Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "The Great War" channel.

  1. trauko1388 Actually is well reported in Ludendorff's diaries. "In Vittorio Veneto, Austria did not lose a battle, but lose the war and itself, dragging Germany in its fall. Without the destructive battle of Vittorio Veneto, we would have been able, in a military union with the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, to continue the desperate resistance through the whole winter, in order to obtain a less harsh peace, because the Allies were very fatigued." And that was the general opinion of the western allies too. Still two weeks before Vittorio Veneto Foch took for granted that the war would have ended only in 1919. For the same reason, the Americans made only a very limited use of the BAR rifle in first line despite having many in the deposits. They seen that the fall offensive was losing momentum, and wanted to spare the best weapons for the operations of the following spring.
    64
  2. +Lord Fedjuve Kinval Haig and Joffre shared exactly the same point of view. It was pretty common at the time.
    52
  3. Krešimir Koržinek Tyrol was taken in few days during the battle. The Italians occupied Innsbruck first than the end of the war on the western front. At that point they were at less than 20km from the German border.
    49
  4. Is little known that avalanches killeld more men in WWI than poison gasses.
    37
  5. Tychohuybers In Slovenia there are four linguistic groups, Croats, Hungarians, Italians and Slovenians, that were historically majoritarian in different regions of the actual Slovenia. A fifth, the Ladins, around year 1000 occupied all the Isonzo valley, but are now virtually extinct. During the second half of 19th century, The Austrian Empire, in response to the Italian Risorgimento, favoured the Slavic component in Croatia and Slovenia. Despite this, for example, in the 1900 census, in the city of Koper (then Capodistria) there were 7205 Italian residents, 391 Slovenians, 167 Croats and 67 Germans. "we were there before" is only modern nationalistic bullshit.
    31
  6. Jason Sputnik Ma dove l'hai letto? L'Austria era disposta a dare qualche valle del Trentino e basta. Neanche Trento, ne Trieste (che era il principale porto dell'Impero), ne la Venezia Giulia, ne tantomeno l'Istria. E d'altronde le richieste italiane, in accordo all'art. 7 del terzo trattato della Triplice Alleanza (che prevedeva compensazioni per l'Italia per ogni guadagno territoriale dell'Austria nei balcani) erano solo per la provincia di Trento, una maggiore autonomia per la città di Trieste, ed il riconoscimento diplomatico dell'occupazione italiana di Valona e del Dodecaneso. Persino il mediatore tedesco Von Bulow considerava la posizione austriaca irragionevole.
    20
  7. It's little known that avalanches killed more people than poison gasses in WWI.
    19
  8. Tychohuybers Thanks for telling me unrelated things I already know. The history lesson was in response to: "Slovenians live here for over 1.5 Thousand years". Reality is that five linguistic groups (four surviving) lived there for over 1.5 thousands years. What the modern day Slovenian state recognize as a minority is due to political reasons, and is not necessarily historically accurate. "Everyone is going back to their country" is pure modern nationalistic bullshit, since, for most of them, Slovenia is their country. I know that it could be difficult to understand, but the regions inhabited by a linguistic group doesn't necessarily coincide with the land occupied by a state that have a related name.
    16
  9. "Italy had not fared especially well during the war" Can I remind you that, in Aug. 1916 the Italian front was THE ONLY ONE where the war was fought in Central Power's territory? The others fared that well that the western front was in France and the eastern one in Russia and the Balcanic one somewere in Serbia and Greece.
    12
  10. So you are planning to lose another war?
    11
  11. The Austrians expected a great success in that operation (The Otranto Barrage was dimensioned to block Austrian submarines, so it was expected for a group of four battleship to easily force it), so they embarked several journalists and cameramen to document it. The footage was filmed from the deck of Szent István's twin battleship "Tegetthoff"
    11
  12. It's exactly what an Austrian journalist that was embarked on the Tegetthoff wrote just after having witnessed the sinking of the Szent István. The fact that a 65 million worht battleship was sunk by a motorboat meant that the era of the big battleships ended there.
    11
  13. They are called "battles of the Isonzo" cause the Isonzo river marked the limit between Italy and Austria-Hungary at that time, but they had not been fought all in the same place. and there were not many other possibilities really. An attack in the Trentin sector was theoretically possible for the Austrians , that had to pass through only a thin layer of mountains there (although Falkenhain pointed out already in 1915 that the possibility was only an illusion for logistical reasons). But for the Italians, that had to push through the entire alps, it was not even possible to think of it, so the Isonzo sector was the only viable alternative.
    10
  14. Slowing down occupation and forcing the occupying power to use more soldiers than planned, but losing anyway, is a "success"? Is like saying that the French succeeded in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871.
    10
  15. If the Austrians were not able to fight, they should have surrended first. Since they still pretended to be at war, a friendly reminder of how much powerless they were was due.
    10
  16. Infact pre-unitrian Italian states had a long and honored tradition of cavalry, that was passed to the new national state (see the "Savoia Cavalleria" for example). What the mobile "running" units first, and then the bicycle mounted units really replaced, was the mounted infantry. It's worth to note that it was not a surrogate, simply the two specializations evolved around the same time (mid 19th century), with the mounted infantry being prevalent in the English speaking world, and the other forms in the rest of Europe. At the start of WWI however, bicycle corps were starting to replace mounted infantry everywere.
    9
  17. For the Italians, not really. When Italy entred in the war, in 1915, they initially purchased a batch of Adrian helmets from the French ("elmetto Adrian mod. 15"), but they were not satisfied with the strenght of the design, so, starting form the subsequent year, they started to manufacture an helmet ("elmetto Adrian mod. 16") that had the same overall shape, but was stamped in one piece of thicker steel sheet, with the crest welded on it and without insigna (that were simply painted with black paint). The French adopted a similar helmet in 1926. The weight of the M15 is from 670 to 750gr, that of the M16 is from 750 to 800gr. It has to be noted that the crest on the Adrian helmet was not really aimed to deflect the shrapnels. You can see at 3:00 - 3:04 that it' has openings on the sides. It covered a small hole in the top, so that the hot air could escape, like in a chimney, but the rain couldn't enter.
    9
  18. Wars are not football matches. They have not a time limit. It's not that they attacked when the war was almost over. It was the attack that ended it.
    9
  19.  @astrobot4017  I renew the suggestion to read the third treaty of the Triple Alliance first to speak. To say that Italy "betrayed" A-H is like saying that Unted Kingdom "betrayed" Germany.
    8
  20. ***** Actually you have to review your sources. Those battles were not won by British and French troops (British and French troops presence had never been relevant on the Italian front, and they had been mostly withdrawn first than the Battle of the Solstice due to the German spring offensive in France). As said, not being able to convince your soldiers to fight is a defeat, and the Italian advance after Vittorio Veneto was halted only by the Armistice.
    7
  21. @Frederik Nielsen It's pretty funny that the comment was done by the attache of a country that didn't give to the Russians even an old single-shot Martini-Henry.
    7
  22. The reason of the Moschetto TS is that there are a series of jobs in the army (passing artillery shells, load and unload mules, ecc...) that are not compatible with a long rifle. If you give a long rifle to the men that had to do those activities, they'll put them somewere while they do their "main" job, with the result of not having the rifle at hand the moment it's really needed. A Moschetto TS is small and light enought to be worn while doing other manual activities, and it had a bayonet, not cause those troops were really expected to use it for combat, but cause they needed it as a tool (can opener, wooden box opener, lever, ecc... the real main use of bayonets in both world war) even more than normal infantry.
    7
  23. To say that the 9mm Glisenti "doesn't belong anywere in the spectrum" is a little too much. Power wise is in the same ballpark of 9mm Makarov (service cartridge of all eastern block during cold war), 9mm Steyr (Austrian service cartridge in WWI), 9X20mm Browning long (service cartridge of Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden during WWI) and 9x18mm Ultra (German Police service cartridge in the '70s). The only "mistake" (that's only a modern problem, back there it was ininfluential) had been to make it of the same dimensions of the 9mm Para instead of cutting the case one mm shorter (that's what the Germans did with the 9mm Ultra, that's a 9mm Glisenti with a 1mm shorter case).
    7
  24. Infact even the German mediator, Von Bulow, considered the Austrian position unreasonable in 1915.
    7
  25. In the Trentino offensive THERE HAD NOT BEEN ANY SURPRISE, if not in the scale of the operation. The Italian high command begun the preparations for the defence of the Trentino in the second week of March (suspension of the transfer from Trentino of the brigades "Ivrea" and "Sicilia", and sending in the brigade "Valtellina"). In the first week of April three new brigades were sent in the sector, then the 9th division was transferred at Bassano, the 10th at Schio, 10 alpine battallions and 6 mountain artillery batteries at Marostica. 6 batteries of 149mm guns, 6 of 105mm, 3 mechanized batteries of 102mm cannons and 3 batteries of heavy howitzers were put in reserve on the Tagliamento river. At the end of April the 44th division was transferred from the Albania to Desenzano, and further 7 divisions (27th division, X and XIV Corps) were put on reserve on the Tagliamento. In his visit in Trentino of late April, Cadorna was there to inspect the preparations for the incoming battle. The real difference between Cadorna and Brusati is that Brusati wanted to held all the ground his troops conquered in the first weeks of war. Cadorna, judging the Trentino sector not so important, only wanted to held the third line of defense. So why the Austrians advanced so much? Well, they did not actually. In many sectors the preparations had not been actuated very well, but, in an offensive like that, it was almost granted that the first line of defense would have been overrun. The artillery preparations almost always made them not defensible. Only the second, and more often the third line of defense could be held (the lost ground would have then be taken back with counterattacks). But in mountain warfare the placement of the lines was dictated by the ground. First and second line could be so close to not be really distinct, the third could be really far away. The tactic to stop a large scale attack was to fix the wings of the attacking army, so progressively narrowing the line of advance, and putting he advancing formations progressively at risk to be hit at the flanks, and that was done. The Austrians overrun the Italian third line at Asiago, but they did it only there. At that point, the Trentino offensive was over, and the Austrians rethreated almost to the starting line to avoid to be counterattacked while being so exposed.
    6
  26. The Carcano rifles were manufactured in four state arsenals, the main one being Terni, in central Italy. The Bodeo revolver, being very simple to make, had been manufactured by several private contractors. The Glisenti 1910 had ben manufactured only by MBT in Brescia, but the production had already ended first than the beginning of WWI. The Berettas had been obviously made in Gardone Val Trompia, again near Brescia. The Fiat machineguns were made in Turin and the Villar Perosa SMG in Villar Perosa, a town near to the French border
    6
  27. ***** Really not. Probably you don't understand English very well. There were no US troops in Italy at all at the time of the Battle of the Solstice, and only one regiment operated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, they fought gallantly and conquered one machineguns' nest, but it was really a marginal action in a battle where millions of men were involved. Moreover, you have to consider that, for every allied soldier in Italy there was more than an Italian soldier on the Western Front helping French and British. A total of 100.000 Italian soldiers, an entire corp (the 2nd), operated on the western front. They. for example, fought the second battle of the Marne, stopped the German Attempt to encircle Reims, and took part in the general offensive that repeled the Germans east of the Meuse in october 1918. All in all, your point of view seems very peculiar. You seem to take pride in the fact that many Slavics fought for the Empire, then in the fact that, in the end, they decided to betray the Emperor and deserted. In the same time, you seem to mock who fought the Empire for the entire lenght of the war, winning it in the end, like they fought the Empire for the previous 100 years, winning their nation on the battlefield. One might think that the Slavics that were under the Empire have to be at least a bit grateful to the Italians, for having kicked their asses so hard to convince them to stop being Franz Josephs' bitches, flee form the battelfield, and leave the same Italians to give them a nation. Instead what one has to read? Whining and more whining.
    5
  28. @Il Valentino. Cadorna was not worse than Haig or Foch. Probably even better. The battles on the Italian front tended to be brief and furious affairs that ended when limited successes had been achieved, or it was evident they could no more be reached. Cadorna was even justified in thinking "if the next time I can use more artillery, materials and men, I can break through". On the Westeren front, where the battles lasted for months, a similar justification is not possible. You couldn't send men to die day after day, for weeks and months, to conquer the same trenches thinking it could be different from the day before. Every week of the Battle of the Somme, or Verdoun count as a worse mistake than one of the battles of the Isonzo.
    5
  29. He was not worse than Haig or Foch. Probably even better. The battles on the Italian front tended to be brief and furious affairs that ended when limited successes had been achieved, or it was evident they could no more be reached. Cadorna was even justified in thinking "if the next time I can use more artillery, materials and men, I can break through". On the Westeren front, where the battles lasted for months, a similar justification is not possible. You couldn't send men to die day after day, for weeks and months, to conquer the same trenches thinking it could be different from the day before. Every week of the Battle of the Somme, or Verdoun count as a worse mistake than one of the battles of the Isonzo.
    5
  30. At the beginning of WWI bicycle corps were starting to replace mounted infantry everywere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_infantry Is not difficult to see why. A ciclyst can cover longer distances than a horsemen, a bicycle is thougher than a horse (and can be repaired, and doesn't need training) and a cyclist is a less easy target.
    5
  31. They would have made the same mistake the Austrians did in 1916, when they deprived the eastern front of men and materials to mount the offensive on the Asiago Plateaux, only to be counter-attacked by Brusilov. The Austrians had never been anywere near to win the Second Battle of the Piave. To change the outcome would have needed to increase the amount of men and supplies of at least 50% that means about 30 divisions. That's a huge amount of men that have to be not only displaced, but supplied too. It would have taken months, to organize the offensive, and it would have been impossilbe to keep it secret.
    5
  32. Infact he died.
    5
  33. +Langus langus This cover the war until november 1917. Then there was the huge defeat for the Austrians in the Battle of the Solstice (June 1918). Then the final defeat in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. They lost at Vittorio Veneto cause the soldiers diserted? Well, to not being capable to make your soldiers fight, is a defeat. They could have asked for peace first.
    4
  34. ***** You really have to study better. No American units were involved in the Battle of the Solstice, and, in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, a single US regiment was employed (332th, they conquered a nest of machine guns), the first and only to operate on the Italian Front. Happy to know that the slavs found better things to do than fight. Usually that's what happens when soldiers deserted.
    4
  35. ***** Friend, It would really be better if you begin study the history you are talking of. "There were no US troops in Italy at all at the time of the Battle of the Solstice" means thet there were no US troops in Italy at all at the time of the Battle of the Solstice. The Battle of the Solstice was fought btween 15 and 23 june 1918 and had been one of the fiercest of the IWW on all the fronts. "Only one regiment operated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto" means that only one regiment operated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. The Battle of Vittorio Veneto was fought between 29 october and 3 november 1918, and was the final battle of the war on the Italian Front (and on all the fronts really, given that, with the subsequent Armistice of Villa Giusti, the Allied secured the right to attack Germany from the south, making his position impossible to mantain and forcing it to call for peace less than a week later, as the same Ludendorff stated.
    4
  36. ***** Thanks, but what you are saying is, not surprisingly, inaccurate for an ignorant. With the withdrawal of Russia from the war, and the Serbia Campaign already ended in november '15, The Empire had no more multiple fronts, All of it's strenght was focused on the Italian Front, and was even helped by German troops there. On the contrary, Italy was fighting on the Italian and on the Western fronts. Despite those facts, Italy had been, in all evidence, able to win over the Empire, infact it won, and the Empire surrendered. "Simple operation against a weeker enemy" are, obviously, your opinions. Given how much you know of the war you are talking of, you can imagine how much credible they sound.
    4
  37. ***** In the English Wikipedia (and every English source for that matter) is listed as "Battle of Caporetto",  whine to them if you want. Secondly, the country existed when the war started. It had been the war that made it disappear, so the answer is "Yes". The war of Rome Vs Carthage, for example, had been higly successful for the Romans, that clearly won it, since Carthage ceased to exist. And, as alredy said, it seems that the populations that obtained a country thanks to the fact that the Italians won the war for them, should be at least a bit grateful to them.  Unless they preferred to be under the Empire, obviously, that's legit. But, in that case, they have been even more defeated.
    4
  38. ***** The Empire was still expanding in 1908 when annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina. You can tell to yourself that it was dead in a date of your personal preference, but that's only your personal preference. There is nothing to back it, and, in this case it's to be explained why the Slavics soldiers were still eager to obey to their German officers so many years after the supposed "death" of the Empire. You are trying to communicate in English, and, in every English source, the battle is called "Battle of Caporetto", regardless to what's the current name of the place, like there is a "Battle of Zama" regardless the fact that there is no more a place called "Zama" there. Live with it. And, oh, according to the then Austrians masters of the Slovenians, the place was known as "Karfreit".
    4
  39. ***** You are trying to communicate in English, and, in every English source, the battle is called "Battle of Caporetto", regardless to what's the current name of the place. Live with it. 
    4
  40. ***** Is not a question of right or wrong, it's a convention, like naming + and - the poles on a battery. You can break the convention and rename them "John" and "Mike" if you want. You'll be satisfied, and none will be able to understand what you are talking of anymore (or interested in what you are talking about for that matter). Since, as long I write in English, I want to be understood by those that read me, I use the English conventions. If you makes of it a question of national pride, they are only your business. None else is interested in the fact that you don't like the conventions.
    4
  41. When Italy entred in the war, in 1915, they initially purchased a batch of Adrian helmets from the French ("elmetto Adrian mod. 15"), but they were not satisfied with the strenght of the design, so, starting form the subsequent year, they started to manufacture an helmet ("elmetto Adrian mod. 16") that had the same overall shape, but was stamped in one piece of thicker steel sheet, with the crest welded on it and without insigna (that were simply painted with black paint). The French adopted a similar helmet in 1926. It has to be noted that the crest on the Adrian helmet was not really aimed to deflect the shrapnels. You can see at 3:00 - 3:04 that it' has openings on the sides. It covered a small hole in the top, so that the hot air could escape, like in a chimney, but the rain couldn't enter.
    4
  42. +franzlimit Not by chance, the Irredentists' motto was: "Trento e Trieste", not "Trento, Bolzano e Trieste". "So why did Italy want this land?", cause, as the war itself amply shown, to fight wars going uphill is double the effort, and the South Tyrol happens to be between the Italian speaking regions and the watershed (natural border). "and why was it granted by the allies?" Cause, if the South Tyroleans were Austrians, they were on the losing side, and so they have no much a say in the matter. Same thing for the Italian speaking Istrians at the end of WWII (and we can say the South Tyroleans had been a little more fortunate than them). "This province had nearly no Italians in it (before Musolini started to change this)". Yeah, but it had nearly no Italians in it cause the Austrians changed it, with a policy of forced germanization between 1861 and 1914, so to reitalianize it a bit was seen as simply fair. None is innocent.
    4
  43.  @shivmalik9405  The Germans attacked at Verdun using the same tactic.
    4
  44. The biggest tease is the Glisenti 1910 that's with them. That not have been tested yet in C&Rsenal channel. I cannot wait to see it in action. ;)
    4
  45.  @askar9367  AH was in very bad shape due to the bad weather? Russia had been defeated, Serbia completely occupied, and Bulgaria actually kept the bulk of the burden of the Balkan front. AH had been defeated on the Italian front, and surrended to Italy.
    4
  46. Actually the Italian requests, in accord to the Art. 7 of the third treaty of the Triple Alliance (that provided compensations for Italy for eventual territorial gains of Austria in the Balkans) were only for the province of Trento (the only part the Empire had to concede), a certain autonomy for the city of Trieste (that, IE, requested to build an Italian university since 1871, without effect), and the diplomatic recognition of the Italian occupation of the city of Valona and the Docecanese.
    4
  47. It had been for more than a century by now.
    4
  48. Once taken, it was 100% Italian. If you are talking about amenities like the language spoken, what "right" had the Empire to rule Italian, Croat, Czech, etc. speaking people?
    4
  49. Mounted troops actually mostly kept on using the Chamelot Delvigne. the longer barrel and better materials were appreciated, while the heavier weight, longer reloading time and more difficult field strip were not really defects for mounted troops (that really didn't reload or field strip their weapons while in action).
    4
  50. It's a coincidence. Grappa (the liquor) is a contraction of "graspa", being "graspe" the local word for pomace. Grappa (the mountain) derives from the indo-European "Klapp" ("rock").
    4