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

  1. So like the western front, plus the mountains.
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  2. LOL. The Italians won this war, against the Ottoman Empire, with a minimal use of troops and less than 1500 KIA. The Americans lost at least three times as many in the Philippine war. The Brits over 22.000 in the second Boer War. Some year later Spanish and French had between 54.000 and 68.000 casualties to defeat not the Ottoman Empire, but the Republic of the Rif. But, obviously, if you listen to the right account, this had been a blunder, and those glaring victories.
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  3. The fact that 11 battles had been named "battle of the Isonzo" doesn't mean they had been fought the same way, or in the same location. Simply the Isonzo river was the border between Italy and the Austrian Empire, from the Alps to the Adriatic sea. Every attack not made on the Alps (not a great idea, for logistic considerations), would have been named "Battle of the Isonzo".
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  4. LHO's rifle didn't show any tendency to jam during tests. In the FBI test, the shooters obtained results compatible (even better) than that of LHO without even knowing the rifle first (first than to shoot it in the test, they had the permission to cycle the action, but not to even dry fire it).
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  5. Cadorna was really not worse than Haig, Joffre, or other WWI chiefs of staff, however the Austrian army started disgregating only after the huge failure that the Battle of the Solstice was, and that had been directed by Diaz, using new tactics.
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  6. Italians also had gas masks first than Caporetto. The gas attacks were normal on the Italian front. The infantry masks weren't effective vs the phosgene, and the use of that gas (for the first time on the Italian Front) by the Germans had a part in the breaktrough, but it wasn't only the phosgene. The gas was useful only to pass the first line of defense. But on the Italian front, at that time, too many soldiers were simply stuck on the first line, while the second and third lines of defense were less effective (a weakness already seen during the 1916 Austrian offensive on the Asiago Plateau). And the units were too dependent from the central command, for orders, as personal initiative was discouraged. Diaz's staff adressed all those problems. and finally gave up with the entire trench warfare, adopting instead tactics of mobile defense, with indipendent small units allowed to move and call for the support of the artillery. Practically an anticipation of IIWW. As for the tactic used by the Austrians on the Battle of the Solstice, mind that it came after months of failed attempts to repeat Caporetto's success on Mt. Grappa. They needed to try something different. As for the location of the attack. The problem of an attack trough the mountains was still the same correctly outlined by Falkenhayn in 1916. On a map it seemed easy, but was only an illusion. On the ground it was a logistic nightmare. Once reached the Po valley, the attackers would have faced an army able to move for internal lines, with excellent roads and railways. The Attackers instead would still have to be supplied through alpine trails. In practice, the attackers would have reached the plains only to have their backs to the wall.
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  7. ***** You continue to forget that the war did not end in november 1917. Since, in the end, the Empire pleaded for peace and Italy won it could be well said that its conduction of the war had been more effective than that of the Empire. In war, the only battle that's really worth winning is the last one. As for Caporetto, as already said, it had been really a German Offensive. German was the commander (Otto Von Below), German the tactic employed and German the 7 divisions (two corps) that broke the frontline. Austrians only followed.
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  8. Ormai gliel'hanno detto almeno in trecento. Credo che a questo punto abbia capito.
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  9. The two things are not mutually exclusive.
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  10. The fact that 11 battles had been named "battle of the Isonzo" doesn't mean they had been fought the same way, or in the same location. Simply the Isonzo river was the border between Italy and the Austrian Empire, from the Alps to the Adriatic sea. Every attack not made on the Alps (not a great idea, for logistic considerations), would have been named "Battle of the Isonzo".
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  11. The Madsen M1947 too had two rear locking lugs and no front lock as well (it's infact a Carcano action with the lugs moved rearward). From a safety standpoint, the two solutions are equal. The Vetterli was designed for lower pressures than those of the 6.5x52, and so the conversion in that calibre was at its limit, but that has little to do with the lugs placement.
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  12. It seems the British, French and German battle plans were no different.
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  13. +David Mendez For the industialization, at the time of unification, German States were on average already much more industrialized than Italian ones (Prussia alone was more industrialized even than France), and the population was far more literate, so there were more technicians. for the technological advancement, that's really not true. Being more industrialized, Germany could produce more things, but really not more advanced ones. In the end, all the powers that fought WWI used pretty much the same technology.
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  14. +Zylinder Bohrung Is not right for Trieste only, there was the "Trentino" too, and Trentino inhabitants are italian speaking. "Southern Tyrol" was acquired cause it lies between the italian speaking regions and the watershed, that's a natural border.
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  15. Any Italian understand standard Italian language other than his own dialect.
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  16. The Viribus Unitis was attacked at 4.40 am of 1 nov 1918. The Austrian autorities handed the ship to the newly formed State SHS in the evening of 31 oct, but obviously none informed the Italians that the battleship changed banner (the operation to sink it already started anyway), or that the SHS existed for that matter (and, even in that case the property of the fleet was a matter for the peace talks. A defeated country couldn't decide to hand pieces of its fleet on its own). So the Viribus Unitis never ceased to be a legit target and it would have been such until 4 nov 1918 (end of the war on the Italian front).
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  17. LOL. The war had been won with a minimal use of troops and less than 1500 KIA. The Americans lost at least three times as many in the Philippine war. The Brits over 22.000 in the second Boer War. Some year later Spanish and French had between 54.000 and 68.000 casualties to defeat not the Ottoman Empire, but the Republic of the Rif.
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  18. I typed that.
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  19. Austria surrended to Italy before the end of the war on the western front. If the "Austian Empire had the possibility to occupy the hole Northern Italy" (with a not indifferent German help), then they had been really stupid to not do that, since no "rest of the Entente-Alliance" stopped them. The battle of the Piave river was already well over when the first British troops ASKED to be employed on the frontline (that happened on 4 december 1917).
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  20.  @askar9367  Russia and Serbia had been defeated and occupied, and almost all the resources previously used against them had been diverted on the italian front by the fall of 1917 (on the Balkans, the remaining Austrian forces were used mainly on the Albanian front, vs. Italian forces anyway). I had been on the Italian front that AH had been "unsuccessful" and had been defeated.
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  21.  @primusofcatarina4910  100% of its inhabitants (bar immigrants) are Italian citizens (so backstabbers and cowards according to your view of the world). Spare me the bullshit about Austrian gains through diplomacy. None asked to the Venetians or the Milanese if they wanted to be part of the Empire. To say that Italy "betrayed" A-H is like saying that United Kingdom "betrayed" Germany. They had a pact too, that Germany broke invading Belgium, like A-H broke the pact of the Triple Alliance attacking Serbia.
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  22. That was the same thing the Empire did first than WWI. To favour the germanization of Trentine and the slavicization of Friuli, Istria and so on, because Italians were problematic for the Empire.
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  23. Italy was ALREADY fighting the Austrians in Albania. The Dalmatia islands were too favourable to defense. Why after the Somme the British didn't abandon the western front for a landing from the North sea?
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  24.  @RobertLonghi-c8w  Il Marocco diventa una colonia francese nel 1912. La guerra del Rif è ancora successiva, ed è sicuramente un'impresa coloniale, ancora in N. Africa.
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  25. Art. 7 of the third treaty of the TrIple Alliance estabilished that Austria Hungary could wage war in the Balkans only in accord with Italy, and that any territorial gain of A-H in the Balkans should have led to territorial compensation for Italy. A-H thn attacked Serbia without caring for Italy's opinion, and, refusing to accept a British proposal of a mediation of several European powers (Italy among them), actively made so to not involve its "ally" in the decision process. Then A-H refused any request of compensation. The German mediator, Von Bulow considered the Austrian position irreasonable on that point, but it was not like he could hand out Austrian territories on his own.
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  26. The reasons why Falkenhayn advised against the Trentino offensive were pretty simple. In his own words, anyone that had seen a map of Italy's northern border would have been tempted by such a move. But it was only an illusion. To reach the plain was not impossible, but, even after having done that, the army would have still to be supplied through those same mountain trails that made the preparation of the attack so difficult. The defenders otherwise, would have been supplied through the roads and railwais of the Po valley. In the end, the attackers would have reached the plain only to find themself with their backs to the wall. As for Cadorna, I'm starting to wonder why this channel, when there is to say something about him, decides to leve all pretenses of historical accuracy in order to make him look as a bigger idiot than his counterparts on the western front? 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 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.
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  27. "Where was the Italian King when all this fighting happened?" Very close to the front line actually. Much more than any other chief of state in WWI
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  28. For the first part, Yes. From the beginning of the war, until the Austro-German offensive of nov. 1917 he was in the small village of Martignacco, near Udine, at less than 20km from the front, and he often visited the first line. He was in fact closer to the front not only of any other Chief of State, but of many generals. IE Svetozar Boroević, that, among the many nicknames earned during the war ("the lion fo the Isonzo, ecc...), had also that of "the absent general", since he spent the war at Postojna, 30 km from the front. For the second part, despite the attempts of depicting him as a particular kind of idiot (even plainly lying, IE talkig of the Battle of Asiago as a "surprise attack" when there had not been any surprise, and the Italians begun to prepare the defence since mid March. In his visit of the sector at the end of April, Cadorna was not there for a pleasure trip, he was inspecting the preparations for the incoming battle) Cadorna was not really any worse than his counterparts on the western front. Someone exonerated Haig after the Somme? After Passchendaele? After Cambrai? At the end of the war he was deemed as a great general. Criticisms begun only in the late '20s, and he still has defenders. Cadorna was stubborn, and not particularly brilliant, but battles, on the Italian front, tended to be breif and furious affairs. He was partly justified thinking "if next time I manage to deploy more men and more guns, I'll break through". On the western front, were battles were less intense, but lasted for months, a general could not really think that, on a certain day, he was using more men and guns than the day before, or the day after. And still they sent wave after wave of soldiers to die for a daily gain of few yards of land. Every week of the battle of the Somme, or of Verdoun, count as an Isonzo battle.
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  29. The Arditi were half of the required tactic. Yes, they were able to take a trench much more easily than a "human wave" attack, but they were still supposed to hold the trench until the regular troops came to relieve them. That way the territorial gains were limited, and there couldn't be a real breakthrough.
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  30. C&Rsenal What wasn't fine?
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  31. LadyAnuB Simply those were the tactics. Is not that the carnages on the western front were made employing better tactics than those employed on the Italian front. Until 1917 thrench warfare consisted in: "take the trench, reinforce the trench, withstand the counterattack, take the next trench". With the only variation being the timing of the preliminay artillery barrage. That way a real breakthrugh was not possibile, cause the defenders always had the time to send reinforcements, or annihilate the attackers with the artillery.
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  32. A Venetian and a Sicilian understand standard italian. The subsequent genetic - ethnic disquisition is a load of bullshit.
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  33. At that time cocaine was commonly used to treat toothache, and it was recommended for children. However, in WWI, armies had their problems giving soldiers decent meals. They really had not money to spent in drugging them. To gave them a bit of courage first than an assault, there was alchool.
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  34. +Damir Vidovic It was. Actually the London Treaty estabilishd to give to Italy even larger part of the Balkans than those it got in the end.
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  35. 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 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.
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  36. The italians were not barefoot, nor "the other option were wooden boots". The Pattern 1912 boots were well made and modern leather boots, and the soldiers had plenty of them.
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  37. Sorry, but it's MrOpellulo comment, like any generalization, to be ignorant and misleading. In the Italian army, like in any of WWI there were stubborn idiots that knew nothing of the modern warfare, and there were intelligent and prepared generals (Etna, Capello, Reghini, the firsts that comes in mind). Cadorna was stubborn, and not particularly brilliant, but it was not really worse than his western counterparts. Yes, he fought 11 battles using the same tactic, and still expecting it could work. But battles on the Italian front tended to be brief and furious affairs. He was at least partly justified thinking "if next time I manage to assemble more men and guns, I can break through". He never gave up to the mindset of the war of attrition. On the western front, were battles were less intense, but lasted for months, there was not even that justification. At the Somme, or Verdun, a commander couldn't reasonably think that he was using that day more men and guns he had used the day before, or he would have used the day after. And still they sent, day after day, thousands of men to die for a daily gain of a yard of land. Every week of those battles counts as an Isonzo battle. And still on 31 jul. 1917, they begun the Battle of Passchendaele with exactly the same mindset of 1915. As for the "barbaric conditions", contemporary observers often noticed that trenches and soldiers on the Italian front tended to be cleaner than on the western front (and that high officers tended to spent more time in first line with their soldiers than their westen counterpart). As for the discipline, summary executions were much more usual among the French. In 1934 an investigation of the newspaper "Le Crapulliot" found that between 1914 e il 1918, 1.637 french soldiers had been executed, (compared to only 675 official death sentences). The Italians had 770 death sentences, and about 50 summary executions after Caporetto.
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  38.  @angelobucciarelli4848  Italy entred the war in may 1915 only against Austria-Hungary. War was declared on Germany only the subsequent year, due to economic sanctions that Germany posed over Italy, and the presence of German troops on the Italian front.
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  39.  @DeathOnSernpidal  Infact the realistic expectation of the German command for the Caporetto offensive was to shorten the frontline, so to allow to an exhausted Austrian army to guard it. It's significative that, with Russia out of the game, and Bulgaria that kept the main burden of the Balkan front, Austria-Hungary was already near to collapse, while the Germans will be on the offensive on the western front for a year more.
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  40. Mussolini voluntereed and was promoted for bravery shown on the field first to be wounded on 17 feb. 1917.
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  41. The name “Constantinople” (“Konstantiniyye” in Turkish) was used in official documents even after the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923. The name of the city had been officially changed only in 1930.
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  42.  @josephsimanski3690  A-H had submarines too, you know? The Austrian surface fleet spent the war hidden in the ports of Dalmatia precisely because, even having an advantage in open waters, For the Italian navy it would have been impossible to reach it there (they did sometimes, but with commando operations). You know Gallipoli? The Entente should have had the complete control of the sea there. In reality A single German submarine (U-21) sunk two battleships and a munitions ship, others were sunk by Turkish torpedo boats and mines. The Dalmatian coast was much more apt to ambushes than Gallipoli.
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  43. As the clip says, the Arditi were supposed to take a trench and hold it until they were relieved by regular troops. They were effective in this. They could, take a trench much more easily than a "human wave" assault, but that tactic could bring only to very limited territorial gains. In 1917 (not first) the Germans developed the right tactic for the Stormtrooper to work more effectively "do not stop. Do not worry about the pockets of resistance that you leave behind. Keep going forward. Aim for the backlines, communication and supply lines". In 1918, the Arditi used the same tactic against the Austrians. It has to be noted, however, that the same Germans and Austrians tried to use the same tactic after nov. 1917, in the subsequent attempts to break through the Piave line, and failed, as the Italians at that point had learned to have much deeper defensive lines and less dependent to central command. So that, in June 1918, in the last attempt to broke the Italian defense (Battle of the Solstice) the Austrians had practically gave up to use that again, and resorted backto the massive attack.
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  44. Not that being in the hands of Haig would have been any better.
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  45.  @mariusmatei2946  If you prefer to think that Haig and Joffre were "brilliantly competent", your choice.
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  46. Art. 7 of the third treaty of the TrIple Alliance estabilished that Austria Hungary could wage war in the Balkans only in accord with Italy, and that any territorial gain of A-H in the Balkans should have led to territorial compensation for Italy. So it could be a system for Italy to acquire some Italian speaking territory from the Empire without waging another war with it. In the end, it didn't work. A-H had several territorial gains in the Balkans even first than WWI, but never payd any compensation, and that led to the Italian participation to WWI. BTW, Italian requests to A-H in 1915 were the province of Trento, some form of increased autonomy for the city of Trieste within the Empire, and the diplomatic recognition of the Italian occupation of Valona and the Dodecanese.
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  47. As the clip says, the Arditi were supposed to take a trench and hold it until they were relieved by regular troops. They were effective in this. They could, take a trench much more easily than a "human wave" assault, but that tactic could bring only to very limited territorial gains. In 1917 (not first) the Germans developed the right tactic for the Stormtrooper to work more effectively "do not stop. Do not worry about the pockets of resistance that you leave behind. Keep going forward. Aim for the backlines, communication and supply lines". In 1918, the Arditi used the same tactic against the Austrians. It has to be noted, however, that the same Germans and Austrians tried to use the same tactic after nov. 1917, in the subsequent attempts to break through the Piave line, and failed, as the Italians at that point had learned to have much deeper defensive lines and less dependent to central command. So that, in June 1918, in the last attempt to broke the Italian defense (Battle of the Solstice) the Austrians had practically gave up to use that again, and resorted back to the massive frontal attack.
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  48. It is, and there is nothing strange. IE, first than WWI, In Italy there were 80.902 ha planted, and 835.000 q of fiber produced annually. The worldwide production was just short of 6.000.000 q of fiber, and France was an importer. With the war, the quantity of fiber needed (for ropes, sacks...) probably increased too.
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  49.  Peter S  Sout Tyrol is populated by Italians as far as I know. What right Austria has over it? Why not Sveden, or Myanmar?
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  50. He was in charge of the june 1918 offensive (the Battle of the Solstice, a costly failure) and of the defense at Vittorio Veneto too. Maybe it's better to remember that he had not always been succesful.
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