Start of the offensive in Albania

On 6 July 1918, on the Albanian wing of the Salonika front, a joint attack by the Italians and the French against the Austro-Hungarian XIX Corps began. The British chronology of the war and the British official history of the Macedonian campaign (Falls) take this day as the start of the whole offensive. According to the Austrian official history, however, the main Italian blow was planned for 7 July, and on 6 July only a preliminary operation took place in the mountains on the eastern wing, between the rivers Osum and Devoll.

The aim was to drive the Austrians as far as possible from Vlorë and from the supply road of the left wing of the Allied armies in Macedonia. The French, who had already carried out two successful attacks in these mountains in May and June, wanted to reach the river Shkumbin. The commander of the Italian XVI Corps, General Giacinto Ferrero, thought above all of the Mallakastër, a range of hills north of the Vjosë, from which the enemy threatened the entrenched camp of Vlorë. The preparations on the Vjosë were hardly concealed, and yet the XIX Corps staff expected the main blow elsewhere, on the road to Berat. On 5 July the Austrian high command received word via Switzerland that an Italian offensive was being prepared precisely there.

On the morning of 6 July four French columns, made up of infantry, Moroccan spahis, Algerian and Indochinese tirailleurs and Albanian volunteers, attacked the Austrian outposts on the Qafa e Gjarpërit pass and Mount Mali Kercir. After a day of fighting in which the positions changed hands several times, a counter-attack by border riflemen and a Landsturm battalion threw the French back. At the same time General Treboldi’s Italian group, made up of two battalions of the Guardia di Finanza and Albanian units, set out at midnight from near Çorovodë on the Osum and at dawn struck at the positions in the Tomorr massif. Italian artillery fire scattered the remnants of the Albanian bands fighting on the Austrian side, but the infantry was repulsed. Italian accounts complain that the French column which was to support Treboldi’s right wing failed.

Only in the evening did the Austrians realise that the real blow would fall on the lower Vjosë, where swarms of Italian aircraft were circling over the battlefield. During the night of 6/7 July the Savona Brigade and the 10th Bersaglieri Regiment prepared to cross, the Verona Brigade was already on the bridgehead near Feras, and the Tanaro Brigade had assembled to attack towards Berat. At dawn on 7 July Italian warships, two British monitors and the batteries of the entrenched camp opened fire, and the Verona Brigade, after stubborn fighting, took the heights between Pojani and Levani. The Italian cavalry swept across the coastal plain as far as Fier. According to Italian accounts it took the town and the bridges over the Seman; according to the Austrian official history it was driven out of the town after a short street fight. Rumours of the fall of Fier, through which the only line of retreat ran, nevertheless caused panic. Neighbouring units began to fall back and had to destroy 13 guns, and the Savona Brigade and the Bersaglieri crossed the Vjosë almost without a fight and stood on the slopes of the Mallakastër.

By the evening of 7 July the Austro-Hungarian front on the lower Vjosë had been broken. Only on the road to Berat did the Tanaro Brigade get stuck in front of a stronger defence, and in the east the French took only the forward part of Mali Kercir. Even so, the command of XIX Corps, whose commander, General Ludwig Können-Horák, was seriously ill, decided to pull back the whole front that same night in order to shift troops to the threatened western wing. The retreat soon got out of control, and two days later the Italians stood in Fier and Berat.