Page 99 - Il 1917 l'anno della svolta - Atti 25-26 ottobre 2017

II SeSSIone - Il 1917. ASpettI mIlItArI 99

all national forces. A few months later, most of the losses were balanced again,
operability was re-established, and the political crisis was overcome. Even on
the side of the Austro-Hungarian and German allies, the situation was less dra-
10
9
matically evaluated after the initial shock and the allocation of troops was
considered less dramatic.
Italy was, similar to the German perspective, simply seen as a less important
theatre of war. Based on these circumstances, despite different interpretations
and valuations from the Austrian and Italian points of view, it was well under-
stood that the respective dominating allies were only concerned with preventing
an actual or suspected strategic and political defeat of their associates at the Ison-
zo or the Piave. However, the decision of the war would be made on the Western
Front, according to the visions in Berlin, Paris, and London. The fact that the
military success of the Entente on the Macedonian Front, which was wrongly
assessed as completely insignificant, caused a military chain reaction which led
to the military collapse of the Central Powers within a short amount of time, can
be interpreted as a particular kind of irony.

the Initial Military and Political Situation Before the offensive Began
For the Central Powers, the favourable development of their military situation
on the Russian front throughout the course of May 1915 had suffered a major
setback through the entry of their former ally, Italy, on the side of the Allies in the
war. With Italy‘s not-entirely-unexpected declaration of war on Austria-Hungary
on the 23rd of May, 1915, a new theatre of war arose for the k.u.k. Armeeober-
kommando (military supreme command)—a new area of attention that initially
could only be covered with skilled improvisation based on the limited available
forces. Only five divisions (Nos. 90 through 94) were originally available. These
were partially composed of second-line troops and volunteer corps and were
only provided with 49 artillery batteries. Furthermore, about 40,000 Standschüt-
zen (volunteer riflemen) from Tyrol and Vorarlberg were split into 39 battalions,
and then deployed and sent to the battlefields. In addition to this, other crown
lands formed volunteer corps as well. The backbone of the defence, however,
remained the numerous and, while outdated, nevertheless operational barriers
and fortifications, which guarded the most important mountain crossings and
communication lines, for the time being. The German allies dispatched the divi-
sion-hefty German Alpenkorps to Tyrol. 11

9 Manfried Rauchensteiner, Einleitung. In: Waffentreue. Die 12. Isonzoschlacht 1917. Katalog
zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung im Österreichischen Staatsarchiv in Wien, Wien 2007, S. 8
10 Warner Allen, Our Italian Front, London 1920, S. 2-8
11 M. Christian Ortner, Die k.u.k. Armee und ihr letzter Krieg, Wien 2014, S.73