Italy and the Supreme War Council in World War I
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Misfortunes of the Moment: Italy and the Supreme War Council in World War I by Claudio Roberto Innocenti B.S., United States Military Academy, 2009 A THESIS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS Department of History College of Arts and Sciences KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 2018 Approved by: Major Professor Dr. Andrew Orr Copyright © Claudio Innocenti 2018. Abstract The history of Italy during World War I has often been characterized by the eleven bloody and inconsequential battles on the Isonzo River from 1915 to 1917. The twelfth battle, Caporetto, was one of the most lopsided defeats of the war. The subsequent development of an inter-Allied Supreme War Council has often been portrayed as a British and French creation with little Italian input. However, the defeat at Caporetto actually signified the rapid escalation of Italy’s influence among her Allies. Combined with American tentativeness and Russian collapse, the winter of 1917-1918 offered key Italian leaders the opportunity to manipulate debates on Allied strategy. Ultimately, the Italians could not keep true to the promises they made during a succession of inter- Allied conferences. This failure led to indecision by Italian leaders during the critical campaigns of 1918 and disillusionment in Italy itself during the post-war era. Table of Contents Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... v Dedication ...................................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1 – Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1 Historiography ............................................................................................................................ 3 Chapter 2 – The War Before Caporetto ........................................................................................ 14 The Early War: 1915-1916 ....................................................................................................... 16 Rome Conference ..................................................................................................................... 24 Artillery and 10th/11th Isonzo .................................................................................................... 30 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 34 Chapter 3 – Caporetto and Rapallo ............................................................................................... 36 Caporetto and German Tactics ................................................................................................. 37 The Rapallo Conference ........................................................................................................... 41 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 53 Chapter 4 – Winter Interlude ........................................................................................................ 56 The American Arrival ............................................................................................................... 57 The Second Conference ............................................................................................................ 60 The Third Conference ............................................................................................................... 69 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 79 Chapter 5 – Spring Realities ......................................................................................................... 81 The Italians Are Out: The Doullens and Beauvais Conferences .............................................. 83 The Italians Come In: Abbeville and the End of the War ........................................................ 88 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 94 Chapter 6 – Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 97 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 103 iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank Andrew Orr for all the assistance he has provided ever since I first started the application process to Kansas State University. Thank you as well to Donald Mrozek, Brent Maner, and Elizabeth Greenhalgh who agreed to be a part of my committee. I am grateful to Al Hamscher and Marsha Frey who both looked at papers that provided the initial idea for what became my master’s thesis. In addition, none of this research would have been possible without the help of Sara Kearns at the KSU Library. I firmly believe that all soldiers should endeavor to be scholars in the field of military history. No other subject and profession are so closely intertwined. To that end, I want to sincerely thank the entire History Department at KSU for enabling soldiers and civilians to work so closely together in a rigorous academic environment. v Dedication For Kitty and Luca. vi Chapter 1 – Introduction Over one hundred years ago, on the morning of 24 October 1917, a German-Austro- Hungarian army struck at Italian positions across the Isonzo River. The resulting defeat near the village of Caporetto marked one of the most lopsided engagements of World War I, a conflict noteworthy for its indecisive battles of attrition. The Italians lost over 600,000 men and withdrew nearly sixty miles to the southwest.1 The Italian retreat to the Piave River provided plenty of fodder for western historians eager to uphold the myth of Italian military incompetence: the commander who ignominiously fled from his headquarters before being overrun by the Germans,2 the wholesale surrender of entire divisions which refused to fight, and the arrival of Anglo-French troops in the nick of time to help their weakened ally. The defeat marked the twelfth consecutive engagement along the Isonzo River line in only two and a half years since Italy’s delayed entry into the war. The rapid success of the Central Powers’ offensive, and Erwin Rommel’s own marginal role in the battle, helped contribute to the post-war perception that the Germans had unlocked the key to restoring a war of maneuver in western Europe. But Caporetto’s most important legacy did not lie in the near-defeat of Italy nor in the supremacy of new German tactics; rather, the battle forced a reappraisal of Allied3 coalition-making that placed Italy, often regarded 1 Luigi Cadorna, La Guerra alla Fronte Italiana, vol. 2 (Milan, Italy: Fratelli Treves, Editori, 1921), 200, World Cat. Manfried Rauchensteiner, The First World War and the End of the Hapsburg Monarchy, trans. Alex J. Kay and Anna Guttel-Bellert (Vienna, Austria: Bohlau Verlag, 2014), 790. 2 The Germans organized the offensive at Caporetto and a German commander led the main thrust which included a mix of German and Austro-Hungarian units. I will sometimes use the word “German,” instead of “Central Powers” or “German-Austro-Hungarian” to avoid prolonging my sentences. 3 The coalition of Britain, France, Russia, the United States, Italy – and a host of minor powers like Belgium and Serbia – has often been described with several different names, but most commonly it is known as either the “Entente” or the “Allies.” Adding to this confusion is the fact that sometimes the coalition’s correspondence referred to Germany and Austria-Hungary as the “Allies.” For this thesis, I prefer to keep symmetry with World War II and refer to the British and French side as the Allies. 1 as one of the weakest great powers, squarely at the center of military strategy.4 The defeat signaled the culmination of two years of steadily-increasing Italian involvement in coalition warfare, and solidified Italy’s importance to her Allies. Italy thus played a central role in the creation of the new Supreme War Council that coordinated Allied strategy until the end of the war. A combination of British, French, and American soldiers won World War I in 1918 by defeating the German army in France. Although Italy was on the winning side by the end of the conflict, her military value to her partners has often been deemed as less significant to the ultimate outcome. However, much of the history of the subsequent Allied conferences after Caporetto has placed too much importance on the decisions of British and French actors. As a result, far too little credit has been given to Italian statesmen and generals in determining the outlook of these meetings. Because the British and French dominated the alliance and the post-war settlement at Versailles with superior resources and influence, they also controlled much of the narrative about the utility of Italian involvement. But the Italians, who were readily dismissed in their calls for military assistance before October 1917, could not be so easily cast off when Caporetto threatened their exit from the war. The Allied attempts at joint military action earlier in the war had all failed spectacularly, but Caporetto provided a new incentive for cooperation.