End of the First Battle of the Isonzo

On the evening of 7 July 1915 General Luigi Cadorna halted all attacks on the Isonzo. So ended the First Battle of the Isonzo, which the Italian 2nd and 3rd Armies had begun on 23 June. In reality its outcome had been decided two days earlier. On 5 July both the last great attack on Podgora hill in front of Gorizia and the day-long assaults on the edge of the Karst plateau between Polazzo and Redipuglia had collapsed. According to the Austro-Hungarian official history, with the failure of the attack of 5 July the battle was essentially over.

The last two days

On 6 and 7 July the fighting was already much weaker. On the Karst the Italians struck once more between Monte San Michele and San Martino del Carso. According to Italian historiography they advanced a little north-east of San Michele and held this strip until the morning of 7 July, despite counter-attacks. In the evenings they also attacked at Sdraussina, Polazzo and Redipuglia, but without success. In front of Gorizia the 12th Division on 6 July and the 29th Division on 7 July tried to take the southern edge of the Austrian bridgehead. Men of the Perugia Brigade made a gap in the wire, but the company that rushed into it came under fire at close range. In the north the Alpini once again attacked the Austrian positions in the Krn massif and were repulsed. On 8 July calm settled over the whole Isonzo front.

The balance

The Italians had crossed the Isonzo at Sagrado, taken the westernmost strip of the Karst between Sagrado and the ruins on Hill 143, and gained a foothold on the slopes below Redipuglia, Vermegliano and Selz. They thus gained sheltered artillery positions from which they could shell Monte San Michele from the south as well. Gorizia, the hills of its bridgehead and the summit of San Michele, however, remained in Austrian hands. The Italian general staff later stated that the army had lost 1,916 killed, 11,495 wounded and 1,536 missing and taken prisoner. The Austro-Hungarian 5th Army, according to its own figures, lost about 8,800 killed and wounded and 1,150 missing.

The defenders came out of the battle tired but confident. General Svetozar Boroević was receiving reinforcements: the 10th Mountain Brigade was arriving from the Balkan front, the 14th Mountain Brigade from Pola, and on 5 July the high command also sent the second brigade of the 61st Division from Slavonia to the Isonzo. On the same day a battery of four German 13 cm guns arrived. According to the Austrian official history this was, until October 1917, the only German unit to fight on the Isonzo. From the night of 7–8 July the Austrians began relieving their exhausted battalions, and the front command decided to concentrate the whole VII Corps of Archduke Joseph August on the Karst.

What came next

Cadorna had no intention of changing his plan. He concluded that the attacks had lacked above all the support of heavy artillery, and began bringing more batteries to the Isonzo. Eleven days later, on 18 July, the Duke of Aosta’s 3rd Army again struck at Monte San Michele and the Sei Busi hill, this time with the support of much stronger artillery.