Second Battle of the Isonzo

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Eleven Battles of the Isonzo
June 1915 — September 1917

Date	July 18—August 3, 1915
Location	Isonzo River, northeast Italy
Result	Austro-Hungarian victory

Combatants

Italy

Austria-Hungary

Commanders

Luigi Cadorna,
Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Aosta

Conrad von Hötzendorf,
Svetozar Boroević

Strength

260 battalions
840 guns

130 battalions
420 guns

Casualties

40,000 dead or wounded

45,000 dead or wounded

Italian Front
1st Isonzo – 2nd Isonzo – 3rd Isonzo – 4th Isonzo – 5th Isonzo – Asiago – 6th Isonzo – 7th Isonzo – 8th Isonzo – 9th Isonzo – 10th Isonzo – Ortigara – 11th Isonzo – Caporetto – Piave River – Vittorio Veneto

The Second Battle of the Isonzo was fought between Italians and Austro-Hungarians on the Italian Front in World War I, between July 18 and August 3, 1915.

[edit] Overview

After the failure of the First Battle of the Isonzo, two weeks earlier, Luigi Cadorna, commander-in-chief of the Italian forces, decided for a new thrust against the enemy lines with a heavier artillery support.

General Cadorna's tactics were as simple as they were harsh: his troops were to advance frontally against the Austrian trenches and take them, after having overcome their barbed-wire fences. But the Italian did not have a sufficient number of shears to cut the wires, and this shortcoming made their maneuver ineffective, even though they outnumbered the Austrian-Hungarians.

[edit] The battle

On the Karst Plateau — especially on Mount Nero — there took place an exhausting series of hand-to-hand fightings involving the Italian Second and Third Armies, with severe casualties on both sides. Bayonets, swords, knives, and various scrap metal and debris were all used in the terrifying melee. The Hungarian 20^th division lost two-thirds of its effectives and was routed.

On July 25 the Italians occupied Mount San Michele, which was not very steep but dominated quite a large area. The Austrians sent some elite regiments led by Colonel Richter to recapture it with a desperate but ineffectual counterattack.

The battle wore out on its own when both sides ran out of ammunition. In just three weeks, almost 90,000 men had died.