 . Lacking supplies and facing attacks by armored units , the Austro - Hungarians were ordered to retreat by Emperor Karl , who had taken personal command , on June 20 . By June 23 the Allies recaptured all territory on the southern bank of the Piave and the battle was over . Aftermath . After the Austrian retreat Diaz was pressed by the allies , particularly by General Ferdinand Foch , to press on and try an assault to break the Austrian defences and gain a decisive victory over the Empire , but 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 . The battle signaled the end of its army as a fighting force and the beginning of the collapse of the Empire , which was finished off at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto four months later . In popular culture . Still today , to the Italian public two mottos recall the battle : those written as graffiti upon broken walls of destroyed rural houses : " " E ' meglio vivere un giorno da leone che cent ' anni da pecora " " ( " [ It ] is better to live one single day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep " ) and " " Tutti eroi ! O il Piave o tutti accoppati " " ( " Everyone a hero ! Either ( we hold ) the Piave , or let all of us get killed " ) . The two pieces of wall are preserved in the military shrine of Fagaré della Battaglia , a frazione of San Biagio di Callalta .