Page 122 - Il 1917 l'anno della svolta - Atti 25-26 ottobre 2017

122 il 1917. l’anno della svolta

to continue the offensive over the Tagliamento was probably held against him.
Next to the purely operative and territorial results of the Twelfth Battle of the
Isonzo and the pursuit battles on the Piave, the amount of loot, as mentioned in
the beginning, was impressive: over 3,000 pieces of artillery, more than 1,700
mine and grenade launchers, 3,000 machine guns, and over 300,000 rifles, in
addition to immense amounts of other war equipment described in the begin-
ning, uniforms and individual gear, respectively. In addition to this, numerous
undamaged military camps fell into the alliesʼ hands. In regards to the code for
the allocation of goods between both states, it was decided to split the weapons
and material in a ratio of 2:1 in favour of the Danube Monarchy, and to divide
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the roughly 300,000 prisoners of war equally. On the side of the k.u.k units,
there were no forces allocated to the security of the loot, a disadvantage in re-
gards to the materials which had already been shown in the march. Much of the
equipment deteriorated due to the stormy conditions, was individually stolen or
was pointlessly destroyed. Nevertheless, the captured warehouses stocked with
provisions guaranteed the supplying of the troops standing on the Piave until
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the spring of 1918. Machine guns, sub-machine guns, and rifles, for which
sufficient amounts of ammunition had also been captured, were immediately
integrated into the Austro-Hungarian and German forces. This was also appli-
cable to mortars (mine launchers) and several mountain and field guns. It can
be seen that there was a reconsideration on the part of the army administration
regarding the remaining pieces of artillery, in contrast to the advance after the
South Tyrolian offensive of May 1916. Even though far greater quantities, both
with better conditions and with greater ammunition supplies, were taken over by
the December of 1917, the thoughtless stockpiling of foreign artillery materials
appeared impractical, as they could perhaps only be brought to the front after a
lengthy adaptation work, particularly as the German artillery already had been
using such weapons as guns to protect the loot, most of which were of French
origin. The code for the allocation of goods was consequently changed from the
two-to-one ratio in favour of Austria-Hungary to the allocation of goods calcu-
lated based on the number of a particular kind of weapon and would no longer
be applied within every artillery type. Austria-Hungary showed that they were
ready to meet the Germans in this matter, especially in regards to medium and
heavy artillery and relinquished large amounts of the spoils of war—though in
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exchange, they hoped for a delivery of coal. A delivery of looted materials to

65 Österreich-Ungarns letzter Krieg VI, S. 713
66 Hermann Leidl, Die Verwaltung der besetzten Gebiete Italiens (November 1917-Okto-
ber1918). In: Hugo Kerchnawe (Hg.), Die Militärverwaltungen in den von den österreichisch-
ungarischen Truppen besetzten Gebieten, Wien 1928, S. 346-354
67 ÖSTA KA AOK Op. Nr. 85995