Story from the Isonzo Front

Story from the Isonzo Front

The Battles of the Isonzo (known as the Isonzo Front by historians) were a series of twelve battles between the Austro-Hungarian and Italian armies in World War I mostly on the territory of present-day Slovenia, and the remainder in Italy along the Isonzo River on the eastern sector of the Italian Front between June 1915 and November 1917.

Prisoners of war and Austro-Hungarian soldiers passing by warehouses and a field hospital near the Voss Hut, the present-day Erjavčeva Koča.

(property of Uroš Košir)

In April 1915, in the secret Treaty of London, Italy was promised by the Allies some of the territories of Austro-Hungarian Empire which were mainly inhabited by ethnic Slovenes, Croats and Austrian Germans.

Italian commander Luigi Cadorna, a staunch proponent of the frontal assault who claimed the Western Front proved the ineffectiveness of machine guns, initially planned breaking onto the Slovenian plateau,[clarification needed] taking Ljubljana and threatening Vienna. The area between the northernmost part of the Adriatic Sea and the sources of the Isonzo River thus became the scene of twelve successive battles.

As a result, the Austro-Hungarians were forced to move some of their forces from the Eastern Front and a war in the mountains around the Isonzo River began.

A view of the storage facilities Fassungsstelle Vosshütte beneath the modern-day Erjavčeva Koča. In the first year of the war, various military tents were set up for storage and were later replaced by wooden structures.

(property of Uroš Košir)

Primary sector for Italian operations

Italian soldiers during the Second Battle of the Isonzo, 1915
With the rest of the mountainous 640-kilometre (400 mi) length of the front being almost everywhere dominated by Austro-Hungarian forces, the Soča (Isonzo) was the only practical area for Italian military operations during the war. The Austro-Hungarians had fortified the mountains[citation needed] ahead of the Italians’ entry into the war on 23 May 1915.

Italian Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna judged that Italian gains (from Gorizia to Trieste) were most feasible at the coastal plain east of the lower end of the Soča (Isonzo) River. Cadorna had not expected operations in the Isonzo sector to be easy. He was well aware that the river was prone to flooding—and indeed there were record rainfalls during 1914–1918. Further, when attacking further north the Italian army was faced with something of a dilemma: in order to cross the Isonzo safely it needed to neutralise the Austro-Hungarian defenders on the mountains above, yet to neutralise these forces the Italian forces needed first to cross the river.

Story from the Isonzo Front

Isonzo Front in numbers

The twelve Battles of the Isonzo took place between 23 May 1915 and 9 November 1917. The part of the front located on the territory of present-day Slovenia was 93 kilometres long. More than 100,000 people in the area fled their homes during the campaign.

The Isonzo Front was 93 kilometres long.
The animosities lasted for 888 days.
The shortest Battle of the Isonzo lasted 3 days. It was the 8th battle on the Isonzo Front and took place between 9 and 12 October 1916.
The longest Battle of the Isonzo lasted 26 days. It was the 11th battle on the Isonzo Front and took place between 17 August and 12 September 1917.

A total of 12 battles took place as part at the Isonzo Front.
The 11th battle is considered the bloodiest military operation on Slovenian soil ever. A total of 50,000 soldiers were killed:around 40,000 soldiers were killed and 108,000 wounded on the Italian side and around 10,000 soldiers were killed and 95,000 were wounded, fell ill or went missing on the Austro-Hungarian side.
11 battles on the Isonzo Front were initiated by the Italian side.
The 12th Battle of the Isonzo was the last battle. It was initiated by the Austro-Hungarian army with help from the German army. It was named Loyalty in Arms (German: Waffentreue). The battle was prepared by German General Kraft von Dellmensingen, and phosgene was used as a chemical weapon.
Around 13,000 soldiers were killed in the 12th battle on the Italian side.
More than 300,000 Italian soldiers became prisoners of war after the 12th battle.
The Italian side lost 73,000 horses in the 12th Battle of the Isonzo.
Around 5,000 soldiers were killed on the Austro-Hungarian and German side.
3,152 cannons, 1,732 mortars, 300,000 rifles, 3,000 submachine guns, 2,000 machine guns and 1,600 cars of the Italian army were captured by the Austro-Hungarian and German army during the 12th Battle of the Isonzo.

A total of 1.5 million soldiers were killed, wounded or captured during the Battles of the Isonzo on both sides. There were at least 250,000 casualties. Around 700,000 soldiers were wounded or poisoned with chemical weapons, and more than 500,000 went missing or were captured on both sides.
More than 95% of total casualties were soldiers.
Around 3,500 casualties on the Isonzo Front were Slovenians; the Isonzo Front was thus not the bloodiest front for Slovenians. The biggest number of Slovenians killed in WWI was in Galicia, from where around 10,000 never returned home. In WWI, an estimated 35,000-40,000 Slovenian soldiers were killed in battle.
An average of 297 soldiers were killed on the Isonzo Front every day.

The remains of 57,739 soldiers who were killed on the Isonzo Front are buried in an ossuary in the village of Oslavia in Italy.
The remains of 7,014 Italian soldiers have been laid to rest in an ossuary above the Slovenian town of Kobarid.
The remains of around 1,000 German soldiers have been laid to rest in an ossuary in the Slovenian town of Tolmin. This is the only preserved location in the area of the Isonzo Front where a larger number of German soldiers is buried.
The remains of 100,187 soldiers have been laid to rest in an ossuary in the town of Redipuglia in Italy.
In 2016, a monument to all Slovenian soldiers killed on the Isonzo Front was unveiled in the town of Doberdo del Lago in Italy.

The ratio between the attackers and defenders at the beginning of the Battles of the Isonzo was approximately 9 to 1, namely around 500 Italian brigades against around 50 battalions of the Austro-Hungarian army.
Two to three million shells were fired in the course of a single battle on the Isonzo Front on average.
The heaviest shell fired on the Isonzo Front weighed 1,060 kilogrammes.
The range of the shell was 12 kilometres, it was 160 centimetres high and had a 420 mm calibre.

Around 80,000 Slovenians from the area of Gorizia and from the Soča Valley were displaced by the Austro-Hungarian authorities because of the Isonzo Front.
Between 10,000 and 12,000 Slovenians were displaced from their homes by the Italians.
Around 230,000 people emigrated from the Isonzo Front area.

On 9 August 1916 the Italian army captured Gorizia during the 6th Battle of the Isonzo. It was the only major military and political target captured by the Italians in WWI.
The attack on Sabotin, the hill which was captured by the Italian army three days before the capture of Gorizia on 6 August 1916, lasted 40 minutes.

Krn, the highest peak of the Krn range and one of the most important fortified peaks in the area of the Isonzo Front, is 2,245 metres high. Some of the bloodiest battles of the Isonzo Front took place in the area.

Observation balloons used by both armies on the Isonzo front could reach heights of between 400 and 800 metres.
30,000 litres of water was needed to fill a balloon with hydrogen; as water is scarce in the area, the use of balloons was limited.
Three balloon companies were used by the Austro-Hungarian army on the Isonzo Front.
Eight balloon units were operated by the Italian army.

The Walk of Peace from the Alps to the Adriatic, which runs along the key points of the Isonzo Front, was opened in March 2015.
There are 15 open-air museums along the Walk of Peace – in Čelo, Ravelnik, Zaprikraj, Mrzli vrh, Mengore, Kolovrat, Sabotin, Prižnica, Vodice, Škabrijel, Pečinka Cave, Ermada, Brestovec, San Michele and the Bersaglieri Valley.
The Walk of Peace from the Alps to the Adriatic – First World War heritage made it to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List in 2016.

Story from the Isonzo Front

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A view of the storage facilities Fassungsstelle Vosshütte beneath the modern-day Erjavčeva Koča. In the first year of the war, various military tents were set up for storage and were later replaced by wooden structures. Original photo kept by: Uroš Košir

Prisoners of war and Austro-Hungarian soldiers passing by warehouses and a field hospital near the Voss Hut, the present-day Erjavčeva Koča. Original photo kept by: Uroš Košir

Original photo kept by: Uroš Košir

sources: here and here

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