Offensive in Albania comes to a halt

Around 22 July 1918 the Italian-French offensive in Albania, begun on 6 July, finally came to a halt. No single day can be identified on which this happened. On 19 July the Allied commander-in-chief at Salonika, General Louis Franchet d’Espérey, ordered the advance to stop and suitable defensive positions to be taken up. On 20 and 21 July a last, previously prepared attack on the Devoll still took place, and from 21 July the Austrians began to seize the initiative.

The balance of the first two weeks was favourable to the Allies. According to the British official history of the Macedonian campaign (Falls), they moved the front forward on a sector of about 100 km by an average of at least 16 km. The Italians took the Mallakastër range, Fier and Berat, capturing more than 2,000 prisoners, 26 guns and six aircraft, and the French, who according to Villari took the small town of Gramsh (PL) on the Devoll on 13 July, about 700 prisoners. The plan of the command at Salonika to reach the Shkumbin river and cut off the Austro-Hungarian forces in Albania from the Bulgarians in Macedonia proved, however, unrealistic.

There were several reasons. In the roadless mountains supplies could not be brought up, and the French units had reached the limit of their range and could advance further only with light detachments of spahis and Albanian volunteers. General Giacinto Ferrero declared that he would not go to the Shkumbin because his superiors in Italy had refused him reinforcements, and the Italian command was then preparing its own offensive on the Piave, originally planned for August. Malaria spread in the coastal marshes. The Italian historian Luigi Villari states that in one cavalry regiment only 70 men were not on the sick list, and Italian accounts add Spanish flu to the malaria. Relations between the allies were not of the best: the Italians wanted to advance on the Mali Siloves range above the bend of the Devoll, while the French, who had few troops in Albania, considered this too risky. On 19 July reports also reached Salonika that German and Bulgarian forces were being moved west.

Meanwhile everything had changed on the Austro-Hungarian side. On 13 July a new commander, Colonel General Karl von Pflanzer-Baltin, arrived in Tirana. He forbade stretching the troops out in a thin cordon, which had failed to withstand the Italian blow, and ordered a defence in depth, with strong reserves. He also received reinforcements, among them four battalions of the so-called Eastern Corps (Orientkorps). The last attack by General Treboldi’s group and the French, begun on 20 July on both sides of the Devoll, took the key position on Mali Siloves on 21 July, but the same day the Austrian 47th Infantry Division struck the Italian outposts near Ardenica and in the bend of the Seman near Kuçi. According to the Austrian official history, on 23 July Pflanzer-Baltin concluded that the enemy’s attack had reached its peak and ordered a counter-offensive.

It began on 24 July. The Austrians took the hills in the bend of the Seman near Kuçi and cut the only good road by which the Italians supplied their troops from Valona through Fier to Berat. At the end of July the Italians began to fall back, and on 22 August, after a pause of several weeks, the Austrians launched a general attack and within a few days recovered Fier and Berat. The July offensive was not entirely in vain, however: the Italians kept most of Mallakastër, and in the autumn, after the collapse of the Bulgarian front in Macedonia, the Austrians had to evacuate Albania.