Souvenirs

Very Good English In contemporary cloth bdg. Roy. 8vo. (24 x 17 cm). In Ottoman script. [2], [6], 264 p., 1 huge map. Özege: 2936. Memoirs of General Luigi Cadorna (1850-1928); was an Italian Field Marshal, most famous for being the chief of staff of the Italian army during the first part of World War I. Cadorna launched four offensives in 1915, all along the Isonzo River. The goal of these offensives was the fortress of Gorizia, the capture of which would permit the Italian armies to pivot south and march on Trieste, or continue on to the Ljubljana Gap. All four offensives failed, resulting in some 250,000 Italian casualties for little material gain. Cadorna would ultimately fight eleven battles on the Isonzo between 1915 and 1917. Additional forces were arrayed along the Trentino salient, attacking towards Rovereto, Trento, and Bolzano. These attacks also failed. The terrain along the Isonzo and Trentino was completely unsuited for offensive warfare-mountainous and broken, with no room for maneuver. On October 24, 1917, a combined Austro-Hungarian/German army struck across the Soca (the Slovene name for the Isonzo River) at Kobarid (called Caporetto in Italian) and by November 12 had advanced all the way to the Piave River. Cadorna's disposition of most of his troops far forward, with little defense in depth, contributed greatly to the disaster; but graver still were the responsibilities of other officers, notably Pietro Badoglio, then corps commander in a sector overrun by the Austro-German attack. Cadorna himself had been on leave for most of October and his immediate subordinate was seriously ill. The Italian Army fled in disarray and seemed on the verge of total collapse; 275,000 soldiers surrendered. Italy's allies Britain and France sent eleven divisions to reinforce the Italian front, and insisted on the dismissal of Cadorna.[4] The new Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando was in agreement with the need for more competent military leadership and Cadorna was replaced as Chief of General Staff with the respected General Armando Diaz; Cadorna was appointed as the Italian representative to the Allied Supreme War Council set up in Versailles. Then the Italian forces rallied behind the Piave and Monte Grappa and reversed, with the help of the Allied divisions, the course of the conflict.