End of the Italian counter-offensive in the Trentino

The British chronology of the war records under 7 July 1916 the end of the Italian counter-offensive in the Trentino, which had begun on 16 June. It is a conventional date. That day the Austro-Hungarian III Corps, on the northern edge of the Asiago plateau, repulsed the second day of the strongest attack the Italians had mounted since Conrad’s May offensive. The fighting nevertheless continued. General Luigi Cadorna wrote after the war that large-scale operations on the Tyrolean front were halted on 9 July, and from the following day took the form of slow, methodical attacks. Italian historians end the counter-offensive only on 27 July, when the commander of the 1st Army, General Guglielmo Pecori Giraldi, broke off all offensive action.

After the Austrian withdrawal

During the night of 24/25 June the troops of Archduke Eugen fell back to a previously prepared line running from the Pasubio (PL) massif through Monte Cimone above Arsiero, Roana and Monte Interrotto to the Ortigara massif. They gave up Asiago and Arsiero without a fight. The strip of ground given up was shallow; according to the Austrian official history it was only 7.5 kilometres deep at its widest point. Only on 27 June did Cadorna set the 1st Army its task: on the Asiago plateau to push the enemy back to the positions of 15 May, and on the left wing to take Col Santo as quickly as possible. The Italians were to attack without pause so as not to let the Austrians dig in on the new line.

The first attacks failed. From 27 to 30 June the regiments of four, and then five, Italian brigades stormed the slopes of Monte Rasta, Monte Interrotto, Monte Zebio and Monte Colombaro. The Austrians, who had not yet had time to extend their wire, repulsed them all. Below Monte Rasta alone they took 530 prisoners. According to the Austrian official history, these failures dispelled Cadorna’s hope that the positions lost in May could be regained in the first rush. Until then the Italians had attacked only with the support of light and medium artillery. Now they began to prepare the attack methodically, with heavy batteries and trench mortars.

The attack of 6 and 7 July

The Austrians were growing ever weaker. After the defeats in Galicia the high command at Teschen kept taking divisions away from the Tyrol: on 2 July it ordered the 43rd Rifle Division to be sent to the Isonzo front, and when the Russians renewed their offensive in the east on 3 July, also the headquarters of I Corps and the 34th Infantry Division. By mid-July the Italians had sent only four brigades to the Isonzo. The Austrian trenches on the plateau, hewn out of hard rock, were usually only 50 to 100 centimetres deep and were shielded by piles of stones. The reserves sheltered in rock crevices. From 4 July intercepted Italian wireless messages left no doubt that a great attack was being prepared.

On 6 July at 5 a.m. the Italian artillery of all calibres opened fire on the northern part of the plateau, and between 7 and 8 a.m. it rose to drumfire. Then the infantry went forward. According to the Austrian official history, more than 70 Italian battalions attacked the 36 battalions of III Corps, known as the “Iron Corps”: three groups of Alpini, the 4th and 13th Divisions of XX Corps and the 25th Division of XXII Corps. The fiercest fighting was for the positions between Monte Zingarella and Monte Zebio. On Monte Colombaro one battalion of the Styrian 27th Infantry Regiment beat off ten assaults. Only near the huts of Casara Zebio did the Italians, after completely destroying the trenches and making five successive attacks, take a short stretch of trench.

On 7 July an Austrian counter-attack intended to recover this stretch failed to break through. From dawn the Italians again concentrated their fire on the Casara Zebio area, and before noon they launched another assault, supported by two batteries pushed forward to assault range. The attack quickly collapsed. The Austrians, however, gave up trying to retake the lost trench, because the new line on the neighbouring Hill 1706 ran more favourably. They also repulsed attacks south of Monte Chiesa, below Monte Forno and Monte Zebio, as well as attempts to get through the Assa gorge near Canove. According to the Italian historian Schiarini, quoted by the Austrian official history, in three days of this fighting on the plateau the Italians lost more than 1,500 killed and more than 5,000 wounded.

What came next

The attacks did not stop. On 9 July the Alpini tried to break through between Monte Chiesa and Monte Forno, and from 11 to 13 July XXII Corps stormed Monte Rasta and Monte Interrotto. On the western wing, in the Vallarsa valley, at dawn on 10 July the Alpini battalion “Vicenza” attacked Monte Corno and was almost completely destroyed. Among the prisoners were two irredentists from Trento, Cesare Battisti, a former deputy in the Austrian parliament, and Fabio Filzi. The Austrians regarded them as traitors and executed them in Trento on 12 July. From 13 to 20 July the Italians attacked the Borcola Pass without success, on 23 July they took the summit of Monte Cimone above Arsiero, and from 22 to 24 July they assaulted the Austrians on the Asiago plateau for the last time.

According to various estimates, the counter-offensive recovered between a quarter and a third of the ground lost in May, but none of the positions Cadorna had set as objectives. The Italian historian Gianni Pieropan calculated that from the end of June to the end of July the Italians lost about 71,600 killed, wounded and missing, and the Austro-Hungarians about 52,800. Cadorna then gave up further attempts on the plateaux and moved troops to the Isonzo. On 6 August the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo began there, which within a few days brought the Italians Gorizia.