Page 80 - Atti 2014 - La neutralità 1914-1915. la situazione diplomatica socio-politica economica e militare italiana

80 la neutralità 1914 - 1915. la situazione diplomatica socio-politica economica e militare italiana

maneuver in Silesia. It happened that all three Chiefs of the General Staffs of
the Triple Alliance – Pollio, Conrad von Hötzendorf und Moltke – met there, an
important albeit symbolical indicator for a new spirit in the alliance. In Decem-
ber 1913 Pollio presented revised deployment directives that were confirmed on
18 December 1913 in a meeting of the designated supreme commanders of the
armies. 14
The important fact was not so much that Italy reduced the promised number
of army corps from five to three but that the plan was actually presented to Prime
Minister Giovanni Giolitti for approval in February 1914. It seems also important
to me that – for the first time – the German party assumed in 1914 that Italian tro-
ops would actually be sent to Germany in case of war and would fight offensively
against France at the Alpine front. If Georg von Waldersee claimed in 1929 that
“at no point ever” the German General Staff had expected Italian support than this
statements should rather be understood as an ex post rationalization. In 1913/14,
the General Staff was more confident than ever. Nonetheless Waldersee’s addi-
tional assessment has to be acknowledged, that the German war plan had always
been based on her own military forces. Military action by Austria-Hungary or
Italy was at best greeted as “useful support”. 15
The detailed employment of the Italian forces to the Upper Rhine may only be
deduced from the 1914/15 deployment directives. They were supposed to follow
th
the 7 Army as second echelon and thus reinforce the German left wing – whether
against a French offensive towards Alsace-Lorraine or in the context of a German
attack had been made dependent on French decisions. But we are familiar with
16
the further course of the events: In March the Giolitti government fell and on 28
June General Pollio died unexpectedly. His successor, General Luigi Cadorno,
was surprised on 1 August by the statement that the government would declare
Italy’s neutrality. 17

14 See the edited protocol of the meeting in Rusconi, “Hasardspiel“, 45-52.
15 Waldersee, „Beziehungen“: 663.
16 Für die deutsche Aufmarschplanung im Elsass siehe Dieter Storz, “Dieser Stellungs- und Fe-
stungskrieg ist scheußlich! Zu den Kämpfen in Lothringen und in den Vogesen.” in Schlief-
th
fenplan, pp. 161-204. Commander of the German 7 Army was General Josias von Heeringen.
17 Nicola Labanca, “Welches Interventionstrauma für welches Militär? Der Kriegseintritt von
1915 und das italienische Herr,” in Kriegseintritt, pp. 73-83, here p. 81.