EIGHT
The Isonzo front was relatively quiet while the Asiago plateau was aflame. There were the typical nighttime patrols and occasional raids, of course, but the Italian and Austrian forces on the Isonzo, both weakened by the need to reinforce the armies fighting a hundred miles to the west, enjoyed a brief respite from battle. Once the fighting died down on the Trentino front, however, the tempo of operations on the Isonzo slowly increased. Beginning in the second week of June, Italian patrols grew larger and more aggressive. On the evening of June 14, the 3rd Army launched a limited but powerful raid on the Carso's southern flank. After several hours of heavy shelling of Austrian positions around Mt. Sei Busi, two Italian divisions advanced through the darkness toward trenches held by the 106th Militia Division. Intense combat followed as the fanti and the Czech riflemen of the I Ith Austrian Militia Regiment vied for control of the trenches around Hill 118. The three-day fight ended in a nominal victory for the Austrians; they held all their positions, but at a cost of 1,400 casualties for the 106th Division. Italian losses were higher still, but the 3rd Army continued its harassment of the Austrians on the south Carso after a few days' rest. The 106th became involved in another bruising match with the Duke of Aosta's troops in the last week of June. This fight, which dragged on painfully into the first week of July, was as inconclusive as the first, but inflicted a further loss of 4,700 soldiers on the militia division. It speaks volumes about the bloodiness of the Isonzo fighting that both sides considered the latter half of June to be "quiet days" on the front.
While the 106th Division was busy repulsing Italian probes around Mt. Sei Busi, Svetozar Boroevic and his staff were preparing for a surprise attack in the San Michele sector. They believed that the recent Tyrolean battles had sufficiently distracted the Italians to permit the VII Corps to launch a successful raid to recapture some lost positions around San Michele and San Martino. Boroevic wanted to retake some trenches on the mountain's north face, as well as Hill 197, just north of the village of San Martino. These Italian-held positions were a source of constant concern for 5th Army headquarters; Boroevic feared that they would be important staging points for the next Italian attempt to seize Mt. San Michele. He therefore ordered a division-sized raid to retake them before Cadorna had a chance to launch another offensive. The Austrian raid, scheduled for the last week of June, was a typical minor attack, much like a dozen other probes made by both armies in 1916, except for one crucial difference. This time the Austrians were going to use gas.
Poison gas, though widely used on the Western front, had heretofore been unknown on the Isonzo. The Austrian Army had never used gas in battle, and neither had the Italians. Both armies had small units of chemical warfare troops, but so far they had sat idle. The climate and terrain of the Isonzo valley rendered the use of chemical agents difficult. The mountain winds and unpredictable temperature changes made the deployment of poison gas a risky proposition for the attacker. The Austrian idea to use gas on the Isonzo first came in November 1915, when Boroevic feared an Italian breakthrough on the Carso, but it was shelved as impracticable. Yet by the following summer Austria's chemical specialists had changed their minds: a gas attack in clear weather conditions might be possible. Boroevic eagerly seized upon this idea, believing that the use of chemical agents would give his surprise attack a decisive advantage.
In the first week of June, the VII Corps readied its assault force, a brigade each of the veteran 17th and 20th Divisions. Five battalions of the latter were aimed at San Michele, and four of the former were slated to seize Hill 197. By June 10 the assault troops were ready, but they had to wait for weather conditions ideal for the use of chemical weapons to arrive on the Carso. They waited more than two weeks for the winds to die down; in the meantime, troops of the army's Special Sapper Battalion, the gas experts, delivered 6,000 cylinders of phosgene to forward trenches in the San Michele sector. Late on the evening of June 28, the commander of the chemical battalion informed VII Corps headquarters that the weather conditions for the following morning appeared ideal. Archduke Joseph gave his permission just after midnight, and the gas cylinders were in position by 4:15 A.M. Within an hour the infantry was ready to go over the top.
The gas cylinders were opened at 5:15 A.M., and for the next half-hour waves of phosgene crept westward over the trenches of the XI Corps, only a hundred paces away. The highly toxic gases sank into the Italian positions, choking the forward battalions of the 21st and 22nd Divisions. Thefanti in the front lines, unprotected by gasmasks, suffocated agonizingly by the thousands. The battalions holding the second defensive line panicked at the sight of the advancing clouds of phosgene and ran away. At 5:45 the Hungarian infantry, wearing gas masks, charged through the dissipating gas clouds to the Italian lines. They found thousands of Italian corpses, and ran over the first trenches without a fight. As they advanced farther, however, they encountered stiff resistance; outraged by the use of gas, poisoned Italian infantrymen fought back fiercely. Still, by 7 A.M. the two Italian lines of entrenchments on San Michele were occupied by the 20th Division, and a battalion of the 17th held the summit of Hill 197. Austrian shelling of the Isonzo bridges behind the XI Corps prevented the 3rd Army from sending reinforcements, and the attackers were able to consolidate their gains before the Italians could respond in strength. The gas attack had been a complete success. At a cost of 1,572 dead and wounded, the VII Corps had taken all its objectives in only an hour and had inflicted grievous losses on two Italian divisions.
Italian casualties were terrible. The XI Corps lost 6,900 soldiers, the vast majority of them suffocated by phosgene. The 10th Infantry Regiment of the Regina Brigade, occupying Hill 197, alone lost 1,666 fanti, 90 percent of them dead. They died horribly and slowly, their lungs and eyes burned out by gas. One of the thousands of Italian foot soldiers who died at dawn on June 29 was Ermino Cortellessa, a twenty-two-year-old private serving with the Florence Brigade's 128th Regiment. He was drowned in a sea of phosgene, alongside hundreds of his comrades on San Michele. Private Cortellessa's death was notable only because, in a tragic irony, his older brother had died in almost exactly the same spot nearly seven months before. Twenty-four-year-old Achille was killed in action with the 132rd Regiment on San Michele's north face on December 3, 1915, at the tai I end of the Fourth Battle. The loss of a second son was a terrible blow to the Cortellessa family, peasants from Caserta, near Naples, in Italy's poor South. They had already sent their third and last son to the army to fight for Italia irredenta. In less than five months, twenty-year-old Luigi would join his brothers in the legions of Italian dead. He fell on the Carso's southern end on December 10, 1916, mortally wounded by Austrian fire. Within twelve months the Cortellessa family lost all three sons on the Carso. Surely there was no more bitter sacrifice to win the barren limestone plateau for Italy.
The gas attack at San Michele was unquestionably an Austrian victory, but in the long run its legacy hurt Boroevic's soldiers. The sight of thousands of suffocated grigioverdi powerfully affected Italian troops on the Carso. They thirsted to avenge their dead comrades. Italian soldiers became noticeably less willing to accept the surrender of Austrian troops; after June 29, 1916, Boroevic's foot soldiers could surrender safely only in large numbers-individuals or small groups trying to give up were likely to be shot. It was this desire for revenge that Luigi Cadorna sought to exploit in his coming offensive.
The Sixth Battle of the Isonzo grew out of the successful Italian defense of the Asiago plateau. Stopping Austria's Tyrolean offensive vastly improved the morale of the Italian military and nation. Sagging spirits on the home and fighting fronts, caused by months of bloody defeats, were bolstered immeasurably by the 5th Army's stand around Asiago. Italy was united as never before by a desire to bring the war to Austria.' Cadorna wanted to take advantage of this newfound national unity to launch a decisive blow on the Isonzo. It would be aimed at Gorizia and Mt. San Michele, well known objectives. The Comando Supremo believed that the Austrians were tired from their Tyrolean gamble, and would not expect an Italian offensive on the Isonzo so soon after the Asiago battles-an almost flawless analysis of Boroevic's predicament. Furthermore, the time had come for a Sixth Battle because the Central Powers were under great pressure on all fronts. July saw by far the greatest Allied offensives of the war: the French had switched over to the attack at Verdun, the British had just started their enormous push on the Somme, and the Russians continued their advance deep into Galicia. Surely the hour had arrived for a massive Italian strike at the 5th Army. The Austrians, collapsing in the East, could afford few reinforcements for the Italian front, and the Germans were far too busy in the West to offer their Habsburg ally any help.
Cadorna therefore ordered a massive shift of forces from the Asiago plateau to the 3rd Army before Gorizia and on the Carso. Starting in early July, the Italian 5th Army was disbanded, and its troops and supplies were moved by rail to staging areas on the Isonzo. In three weeks, Cadorna transported a dozen reinforced divisions, 300,000 men and prodigious stores of munitions, to the Duke of Aosta's sector on the lower Isonzo. The battle-hardened divisions were fresh from victory at Asiago, and were eager to tight the Austrians again. Just as important, this massive movement of men and materiel was undertaken behind a veil of secrecy; the Italians had finally learned to mask their intentions.
The forces that Cadorna had amassed along the Isonzo by late July were impressive. The Italian Army was a third larger than a year before, and the troops were much better armed, enjoying a steady supply of machine guns, heavy artillery, mortars, and other equipment needed on the modern battlefield. Morale was also higher than it had been for many months. The Sixth Battle was in the hands of the 3rd Army, which held the line from Sabotino to the Adriatic; the 2nd Army, now commanded by Lieutenant General Settimo Piacentini, was reduced to a supporting role on the upper Isonzo. The Duke of Aosta's enlarged command included six corps with more than sixteen strong divisions, a total of 220 battalions supported by 1,250 guns and 770 mortars. The two spearhead corps were Cigliana's XI, aimed at San Michele, and Luigi Capello's VI, poised to take Gorizia.
Capello's veteran corps was given the major task of the whole offensive; its six divisions were ordered to clear Sabotino, Oslavia, and Podgora of all Austrian troops and to cross the Isonzo into Gorizia. All efforts for the last fourteen months had failed dismally, but this time Capello was confident of victory. His divisions would be well supported by heavy artillery with ample supplies of shells, and his battle plan had been very carefully assembled. For months, forward detachments had collected information about Erwin Zeidler's defenses. In addition, Capello's talented chief of staff, who actually devised much of the battle plan, believed that the VI Corps would reach Gorizia this time. Capello's number two was newly promoted Colonel Pietro Badoglio, a rising star in the Italian Army. The forty-four-year-old Badoglio had been a lieutenant colonel on the General Staff when Italy entered the war, but he had advanced rapidly in the past year. Although not from a military family, he attended the prestigious military academy at Turin, followed by exemplary service as an artillery officer. He commanded field artillery units in action in Ethiopia in 1895-1896, and again in Libya in 1911-1912; he was universally considered an efficient officer with a promising future. Badoglio served as a staff officer on the Isonzo during 1915, but went to the front in February 1916 as an infantry regimental commander. After just seven weeks in the trenches, he was promoted to chief of staff of the 4th Division, part of the VI Corps. There he caught Capello's eye. The senior general liked the energetic young Badoglio, and soon promoted him to full colonel and chief of staff of his corps. There he proceeded to plan the VI Corps attack on Gorizia.
Badoglio's scheme was simple. First, the VI Corps needed all the heavy artillery it could get; by the eve of the attack it controlled 261 field guns, 210 medium and heavy pieces, and forty mortar batteries, all generously supplied with shells. Italian batteries carefully selected their targets, including Zeidler's ammunition dumps, headquarters bunkers, communication centers, and numerous weapons dugouts along the 58th Division's front. The bombardment would cripple the Austrian defenses before the fanti even went over the top. The infantry attack to follow would be rapid and merciless-four whole divisions on a front of just five miles. Badoglio, confident of victory, assembled a maneuver group of eighteen cavalry squadrons and two bicycle battalions to advance rapidly into Gorizia once the Austrian defenses began to falter. The first objective was Mt. Sabotino, which dominated the region. The loss of Sabotino would endanger the 58th Division's hold on the river's west bank, and probably force a retreat to Gorizia. Badoglio therefore concentrated his heavy artillery and fresh infantry on the mountain. He assigned the capture of Sabotino to General Giuseppe Venturi's 45th Division, a war-raised formation new to the Isonzo. Badoglio divided the division into three assault groups. The first two were assembled in storm brigade, to be commanded by Badoglio himself, and the third was kept in reserve to reinforce the success of the initial waves. Capello's double-sized corps was ready to do battle by early August.
Cadorna likewise believed that the hour of victory was nigh. More confident than ever because of his halting of the Austrians on the Asiago plateau, he also felt that he now had enough heavy guns and sufficient shells to crack Boroevic's defenses. He explained to the Duke of Aosta that the key to victory was "the bringing together of an imposing mass of artillery of all calibers on the narrowest front," and his armies now had the equipment to do the job. Cadorna was similarly confident of his troops' morale. Many of the divisions had enjoyed several months of relative inactivity, and for once were well rested. Still, there had been some worrying indications of flagging morale even during the victory on the Asiago plateau. One particularly hated divisional commander, General Carlo Giordano, a noted sadist, had been shot by his own troops. In another embarrassing incident,fanti of the Salerno Brigade refused to advance again after several failed and costly assaults; some even tried to surrender, so their brigadier called artillery fire onto his own troops, and had the survivors rounded up and executed. Despite these troublesome events, Cadorna was sure that the troops of the 3rd Army could be depended on to take Gorizia and San Michele.
Boroevic's skilled intelligence staff had been detecting signs of an Italian offensive for weeks. Espionage revealed considerable Italian rail movements to the Isonzo, and the radio experts and code breakers had reported impressive amounts of wire traffic that indicated some kind of offensive. Italian secrecy extended only so far. Still, Boroevic and his staff remained unconvinced by the collected evidence. It was obvious that the Italians were planning an attack on the Isonzo by mid-August, but the Austrians expected nothing more than a repeat of the minor, short-lived Fifth Battle. It seemed impossible that Cadorna could launch a major offensive so soon after waging a major, sustained counteroffensive on the Asiago plateau. The Austrians therefore chose to believe that the coming attack would be small and brief.
Perhaps Boroevic and his staff officers simply did not want to believe that a major Italian offensive was imminent. The condition of the 5th Army was unenviable. The Tyrolean campaign and the Galician disaster had stripped the Isonzo front of many men, guns, and supplies. In early August the 5th Army boasted only eight divisions with just 106 infantry battalions and 584 guns and 333 mortars. Its paper strength was barely half that of the Italian forces arrayed against it; most regiments were undermanned, and there were few replacements on hand to bring them up to strength. Boroevic was particularly short of heavy artillery; all but four batteries had been sent elsewhere. Even worse, ammunition was in short supply for guns of all calibers. The 5th Army was still an impressive force occupying excellent positions, but it had lost much of the equipment and several of the crack Alpine divisions that had secured its impres sive victories throughout 1915. It certainly was in no condition to tight a sustained battle.
The Italian offensive began with a feint to further deceive the Austrians. At 10 A.M. on August 4, the artillery of Tettoni's VII Corps opened fire on the southern flank of the Carso, hammering the Austrian positions around Selz and Vermegliano. Four divisions attacked at 2 em., and within four hours they had captured the first line of Austrian trenches. The East Galician 60th Brigade, Poles and Ukrainians who had endured so much on Sabotino during the Fourth Battle, were forced to retreat to the second line of defenses, losing several hundred men. The Gorizia sector remained quiet during the day as Austrian attention shifted to the Carso's southern reaches, almost ten miles downstream from where the main Italian blow would fall.
When the Italian guns opened fire again on the south Carso the next morning, Boroevic began to fear the worst. Slowly realizing that the VII Corps probes were not the main attack, but merely a feint, he cabled the High Command to send him heavy artillery and all available infantry reserves at once. The Croatian old soldier at last knew that the long-feared drive on Gorizia was set to begin. Franz Conrad von HOtzendorf was unresponsive; the army was far too hard-pressed in Galicia to give Boroevic anything until it was clear that a major Italian offensive had arrived. By the evening of August 5, as the scorching summer sun started to set, 5th Army headquarters knew that the following dawn would deliver calamity. It was too late to do anything but wait for the attack to get under way.
The night of August 5-6 was unnaturally calm. Tens of thousands of fcn ti who would go over the top the next day gathered in forward trenches, making last-minute preparations, securing their gear, cleaning their weapons, writing letters home, and making sure their wills were in order. Sunrise came early, and the temperature began to climb well before the artillery commenced firing at 6:45 A.M. The barrage was deafening, with high-explosive shells raining on Austrian positions from Tolmein to the Adriatic. The bombardment was heaviest on the 58th Division's front, as thousands of heavy shells collided with dugouts, weapons pits, and trench sections. The Dalmatians had never experienced anything like this. While the earth shook continuously around them, they were blinded by dense clouds of smoke and dust thrown up by thousands of explosions. The barrage quickly cut the division's telephone lines, and the frontline infantry lost contact with division headquarters and artillery. The 58th's eighty-seven guns were unable to respond in strength anyway; many batteries were hit by Italian fire, and there was a severe shell shortage. Zeidler's nine battalions holding the line on Sabotino, Oslavia, and Podgora were cut off and isolated almost immediately. There was nothing to do but endure the shattering barrage delivered by Capello's 900 guns and mortars, and wait for the inevitable infantry assault. The Dalmatians' duty was clear, and known to even the lowliest private; they had received Boroevic's orders before the wire was cut. The message and mandate were familiar: " not to give up a single foot also this time, and eventually to counterattack and win back any lost ground." For the battleworn 58th, it was to be a fight to the finish.
Mt. Sabotino was held by a reinforced battalion of the veteran 37th Rifle Regiment. At 2 PM., after over seven hours of unprecedentedly heavy shelling, the dazed defenders watched as the 45th Division sent its first waves of infantry up Snake Mountain's north and west slopes. In the lead was Colonel Badoglio's reinforced brigade, including the 78th Regiment, a battalion each of the 58th and 115th Regiments, two companies of sappers armed with demolition charges, and a mountain battery with light guns to be pushed forward to give the attack direct fire support. Badoglio's five assault battalions had their way cleared for them by the enormous barrage of 220 guns, including 72 heavy and 28 superheavy pieces, which had laid waste to many of the Dalmatian-held positions. The attack was spearheaded by the 1st Battalion of the 78th Regiment, commanded by Major Abelardo Pecorini, who personally led his troops up Sabotino's rugged and barren slopes. Badoglio watched as Pecorini's 800fanti, rifles and bayonets at the ready, ran up the steep mountainside, followed by four more reinforced battalions. The 37th Rifles returned fire where they could, but a sustained defense was impossible. Too many machine guns had been destroyed by the shelling, and there was neither artillery support nor hope of reinforcement. Still, the 78th Regiment suffered heavy casualties in its lead battalion as the doomed Dalmatians kept firing, and grigioverdi collapsed dead and wounded on the slopes where so many Italian soldiers had fallen before them. This time, however, there were plenty of fresh companies to keep pushing to the 2,010-foot-high summit.
Within less than an hour, Badoglio's forward platoons had reached Sabotino's peak. They found hundreds of dead and wounded Dalmatians lying in their trenches, killed and maimed by the bombardment. Some Dalmatians continued to resist fiercely, but the battle had been won. After nearly fifteen months of trying, Mt. Sabotino was in Italian hands. The triumphantfanti had a clear and commanding view of the Isonzo directly below, and of Gorizia only a mile to the south. Badoglio did not just revel in his victory and wait for the inevitable Austrian counterattack. Instead, he reinforced the summit with his remaining troops, and they tried to clean up any lingering Austrian opposition. More important, in accordance with the detailed battle plan, General Venturi sent his second and third echelons, seven more reinforced battalions, up Sabotino, but they did not stop at the summit. Rather, they kept going, headed for the Isonzo; they would give Zeidler no time to regroup.
Major General Francesco Gagliani's Tuscany Brigade, the 45th's second echelon, reached the summit and ran down Sabotino's southeast slope, headed for the Isonzo below. By the afternoon Gagliani's four battalions had occupied the village of San Mauro and reached the river's banks, the first Italian troops to touch the Isonzo's cool, blue-green waters. They headed for the railway bridge at Salcano, Gorizia's northernmost suburb. A rapid counterstroke by the 58th Division-Zeidler and his staff had watched in horror as the Tuscany Brigade moved unopposed down the mountainside to the Isonzo-seized the bridge first and prevented a river crossing; for the moment. Venturi's division would remain on the west bank. Nevertheless, the 45th Division had conquered Sabotino and reached the Isonzo. Badoglio's attack had unlocked the mountain's defenses at a cost of only 1,186 casualties. Zeidler lost his most important position, exposing Gorizia to a direct assault; without Sabotino, the city could not be held for long, and both Zeidler and Boroevic soon knew it. The Italians were busy all day rounding up Austrian prisoners on Sabotino. Hundreds of Dalmatians were trapped in their kaventen, unable to escape. Eventually most of the defeated Croats and Serbs were persuaded to give themselves up, but some defiant riflemen were determined to fight to the bitter end. One of the largest pockets of the 37th Rifles left fighting, the remnants of a company cut off in a large kavenze, refused to surrender. Badoglio's sappers offered the Dalmatians one more chance to give themselves up, but when no response was forthcoming, they poured gasoline into the cave's entrance and air shafts, then tossed a torch, incinerating the last of Sabotino's defenders. Some 1,200 of their comrades had chosen surrender. By any standards, the capture of Sabotino by Badoglio's assault troops was the greatest Italian triumph of the war yet. Gabriele D'Annunzio, the famed romantic poet and wartime adventurer, composed a few lines to celebrate the triumph:
Fu come l'ala the non lascia impronte it prima grido avea gin preso it monte.
(A shouted order, fast as wings that do not touch. The ground, the mountain, had been taken.)
Venturi's victorious 45th Division proudly took D'Annunzio's words as its motto.
While Badoglio's storm brigade charged up Sabotino, the rest of Capello's VI Corps attacked Austrian positions at Oslavia and Podgora. The 24th Division made little progress at Oslavia. Hill 188 and the ruined village were held by two battalions of Austrian militia, whose shell-shocked soldiers managed to repulse eight Italian battalions all day long. Capello's men did better at Podgora. The 12th Division overran most of the Austrian trenches on Podgora hill, leaving only isolated pockets of resistance. The neighboring 11th Division, attacking between Oslavia and Podgora, succeeded in penetrating the Austrian defenses and reaching the Isonzo's banks near Gorizia. As at Salcano, rapid action by 58th Division reserves blocked an Italian crossing, but the 11th Division had reached the river in strength. By the evening of August 6, Capello's VI Corps had captured Sabotino and most of Podgora, leaving only cut-off pockets of Austrian resistance. In a matter of hours Zeidler's division had lost the battle for the heights on the Isonzo's west bank, putting Gorizia in mortal danger.
That evening, Zeidler and his staff were only too aware of their precarious predicament. If the division could not retake its lost positions-especially Sabotino--before dawn, a retreat to the Isonzo's east bank would be necessary within twenty-tour hours. As a precaution, Zeidler ordered two companies of sappers to prepare to blow up the Isonzo bridges. The 58th Division had only seven weak battalions to launch a counterattack, and there would be scant artillery support available; the XVI Corps and 5th Army headquarters informed Zeidler that they had no reserves to give him. Regardless, Boroevic's unbending orders demanded a counterstroke, no matter how hopeless the odds, nor how remote the chances of success. The troops trapped on Podgora had to be saved, too. For a moment when the wind blew the thick clouds of smoke away from the hill, staff officers at 58th Division headquarters a mile away in Gorizia clearly saw calls by signal lamps coming from the surrounded riflemen on Podgora, begging for help. Zeidler dispatched Austrian and Hungarian militia units to relieve the surrounded Dalmatians, and four more battalions to recapture Sabotino. The counterattacks were doomed from the start. Badly outnumbered by the Italians holding the hills, the attackers also had no artillery to clear the way for them. Nevertheless, the Austrians fought bravely through the night, trying desperately to push Capello's troops back. The drive on Podgora made surprisingly good initial progress, but soon stalled from a lack of reinforcements. The ill-fated bayonet charge up Sabotino's southeast slope overran several Italian positions, but it failed to reach the summit. It was not for lack of effort. The 600-strong 2nd Battalion of the 22nd Regiment, the hard-fighting Dalmatian veterans of so many battles on the Isonzo, recaptured the village of San Mauro and continued to push up the mountainside. The "Lions of Podgora" did their duty to the last, charging Italian machine guns; not a single soldier of the 22nd returned to the Austrian lines. Their futile sacrifice could not turn the tide, and at dawn Sabotino was still firmly in Italian hands.
The Austrians suffered an equally bitter defeat on the Carso's northern flank. At 7 A.M. on August 6, more than a hundred Italian batteries opened fire all along the Doberdo plateau; at noon, the fire concentrated on San Michele. At 4 P.M., after the shattering nine-hour barrage had ceased, Cigliana's XI Corps started its well planned assault on Mt. San Michele. The sector was garrisoned by the five-battalion-strong 81st Honved Brigade; its Magyar veterans of the 1st and 17th Regiments occupied excellent positions and knew the terrain intimately. Yet, as at Sabotino, it was not enough to hold the mountain. More than 500 Italian guns blasted the brigade's entrenchments, burying dozens of ma chine gun and mortar pits, killing and maiming hundreds of defenders, and covering the mountain in thick clouds of dust and smoke. The double-strength 22nd Division then charged the Austrian lines, only a hundred paces to the east. The four Italian brigades, outnumbering the confused Hungarian defenders nearly five-to-one, quickly overran their trenches. After a brief but bloody melee, the bayonet-wielding fanti reached the summit. By 6 PM., the peak of Mt. San Michele was held by troops of the Catanzaro, Brescia, and Ferrara Brigades. They had succeeded where twenty-six brigades before them had failed. After the loss of 112,000 Italian soldiers on its slopes, Mt. San Michele belonged to the 3rd Army.
The news of the capture of San Michele spread electrically through the ranks of the Duke of Aosta's army, soon reaching army headquarters, and then Cadorna's staff in Udine. Spontaneous celebrations erupted all along the Carso as joyous fanti reveled in their long-awaited victory. The fall of San Michele even eclipsed the capture of Sabotino earlier in the day. At last Italy had a tangible triumph, and Gorizia was now surrounded on the north and south by Italian-held peaks. The capture of Mt. San Michele, coupled with the seizing of Mt. Sabotino, surely meant that Gorizia itself would soon follow.
Archduke Joseph, pondering the day's terrible events at VII Corps headquarters, was well aware of this. Like Zeidler, he knew that he must counterattack with the meager resources at his disposal; Boroevie, acting on the orders of the High Command, would not permit a withdrawal. Joseph collected just six battalions from the 17th and 20th Divisions, all that could be spared from other parts of the line, and threw them against the Italian-held trenches on San Michele. The battle for the summit raged through the evening as the six Hungarian battalions made repeated charges up the mountain's east slope. The Romanians of the 4th Honved and 43rd Regiments, alongside the Magyars of the 46th, fought bravely, capturing several hundredfanti and some trench lines, but the cause was hopeless. The understrength 5th Army had no troops to spare, and a half-dozen weary Hungarian battalions could not possibly wrest San Michele from the 22nd Division, four times its size. For want of fresh Austrian soldiers, Mt. San Michele would remain Italian.
Zeidler's crisis had reached a decisive point by the morning of August 7: either the 58th Division would achieve the impossible and recapture Sabotino and Podgora in the next twelve hours, or it would retreat across the Isonzo to Gorizia. Boroevic was adamant that the exhausted division attempt to retake its lost positions. Because Zeidler had not even a single fresh company left, the 5th Army command sent him all its scant supply of troops and replacements. The 22nd Rifle Regiment, Romanians and Ukrainians from Bukovina, the empire's easternmost province, arrived in Gorizia in the early afternoon, and Zeidler immediately sent its three battalions up Sabotino. Without artillery support- Zeidler's artillery was out of ammunition-the attack was doomed, and the brave battalions suffered severe casualties on the rocky and barren southeast slope, gaining no ground. Likewise, an attempt by the remnants of the Dalmatian 23rd Rifles to seize Podgora collapsed bloodily without producing any results. Capello continued his drive on Gorizia, adding a fresh division to his front line. By the evening, the five divisions of the VI Corps had taken Oslavia and almost all of Podgora; only a few scattered bands of isolated Dalmatians remained on the latter hill. All along the 58th Division's front, Italian infantry had reached the Isonzo.
By the evening, there was no choice but to withdraw all Austrian forces to the Isonzo's east bank. Zeidler's infantry had been all but annihilated, his artillery was out of ammunition, and communication with several units had been lost. No one knew where veteran battalions were, or if they still existed. Yet the tired major general was determined that his retreat would be an orderly one; under no circumstances could the Italians be permitted to take advantage of the withdrawal to Gorizia. Boroevic made it clear to Zeidler in a late afternoon communique that, regardless of events, "In the worst case, the Isonzo line is to be absolutely held. "The actual decision to retreat, and when, was left to Zeidler. He knew that if he did not move his division to the east bank before dawn, there would be nothing left to save. In the late evening, he ordered his engineers to prepare the explosive charges on the Isonzo bridges, and to make sure the second defensive line-behind the city of Gorizia-was ready. Zeidler did not issue the order to withdraw until 2 A.M. on August 8, when he was absolutely sure that there was no other option. The retreat, covered by darkness, was surprisingly orderly. Small parties of machine gunners in the rear guard made sure that the Italians were not aware of what was going on. Before dawn, the 58th Division had completed its retreat to the city of Gorizia, leaving only a small detachment of the 37th Rifles on the river's west bank near Salcano, to block Italian probes across the rail bridge. All the other Isonzo bridges were blown up by engineers of the 9th Sapper Battalion. After more than fourteen months, the 58th Division had relinquished the Isonzo's west bank to the Italians. The Dalmatians had paid a heavy price. Of the 18,000 soldiers Zeidler had on the morning of August 6, only 5,000 reached Gorizia less than forty-eight hours later. Those few tired Croats and Serbs who had survived now had to defend the City of Violets against the might of Capello's triumphant VI Corps.
The Austrian situation appeared just as grim on the Carso. At dawn on August 7, the VII Corps tried again to evict the 22nd Division from San Michele's summit, but the attempt predictably failed. Without artillery support-VII Corps' batteries, like Zeidler's, were out of ammunition-the infantry hardly had a chance. Later in the morning, two fresh Italian regiments pushed the Hungarians even farther from the summit. The remnants of the 4th Honved and 43rd Regiments evacuated the mountain's east slope and retreated to a temporary defensive line several hundred feet to the east. While the Hungarians were with drawing, the XI Corps sent the 22nd Division two reserve brigades to push even harder the next morning. Without reinforcements, Archduke Joseph knew that a general retreat to the second defensive line, two miles to the east, would soon be necessary.
On the evening of August 7, the Duke of Aosta savored his victory. His divisions had captured Sabotino and San Michele, and were well on their way to taking Gorizia. He knew the Austrians were tired, and out of fresh men and munitions: Boroevic's deadly counterattacks, unsupported by artillery, lacked their usual potency. All that remained to be done was to advance across the Isonzo into Gorizia. For once, he had good news to report to Cadorna. In the late evening, the duke left his headquarters and visited Capello. He wanted to see his troops' accomplishment and the impending fall of Gorizia with his own eyes. The 3rd Army's commander planned to conduct the next morning's river crossing, and he gave the order to renew the VI Corps' offensive at about the same time Zeidler ordered his units to withdraw across the Isonzo.
Boroevic wanted to hold on to Gorizia, but for political, not military, reasons. The fall of the City of Violets would be a serious psychological blow for Austria, and a major gain for the Italians-the first Habsburg city to fly the Italian tricolor. Yet, in military terms, defending the city on the banks of the Isonzo made no sense. The second defensive line, the only place where the 58th Division had any hope of making a successful stand, was a mile east of downtown, and two miles from the river's edge. Forcing Zeidler's shattered division to hold the river's east bank was a prescription for disaster: With just 5,000 men, how could the 58th defend a front of eight miles against the assaults of six divisions? Nevertheless, Boroevic insisted that the Dalmatians at least attempt to keep the Italians at bay at the Isonzo's edge. The mission fell apart almost immediately. In the late morning of August 8, a battalion of Capello's 12th Division simply waded across the Isonzo'- and walked up the east bank unopposed. Within a few minutes the fanti reached the outskirts of the city. Several more companies of Italian infantry followed, and by noon the 12th Division had established a bridgehead on the east bank. There was nothing Zeidler could do; he had no reserves to push the Italians back, and his artillery was completely out of munitions. By nightfall the 58th's predicament was hopeless. Zeidler informed Boroevic that there was now no choice but to withdraw the tattered remains of his division to the second defensive line. At 11 P.M., he ordered the 37th Rifles to abandon their foothold at the base of Sabotino and retreat to the Isonzo's east bank. The Dalmatians withdrew silently in the darkness, then blew up the stone rail bridge connecting Sabotino and Salcano. They then took their place in the second defensive line on Mt. San Gabriele. By dawn on August 9, there were no Austrian soldiers left in Gorizia.
The same occurred on the Carso. The Hungarian troops on the northern half of the Carso continued to tight impressively. The XI Corps attacked the Hun garians all day long around San Michele and San Martino, without much success; the remnants of the 17th Honved Regiment repulsed no less than nine assaults by the 21st Division at San Martino. Even so, the Austrian situation was hopeless. By the late afternoon of August 8, it was evident to Archduke Joseph that the VII Corps could not withstand further Italian offensives. The 3rd Army's massive reserves of men and munitions meant that the Duke of Aosta could keep attacking for several more days, far longer than the VII Corps could hope to hold out. Without reserves, a withdrawal to the second defensive line was urgently needed. Far better to evacuate the survivors of the 17th and 20th Divisions, the archduke reasoned, than to lose everything in a doomed last-ditch defense. Besides, with the fall of San Michele there was little reason to hold on to the westernmost edge of the plateau. By the evening, Boroevic agreed. The 5th Army's commander reluctantly conceded that a withdrawal to the second defensive position was unquestionably necessary within twenty-four hours. Boroevic ordered that the Carso's defenders hold out for one more day, to give Zeidler time to establish his own defenses.
At this point, with the 58th Division withdrawing to the second defensive line and the Carso's defenders preparing to do the same, Cadorna should have sent all his forces relentlessly forward. Rapid and determined Italian full-scale attacks at Gorizia and on the Carso would have cracked the feeble Austrian defenses, with strategic results. Hitting the 58th Division and VII Corps before they had time to consolidate their hold on the second defensive line might have been a war-winner for Cadorna. Yet, regrettably for Italy, that was not what Cadorna did. Despite the chief of staff's recklessness in his expenditure of men, Cadorna was, at root, a deeply cautious leader. Confronted with the quick victories of his armies before Gorizia and at San Michele, he seemed not to know what to do. So long accustomed to bruising and indecisive battles of attrition, when he was confronted with a dramatic success and the chance to dash forward, Cadorna failed to seize the opportunity. His vision did not extend beyond the Isonzo's east bank. An immediate direct assault past Gorizia would have been a virtual walkover-a hundred Italian battalions were opposed by only thirteen weak Austrian battalions. Yet, at precisely the moment that Capello could have burst through the weak Austrian lines at Gorizia, Cadorna noted that he had "great doubts about the success of the attack" Capello expected to dash through the city with his mobile group and proceed to the fields beyond, but Cadorna reigned him in. The chief of staff put Capello in charge of the Gorizia Group, with the VI and VIII Corps, then ordered the II Corps to secure Capello's northern flank before the general advance could proceed. Once Cadorna did decide to send Capello's forces forward in strength, the offensive was delayed by numerous technical problems: the need to build pontoon bridges across the Isonzo, traffic tie-ups on the roads, and a general confusion about supplies. The result of all this was the loss of a whole day, twenty-four hours that Zeidler's division used to good effect to prepare itself for the defense of the second line of entrenchments. It was an inexcusable delay that would cost Italy and her army dearly.
The August 9 flanking attacks on the central Isonzo proved much less successful than the earlier offensives before Gorizia and on the Carso. At 7:30 A.M., the II Corps artillery began shelling Austrian positions around Hill 383 and Zagora. The barrage continued through the morning and into the early afternoon, reaching an unprecedented intensity by 1 P.M.. It was the strongest bombardment yet at the Plava bridgehead. After a full twelve hours of heavy shelling, the infantry regiments of the 3rd Division assaulted their old nemeses, 383 and Zagora. The fanti launched four determined attacks inside two hours, but all were brutally repulsed. The tough Dalmatian battalion of the 22nd Regiment on Hill 383 and the Magyar battalion of the 52nd Regiment at Zagora kept the 3rd Division at bay, throwing back each assault with heavy losses. By nightfall, the slopes of "Bloody 383" were again strewn with mangled Italian corpses, and the II Corps was no closer to seizing the Plava bridgehead than it had been for the past fourteen months. Plava continued to live up to its evil reputation, and Cadorna's left flank remained vulnerable.
The Duke of Aosta's troops on the Carso were disappointingly inactive on August 9. They turned back an early morning counterattack by the 4th Honved Regiment, a last, desperate attempt by the VII Corps to regain Mt. San Michele. The Romanian infantry managed to recapture several positions on the mountain's east face, but the effort clearly was hopeless, and was abandoned by midmorning. Instead of taking advantage of this setback, however, the 3rd Army was content to shell the Austrian lines all day. The Italian infantry was astonishingly inactive; the duke, like Cadorna, was damagingly cautious when he should have been audacious. The daylong barrage inflicted casualties on the Austrians, but had no impact on the overall campaign. The three Austrian divisions remaining on the Carso were preparing to retreat to the second defensive position, three miles back, well behind San Michele and the town of Doberd6. When the sun went down, the the VII Corps began its retreat, abandoning all the positions it had held so bravely for more than a year-San Martino, Hill 197, Mt. Sei Busi, Hill 121. Each division left behind parties of machine gunners and snipers to keep the Italians' heads down while the bulk of the troops withdrew silently. By dawn, VII Corps had reestablished its positions on the second defensive line. The Italians, deceived by the work of the rear guard, never noticed the Austrian retreat.
Cadorna, by now dimly realizing what had happened, ordered Capello "to get his troops on their feet" and press on past Gorizia before the Austrians were permanently entrenched. August 10 began with several Italian attacks, starting with Capello's troops. The Gorizia Group, seven divisions strong, advanced unopposed through the city to the eastern suburbs, where they encountered the new Austrian defenses. There the Italian infantry soon stalled. Zeidler's second line of entrenchments, carefully built over months by construction units, were as formidable as anything on the Isonzo's west bank had been, and Capello's regiments made no progress. They were now tired and had received few supplies in the last forty-eight hours, and thus were in no condition to attempt an all-out offensive against strong Austrian positions. The II Corps did no better at Plava. Renewed efforts to clear Hill 383 and Zagora of their tenacious defenders met with no success, despite another heavy artillery barrage. The fighting continued long into the night, but the Austrian hold on Plava was never seriously threatened.
Nevertheless, August 10 was the day the Italians officially took control of Gorizia. Once the city center was secure, the Duke of Aosta rode his favorite mount triumphantly across the Isonzo into Gorizia, formally entering the city at the head of the 3rd Army. He oversaw the official raising of the tricolor over this newest Italian city, and named Major Giovanni Sestili as Gorizia's commissioner, responsible for the well-being of the city's residents. Sestili's first task was feeding the hungry civilians, who had endured several days of heavy shelling, cut off from food and other vital supplies. Italian field kitchens cooked up a serving of pasta for each of the 3,000 residents who were still in Gorizia when the Duke of Aosta arrived. Celebrations followed, but most of Capello's soldiers were too busy to join in. They were already down to the deadly serious business of cracking the new Austrian defenses.
The next day Capello's Gorizia Group (now returned to the jurisdiction of Piacentini's 2nd Army) tried even harder to push the 58th Division out of its new positions. August 11 began with a predawn attack by the 45th Division up St. Katarina, a 1,000-foot peak behind Salcano. The church at the summit, overlooking Gorizia, was surrounded by stone walls dating to the Iron Age and the Roman period. St. Katarina's current defenders, troops of the 37th Rifles, had added considerably more modern entrenchments, including sandbags, barbed wire, and steel shields. After a brief supporting barrage, the Italian infantry charged up the west and south slopes, but were repulsed by accurate machine gun and rifle fire. Further attacks made no more headway, losing many prisoners to the hill's Dalmatian defenders. This time, Venturi's division was stopped in its tracks by the 37th Rifles, eager to avenge their recent defeat. Unlike the fiasco on Sabotino five days before, the Dalmatians now held their ground against the 45th.
There was little Italian activity on the Carso on August 11. The Duke of Aosta's artillery shelled the new Austrian defenses sporadically, but his infantry stayed out of the fight. The 3rd Army needed time to move its troops and supply columns forward more than three miles, nearer to the Austrian second defensive position. The victorious fanti marched through the towns and villages on the Carso that had eluded capture for more than a year, especially San Martino and Doberd6, only to find them abandoned and destroyed by months of Italian shelling. By the time the 3rd Army was ready to attack again on the Carso, twenty-four hours later, it would find the VII Corps thoroughly reentrenched in its new defenses.
On the evening of August 11, Boroevic contemplated his army's situation. The Austrian Army had been defeated, to be sure; the loss of Gorizia and the western Carso was a bitter setback. That said, the Italian advance had been inevitable, and the 5th Army had succeeded in retreating to the second defensive line, where it was now ready to tight another sustained battle against the 2nd and 3rd Armies. Boroevic's casualties had been very heavy-36,000 dead, wounded, and captured in just five days, more than a third of his rifle strength; the 58th Division's losses were the worst, but the 17th and 20th Divisions had each lost 6,000 soldiers. The tide had begun to turn, however. By August 11, the 5th Army had received a division's worth of fresh troops from the Tyrol, and three more divisions were on their way; the supply of munitions and replacements had increased, too, so that the Isonzo army could keep fighting. Late in the evening, Boroevic cabled to the High Command that the worst had passed. The crisis was over, the front had been restored, and the danger to Trieste had evaporated. Cadorna's task now was to break through a line of Austrian defenses as strong as those which had held out for more than a year before Gorizia and on the western Carso. The prospect of an easy Italian strategic victory had disappeared.
This painful reality became evident on August 12. The day began with more attacks by the Gorizia Group. Capello was eager to achieve the breakthrough that had eluded him the previous day. He sent his seven divisions forward toward Zeidler's entrenchments; the main assault was borne by the newly arrived XXVI Corps, which was committed to battle in the center of the sector. Its objective was the capture of Hills 171 and 174, just east of Gorizia. The two hills, occupied by tired Austrian militia battalions of the 121st Brigade, were struck at 3:45 A.M. by the 43rd and 48th Divisions. Bitter fighting lasted for more than twelve hours. The Italians captured Hill 174, but it was retaken in a lightning counterstroke by Dalmatian riflemen. At nightfall both hills were still controlled by the 58th Division. Hill 174 was surrounded by no fewer than 500 dead grigioverdi; Austrian losses were not much less, but Zeidler's troops had prevailed. Their defenses remained intact. The same had happened on the division's northern flank. There, the Dalmatians succeeded in maintaining their hold on St. Katarina and the neighboring peak, Mt. San Gabriele. The latter, a 2,140-foot-high peak two-thirds of a mile northeast of St. Katarina, was the linchpin of Zeidler's northern sector. The steep, forested mountain, blanketed with Austrian entrenchments, dominated Gorizia from the northeast. To advance past the city, Capello's divisions would have to capture it just as they did Sabotino. They met with no success on August 12. The 45th Division failed to make any notable gains on either St. Katarina or San Gabriele, which were defended tenaciously by the 8th Mountain Brigade, fresh troops just arrived from the Tyrol.
The 3rd Army finally got on its feet on August 12, though its infantry was hardly more successful. The new Austrian defenses on the northern Carso were dominated by Hill 212, Nad logem, a "beak" protruding west, about two miles directly behind San Michele. Cigliana's XI Corps concentrated its efforts there, beginning with an impressive bombardment. Its 23rd Division then assaulted the hill in strength at noon. The defenders were Ukrainians and Romanians from Bukovina, part of the 59th Infantry Brigade, taken out of reserve to hold the line. The Italian infantry soon reached the Austrian trenches, and handto-hand fighting followed. The savage battle raged well into the afternoon, and losses mounted on both sides. By the evening, the Italians held Nad logem, but they were far too weak to exploit their gain. The hill's defenders had been pushed back a few hundred paces, but they had inflicted such heavy casualties on the 23rd Division that it could not advance farther. The depleted 59th Brigade then had enough time to establish a new line of defense behind Hill 212.
The 3rd Army resumed its offensive the next morning. The 23rd Division, topped off with fresh replacements, was sent into battle again to push the the XI Corps past Nad logem. It ran into the 17th Division, rushed into the line during the night on the orders of Archduke Joseph. The Hungarians prevented an Italian breakthrough, both at Nad logem and at the village of Lokvica, a mile and a half farther south. The veteran battalions of Magyars, Romanians, and Serbs battled fiercely with the fanti of the XI Corps among the limestone rocks. The fighting was intense and costly, the struggle for each dolina or dugout becoming a small but bitter siege. The arduous skirmishing cost the XI Corps dearly and cut short an Italian breakout on the northern Carso. Capello's troops also gained no new ground on August 13. His infantry was too exhausted to attack anywhere on the 58th Division's front. The Gorizia Group relied instead on its artillery, which pounded Zeidler's entrenchments while the infantry received thousands of replacements, rested, and prepared for the next major attack, scheduled for the following morning.
Cadorna was now exasperated by his armies' lethargy. He urged Piacentini and the Duke of Aosta to get their troops moving, ordering a major combined offensive for August 14. It was to be a massive blow by the 2nd and 3rd Armies, directed at the Austrian defensive line from Plava to the central Carso, a final large-scale effort before Cadorna's regiments collapsed from exhaustion. The offensive began before dawn, with a thunderous artillery barrage aimed at the heights north of Gorizia. The VI Corps was ordered to seize St. Katarina, then move on to its higher neighbor, San Gabriele. The bombardment increased in pace and intensity after sunrise, pounding the Austrian positions on St. Katarina mercilessly. At 6 P.m., after more than a dozen hours of shelling by heavy artillery and mortars, the infantry of the 45th and 24th Divisions fixed bayonets and advanced up the now bare hillsides. Troopers of the 8th Mountain Brigade, a thousand feet above, poured ceaseless machine gun and rifle tire into the charging ranks of Italians, felling hundreds on the naked west and south slopes. The first attack faltered, but was soon followed by a second wave of fanti, which managed to overrun some of the lower Austrian trenches. A battalion each of Magyars and Ukrainians then charged down the mountainside to push the Italians back, which they succeeded in doing by nightfall. The VI Corps was back where it had started before dawn.
The 48th Division fought hard to evict the Austrians from Hill 171, just east of Gorizia. All morning the guns of the XXVI Corps blasted the hill, but the infantry attack that followed at 1 PM. was ultimately unsuccessful. The Italians and Austrians vied bravely for 171 through the afternoon, and the 48th eventually seized some of the defenders' positions, but the inevitable Austrian counterattack forced the fanti back to their own lines with heavy casualties. The same happened at Plava, where the II Corps tried again to seize the bridgehead and advance down the river road toward Gorizia. The artillery of the Plava Corps shelled the Austrian militia battalions on 383 and at Zagora through the morning, but the 3rd Division's infantry attack at noon got nowhere. Austrian mountain batteries targeted the advancing companies, blasting large gaps in their ranks, and the advance soon collapsed in bloody disorder. The Italian artillery answered with more shelling, which was predictably followed at 3:30 P.M. by another infantry charge up Hill 383. The fanti captured a few Austrian gun pits, but held them only briefly before the Austrians pushed them back down the hillside. On August 14, the 2nd Army failed to take and hold a single piece of the new Austrian defensive line.
The 3rd Army accomplished as little on the Carso. The Duke of Aosta's troops attacked VII Corps entrenchments at several points, but made their strongest effort around the village of Lokvica. There, units of the XI and XIII Corps attempted to break through the defenses of the 17th Division on the heels of a supporting barrage. The midday attack failed to gain any ground. Even mass infantry charges supported by Italian armored cars were repulsed by the Hungarians. Honved troops at the village of Opacchiasella, where Franz Joseph maintained a hunting box before the war, destroyed the armored cars with hand grenades and forced the(anti back to their own lines with concentrated machine gun and rifle tire. The 5th Army enjoyed complete success on August 14. Its weary infantry lost none of its new defensive lines to determined Italian attacks. The soldiers' confidence had been restored after the defeats at Gorizia and San Michele; they again believed in their superiority over the Italians. In addition, another division's worth of reinforcements had arrived on the Isonzo in the past two days, a significant and well timed addition to the 5th Army's order of battle. Boroevic's troops had good reason to feel self-assured.
Cadorna had enough men and munitions left for one last gamble. He ordered Capello to make another attempt to seize the heights north of Gorizia, and he ordered the Duke of Aosta to try again to break through on the central Carso. The noon attack on August 15 by the Gorizia Group, four divisions on a front of five miles, started promisingly but quickly bogged down in front of the 58th Division's machine gun nests. The Schwarzlose machine gun proved it was still the master of the Isonzo battlefield. The Italian infantry captured a few positions on St. Katarina, but Austrian artillery officers on Mt. San Gabriele directed lethal howitzer and mortar fire onto the swollen ranks of Capello's riflemen. The forward battalions of the VI Corps sustained frightful casualties on the slopes of St. Katarina as the Austrian gunners poured shrapnel and high explosives in their midst. Eventually the fanti broke and ran, and the Austrian infantry moved in and recaptured their briefly lost entrenchments. They discovered several hundred dead and dying Italians in and around their trenches and took a hundred prisoners, including the commander of the lead Italian regiment. The 3rd Army's effort on August 15 likewise stalled in the face of dogged Austrian resistance. A mass charge around Lokvica and Opacchiasella by five Italian divisions was cut short by VII Corps artillery and machine guns. The six-hour battle gained nothing for the Duke of Aosta save several shattered regiments; it won not a single Austrian position.
By now Cadorna's divisions were thoroughly exhausted, incapable of further mass assaults against Austria's new defensive line. August 16, the last day of the Sixth Battle, was therefore an anticlimax. North of the Vipacco River, Capello's Gorizia Group was so weary that its infantry did not even leave its trenches. Instead, Capello's artillery shelled St. Katarina through the day, without effect, and soon even the Italian gunnery died down on the Gorizia front. On the Carso, the 3rd Army attempted one last attack against the VII Corps in the Lokvica sector. At 9:30 A.M., the Duke of Aosta's guns began a powerful barrage against Austrian positions along the entire Carso front. Ninety minutes later, waves of fanti attacked Hungarian-held entrenchments on the northern flank of the Carso. Relying on their machine guns, the tired troopers of the 17th and 20th Divisions beat back the Italian attack with heavy losses. At 4 P.M., the 3rd Army launched a final mass assault against the VII Corps. Archduke Joseph's gunners were ready, and as densely packed columns of Italian infantry climbed out of their positions, headed for the nearby Austrian lines, hundreds of howitzer and mortar shells crashed among the exposedfanti. Entire companies of Italian infantrymen fell dead and wounded on the rocky plateau as VII Corps artillery was joined by the guns of neighboring Austrian divisions. The lethal barrage destroyed the 3rd Army's final large-scale effort in the Sixth Battle. At 9:30 PM., the Duke of Aosta's infantry tried one last attack, a small probe against the 20th Honved Division near Lokvica. The Italians were repulsed in a bloody fight with Romanian troops of the 4th Honved Regiment, and the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo was finally over.
The Sixth Battle was hailed throughout Italy as the first authentic Italian victory of the war. After more than a year of bloody stalemate on the Isonzo, Cadorna's armies at last had crossed the river and occupied Gorizia. The 2nd and 3rd Armies had both triumphed, taking Sabotino and San Michele in lightning attacks in the first hours of the battle. The government in Rome was so elated by the victory that on August 28, a day after Romania entered the war on the Allied side, Italy declared war on Germany. The capture of Gorizia gave Italy and its army the confidence they had sorely lacked and needed so badly.
Of course, the victory had been bought at a high price. Cadorna's armies lost at least 100,000 soldiers in the brief Sixth Battle of the Isonzo. Italy could still afford such frightful losses, but the capture of Gorizia was anything but a bloodless triumph. Roughly 30,000 soldiers died to win the Italian victory-almost exactly the prewar population of Gorizia. Austrian casualties were heavy, too, amounting to no less than 50,000 dead, wounded, and missing, half of Boroevic's frontline strength. They included some 8,000 prisoners, many from Zeidler's 58th Division, the largest number of Austrian captives yet taken on the Isonzo. The battle had undeniably been a major defeat for Austria.
That said, Boroevic's setback was more a political than a military reverse. The loss of Gorizia was without question a considerable blow to Austrian pride and prestige, but the 5th Army had managed to reentrench itself two or three miles farther to the east. The new positions had withstood every Italian attack. Attrition would therefore continue on the Isonzo. The much feared all-out Italian drive for victory never materialized. After the conquest of Gorizia, Cadorna proved fatally cautious. By refusing to exploit his victory, particularly by diverting fresh troops to the Plava bridgehead on August 9-10, Cadorna had squandered an epic opportunity to achieve a complete breakthrough on the Isonzo-indeed, to win the war. The caution exercised by the Conando Supremo immediately after the fall of Gorizia condemned the Italian Army to several more costly battles of attrition on the Isonzo front. Gorizia belonged to Italy, but the heights beyond it, as well as most of the Carso, remained in Austrian hands. Worst of all, Boroevic's tired army was again deeply entrenched in front of the Italians all along the Isonzo. Evicting the Austrians from their newly established defenses was Cadorna's next task, and it promised to be just as costly and time-consuming as conquering San Michele and Gorizia had been.