Page 96 - Il 1917 l'anno della svolta - Atti 25-26 ottobre 2017

96 il 1917. l’anno della svolta

of the front – merely had achieved between four and 15km of gained space
at the front. The allied Austro-Hungarian and German side reached their
operative goal originally targeted in their initial plans in every respect,
and even surpassed it. But nevertheless, the “breakthrough at Bovec-Tol-
min” and even more the pursuit toward the Piave and the fact that the
river was not crossed, would lead to the most intense discussions during
the interwar period. It was especially the discharged or retired members
of the former leading military elite who carried out this debate publicly,
using various forms of media such as individual brochures, memoirs, or
professional articles in a military journal, and, through this, made it pos-
sible to reconstruct these events today. In addition to these, descriptions,
eyewitness accounts, and “remarks” from subordinate officers with mono-
graphs and histories of regiments and their establishment, which had ex-
perienced a Renaissance-like resurgence in the 1920s surfaced. Due to the
strong bonds between the Austro-Hungarian and German allies, numerous
German protagonists also felt called to intervene in the sometimes very
controversial discussions, naturally adding their very own nationally and
politically shaped perspectives.
Ultimately, such discussions were and still are comprehensible for numerous
topics concerning the World War, and orient themselves, particularly from the
view of the former defeated nations, around “what if”-questions. In addition to
the basic questioning and searching for the causes of the defeat, which is almost
symptomatic to the defeated party, the journalistic reflections also provide a kind
of individualized “post-processing” of the conflict and, with it, a personal justifi-
cation for actions or decisions either implemented or refrained from.
Regarding the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo and the in part fiery discussions
surrounding it, the fact that the event dealt with an undoubtedly impressive mil-
itary success of the Central Powers in an operative sense, which ultimately sur-
passed all expectations in regards to its original dimensions, is undoubtedly of
special interest. Most of the debated and disputed aspects of these discussions
were ultimately concerned with what is, more or less, the central question: could
the ramifications of the battle, from a territorial, material, as well as political
perspective, have been significantly increased due to military judgements, deci-
sions, and implementations, modified arrangement of forces, improved prepara-
tion, etc. For this reason, individual aspects were isolated and newly evaluated
from the safe perspective of an always better informed retrospective analysis;
such as the fundamental question why the manoeuvre of attacking through val-
leys was preferred and why the shortage of proper allocation of engineer units
2

2 Vgl. dazu: Alfred Krauß, Die Ursachen unserer Niederlage, Erinnerungen und Urteile aus dem
Weltkriege, München 1920, ders: „Das Wunder von Karfreit“. Der Durchbruch bei Flitsch,