Battles of the Isonzo
The Battles of the Isonzo (known as the Isonzo Front by historians, Slovene: soška fronta) were a series of twelve battles between the Austro-Hungarian and Italian armies in World War I mostly on the territory of present-day Slovenia, and the remainder in Italy along the Isonzo River on the eastern sector of the Italian Front between June 1915 and November 1917.
For the Ostrogoth invasion of Italy, see Battle of Isonzo (489).Italian military plans[edit]
In April 1915, in the secret Treaty of London, Italy was promised by the Allies some of the territories of Austro-Hungarian Empire which were mainly inhabited by ethnic Slovenes and Austrian Germans.
Italian commander Luigi Cadorna, a staunch proponent of the frontal assault who claimed the Western Front proved the ineffectiveness of machine guns,[2] initially planned breaking onto the Slovenian plateau, taking Ljubljana and threatening Vienna. The area between the northernmost part of the Adriatic Sea and the sources of the Isonzo River thus became the scene of twelve successive battles.
As a result, the Austro-Hungarians were forced to move some of their forces from the Eastern Front and a war in the mountains around the Isonzo River began.[3]
With almost continuous combat in the area, the precise number of battles forming the Isonzo campaign is debatable. Some historians have assigned distinct names to a couple of the Isonzo struggles, most notably at Kobarid (Caporetto or Karfreit) in October 1917, which would otherwise form the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo.
The fact that the battles were always named after the Isonzo River, even in Italy, was considered by some a propaganda success for Austria-Hungary: it highlighted the repeated Italian failure to breach this landmark frontier of the Empire.[7]
The Isonzo campaign comprised the following battles: