Map 26: The Isonzo Campaigns

[Hauksbee]

                        The 12 battles of the Isonzo

Italy did not join the war in its first year, and had been allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary during the pre-war years. But Italian nationalists had designs on some Italian-speaking lands still ruled by the Habsburgs as well as elements of the Adriatic coast that had historically been ruled by the Republic of Venice. In the 1915 Treaty of London, the Allies succeeded in tempting Italy to enter the war on their side, promising them healthy slices of Austro-Hungarian territory. The actual fighting on the Italian Front was even more static and futile than the Western Front. So much so that there were 12 different Battles of the Isonzo, fought near a river in contemporary Slovenia. These 12 battles together accounted for half of Italy's total casualties during the war and as illustrated on the map scarcely moved the frontier at all. In essence, Italy's war dead served as a massive diversionary tactic, occupying Austro-Hungarian and German troops who otherwise could have been fighting in Russia or France.