In the new plan drawn up by Cadorna with the Duke of Aosta, the commander of the Italian Third Army, the Italian effort would be concentrated on a relatively narrow front compared to previous assaults, a stretch of the Isonzo River Valley less than ten miles long between the hill of Podgora (also called Mount Calvario) to the north and Mount San Michele to the south. In fact the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo, from August 6-17, 1916, would prove Italy’s greatest victory until the decisive battle of Vittorio Veneto at the end of the war. The Italians had already suffered multiple defeats or Pyrrhic victories here in the first five battles of the Isonzo, but this time would be different. With the failure of the Austrian “ Punishment Expedition” against Italy in June 1916, when the Russian Brusilov Offensive forced Austria-Hungary’s chief of the general staff Conrad von Hötzendorf to withdraw troops to shore up the Eastern Front, the initiative returned to the Italians, and chief of the general staff Luigi Cadorna began preparing yet another offensive in the Isonzo River Valley. August 6-17, 1916: Italian Victory At Sixth Isonzo
This is the 246th installment in the series. Erik Sass is covering the events of the war exactly 100 years after they happened.
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