{"id":78817,"date":"2021-08-12T08:41:23","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T13:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=78817"},"modified":"2021-08-12T08:41:23","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T13:41:23","slug":"veni-vidi-vittorio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=78817","title":{"rendered":"Veni Vidi Vittorio"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was night on October 23rd, 1918 as a series of rowboats silently dipped their oars in the waters of the Piave river in Italy.\u00a0 The Piave had remained as quiet as the rowboats’ occupants since the Italian defensive victory that summer, halting and then repelling an Austro-Hungarian offensive<\/a> launched with hopes of knocking Rome out of the war.\u00a0 But the men aboard these boats were neither Italian or Austro-Hungarian, but British, members of the Honourable Artillery Company (an infantry battalion, despite the name) and the Royal Welch Fusiliers.\u00a0 While neither company could be viewed as “special forces,” they were most certainly elite forces of the Crown as the HAC had it’s lineage back to 1087 and it’s Captain-General was officially listed as the King George V.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their assignment was to secure the series of islands on the Piave river that now constituted no-mans-land, starting with the largest island, Grave di Papadopoli.\u00a0 The HAC and Fusiliers landed with bayonets fixed, sneaking and stabbing their away across the island before the soldiers of the Dual Monarchy were finally able to sound the alarm.\u00a0 In a brief, but tough fight, with Italian diversionary troops even being defeated on the southern part of the island, Grave di Papadopoli was captured by Allied forces.\u00a0 The stage was set for the following morning, the one year anniversary of the Italian army’s humiliating defeat at Caporetto<\/a>, as 1.4 million Allied troops would throw themselves at 1.8 million Austro-Hungarians.\u00a0 The result would be the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the end of the 600+ year Habsburg Monarchy.<\/p>\n

Vittorio Veneto – a major Italian victory that in historical hindsight looks more like a case of Austrian collapse than anything else<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

By late October of 1918, it could be questioned whether or not a battle even needed to take place to bring about the end of Austria-Hungary’s participation in the Great War.\u00a0 The same day<\/a> as the Germans learned that President Woodrow Wilson wouldn’t mediate an armistice based on his Fourteen Points, at least not without strenuous pre-conditions, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Baron Istv\u00e1n Buri\u00e1n von Rajecz asked for similar terms from the Allies.\u00a0 As Rajecz made his request, the Allies formally accepted Czechoslovakia into their alliance.\u00a0 Trying to curry favor with the various ethnic groups now striving to break away from the Empire, Emperor Charles I issued an imperial manifesto that days later that would fundamentally changed the Austrian half of the government, giving autonomy to most ethnic states.\u00a0 It wasn’t enough.\u00a0 The literal next day, the Hungarian parliament passed a resolution ending the Austro-Hungarian partnership, despite having just renewed it for two years, and declared independence.\u00a0 The Dual Monarchy was now a singular one (although the formal cancellation of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 wouldn’t happen until the end of the month).\u00a0 What remained was rapidly falling apart.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

With the Empire divided and the Balkan Front now reactivated with the defeat of the Bulgarians<\/a>, Charles I made one last plea directly to the United States to recognize the federal reorientation of the Austrian government.\u00a0 Secretary of State Robert Lansing replied much as President Wilson had to the Germans – the Allies would negotiate any final terms together and had already recognized Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia as future states to be made out of the remains of the Habsburg Monarchy.\u00a0 It was the death rattle of Charles I’s Empire and leadership.\u00a0 Even the Austrian Prime Minister concluded the Emperor lacked the means to effectively govern and told him to he needed to step down.<\/p>\n

The Austrians still maintained a massive army on the Italian Front alone, with 1.8 million men and over 6,000 pieces of artillery, but the motivation of these men was tepid at best, nonexistent at worst.\u00a0 The Austrian command could only manage to move six reserve divisions towards the town of Vittorio once the battle commenced as Hungarian, Czech, Slovenian and Croatian soldiers refused to obey orders.\u00a0 For all it’s size, the Austrian army in Italy was little more than a paper tiger.<\/p>\n

Italian troops gather to read the latest news on the war<\/p><\/div>\n

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The army across the Piave was in a polar opposite state.\u00a0 Following their defensive victory in June of 1918, the Italians had been repeatedly prodded by Supreme Allied Commander Ferdinand Foch to adopt Foch’s strategy of constant pressure on all fronts against the Central Powers.\u00a0 To push Italian General Armando Diaz, the Allies had supplied the Italians with 600 aircraft, 3 British divisions, 2 French divisions and both American and Czechoslovak regiments, in addition to massive quantities of munitions and material.\u00a0 But Diaz was not going to repeat the errors of Gen. Luigi Cadorna and heedlessly throw his men into combat.\u00a0 Italian morale was high but could easily be lost again in the mountainous terrain, to say nothing of the logistic difficulties of crossing the Piave under fire.\u00a0 There were not going to be twelve battles along the Piave as there had been along the Isonzo River from 1915 through 1917; Diaz would wait.\u00a0 The time gave Diaz the chance to meticulously plan his attack in hopes of delivering some Italian revenge for Caporetto, which had nearly driven Italy out of the war.\u00a0 The fact that Diaz could launch an offensive to coincide with the one-year anniversary was icing on the crostoli<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The capture of Grave di Papadopoli gave the Italians effective control of the banks of the Piave, albeit under fire from the thousands of Austrian pieces of heavy artillery, but as the main attack began in the dark, early hours of October 24th, 1918, the 7,700 Italian guns at the front lashed out in response.\u00a0 In a week’s time, the Italians would manage to fire nearly 2.5 million rounds.\u00a0 For most of the battle’s first 48 hours, the Italians and Austrians traded artillery shells as Italian and British troops struggled to get across the flooded Piave with it’s deep and strong currents.\u00a0 Men had to be ferried over in motorized boats, making getting sufficient numbers across and resupplied difficult.\u00a0 And as had been seen on so many other fronts, the conduct of the collapsing enemy varied greatly.\u00a0 Some Austrian units (including some ethnic units) fought gallantly, repelling the Allied advance.\u00a0 Others refused to march, yet alone fight.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the offensive worked into it’s fourth day, it appeared that the attack was devolving into the same sort of grinding slaughter that had defined the Great War.\u00a0 The Italian and Allies were making progress, but at a painfully slow rate, having gained 2 miles at a high cost.\u00a0 The goal of securing a bridgehead over the Piave and taking the town of Vittorio was far from materializing and despite capturing a decent number of soldiers early in the fight, the Austrians looked intact.\u00a0 Diaz’s careful planning and coordination appeared to be only gaining the Allies a minor tactical victory at best.<\/p>\n

Italian troops cross the Piave<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Much like with the Strafexpedition<\/em> campaign in 1916<\/a>, Italian fortunes were turned by events far from the battlefield.\u00a0 The dissolution of the Dual Monarchy had been decades in the making, but once Hungary announced the end of their union, the cascade of ethnic nation states became a tidal wave that toppled the government.\u00a0 On October 28th, Bohemia announced they were leaving Austria to join the new Czechoslovakia.\u00a0 The next day, the Southern Slavs (the future Yugoslavia) did the same.\u00a0 The lack of political cohesion had reached the trenches and the Austrian High Command issued a general retreat.\u00a0 It turned into a route.<\/p>\n

The Italians were now over the Piave, thanks in no small part due to the\u00a0Arditi Corps, the Caimani del Piave<\/em> (“Caimans of the Piave”), which had swimmers brave the icy Piave for 16 hours at a time armed with only a knife and two grenades.\u00a0 The Arditi Corps secured the bridgeheads over the river, freeing up any available boats to get other infantry across.\u00a0 Vittorio (renamed shortly after the war as Vittorio Veneto; the name given to the battle later), was captured on October 30th with the prized port city of Trieste a few days later.\u00a0 Nothing now stood between the Italians and the Austrian plain.\u00a0 Vienna didn’t know how to react.<\/p>\n

Emperor Charles I would not follow in the footsteps of Enver Pasha<\/a> or Tsar Ferdinand and leave in the name of trying to secure better terms from the Allies – at least, not yet.\u00a0 Instead, the Austrians attempted to unilaterally end the war, telling their troops to cease hostilities on November 3rd, 1918 and asking the Italians to halt while negotiating the terms of the armistice.\u00a0 The Italians had no such intention.\u00a0 The Italians were now driving north, into Tyrol to attempt to seize territory they hoped to hold after the war, and to strike at southern Germany.\u00a0 Thousands of Austro-Hungarian soldiers, confused as to what to do, surrendered rather than fight or retreat.\u00a0 448,000 troops of the Dual Monarchy would fall prisoner in the Empire’s final week of existence.\u00a0 With their armies now effectively destroyed, their empire carved into a handful of new states and even their homeland now being invaded by the Allies, the Austrians hurriedly agreed to what amounted to an unconditional surrender.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

A dead Austro-Hungarian soldier on Vittorio Veneto<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Watching the events unfold with their last remaining ally, Germany now found themselves alone.\u00a0 Erich Ludendorff complained that Austria-Hungary’s collapse was “dragging Germany in its fall,” once again blaming others for Germany’s crumbling position.<\/p>\n

Emperor Charles I would not formally abdicate the throne.\u00a0 As the armistice between Germany and the Allies was announced on November 11th, 1918, Charles I proclaimed he had “relinquish[ed] every participation in the administration of the [Austrian] State,” making a similar announcement the next day in Hungary.\u00a0 Charles I would move his family out of the Imperial Palace, but barely even left Vienna, moving into a resplendent castle east of the capitol city.\u00a0 The Emperor carefully worded his pronouncements – he still viewed himself as the active and rightful monarch of the Austrian and Hungarian crowns.\u00a0 His people disagreed.\u00a0 The Austrian parliament would pass the “Habsburg Law,” banning titles of nobility and banishing all members of the Habsburg Line from the country.\u00a0 Charles I would be escorted out of the country by the British to Switzerland, as much for Charles I’s safety as that of the fledgling Austrian government.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Attempts to secure the Hungarian crown were no more successful as Charles I worked with Hungarian royalists to sneak him into the country in the mistaken belief that the re-established Kingdom of Hungary and it’s regent, Mikl\u00f3s Horthy, would align themselves with the old Habsburg Order.\u00a0 It was a bizarre structure for the government – the Allies had been clear that Hungary could have no King, so the nation had a constitutional monarchy with a regent, but no monarch.\u00a0 Instead, Charles I was reduced to ambushing Horthy at dinner in his home, pleading to be installed on the farcical Hungarian throne.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Charles I pins a medal on a soldier<\/p><\/div>\n

After two attempts to gain the Hungarian crown, the Allies had decided that exile under guard was the only solution.\u00a0 Charles I and his family would find themselves on the Portuguese island of Madeira in 1921, living in relative poverty.\u00a0 Charles I would catch a cold that developed into severe pneumonia, straining him to the point of two heart attacks.\u00a0 He would die in 1922 at only 34 years of age.\u00a0 The man entrusted to safeguard six centuries of tradition and power, despite never being groomed for the role of Emperor, had lost everything.\u00a0 Not even his family’s persistent final wishes to allow him burial in his homeland would ever be fulfilled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was night on October 23rd, 1918 as a series of rowboats silently dipped their oars in the waters of the Piave river in Italy.\u00a0 The Piave had remained as quiet as the rowboats’ occupants since the Italian defensive victory that summer, halting and then repelling an Austro-Hungarian offensive launched with hopes of knocking Rome […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,281],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-ringer","category-ww1-fact-and-myth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78817"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79150,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78817\/revisions\/79150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}