Italian Insanity: 12 Battles of the Isonzo | Animated History

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Sources:
Falls, Cyril. The Battle of Caporetto. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966.

Gilmour, David. The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions and Their Peoples. London: Penguin, 2012.

Gooch, John. The Italian Army and the First World War. Cambridge u.a.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2014.

Krbavcic, Ales. “The Isonzo front in the First World War: glass ampoules found in the vicinity of the village Kred.” Acta medico-historica adriatica : AMHA vol. 13,1 (2015): 9-20.

Macdonald, John, and Cimprič Željko. Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign: The Italian Front, 1915-1918. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military, 2011.

Rommel, Erwin. Infantry Attacks. London: Greenhill Books, 2006.

Schindler, John R. Isonzo: The Forgotten Sacrifice of the Great War. Westport (Conn.): Praeger, 2001.

Seth, Ronald. Caporetto: The Scapegoat Battle. London, 1965.

Silvestri, Mario. Isonzo 1917. Milano: Milano, 2014.

Strachan, Hew. The First World War: Vol. I: To Arms. New York: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2003.

Thompson, Mark. The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919. New York: Basic Books, 2010.

Uomini Contro. Novara: Istituto geografico De Agostini, 2011.

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[TheArmchairHistorian]

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[michaelsinger]

Luigi Cadorna was one of the most effective commanders, that the Central Powers ever had.

No one killed more Italian soldiers than he did.

[ScorpoYT]

Generals: How many attempts do you want?
Cadorna: Sì
!

[StefanMilo]

It's so hard to comprehend the staggering numbers of casualties. Each one of these battles costs tens of thousands of lives, whole communities devastated.

[pixelghostclyde]

My great-grandfather (who I never met) fought in the battle of Caporetto/Kobarid. Until the day he died, he'd do all in his power to avoid passing through any street named after Luigi Cadorna.

[sparky]

The Italian diplomat initially present at the Versailles conference broke down in tears when he realized that the full extent of Italian territorial demands would not be met. He quit and was soon replaced

[Samantha-qegq]

I'm from Slovenia and my great-grandfather fought on this front for Austro-hungary. He fortunately survived and when he returned home, he gave my grandmother (his daughter) a white flower that only grows in the Alps as a gift; he picked it during the fighting and kept it for her.

[benjaminmatheny]

The most interesting thing about WW1 to me is that we see some nations rotating quickly through high command officers, like the french, and others sticking with the same guy regardless of how bad it's going, Austria and Italy. It boggles my mind that Cadorna wasn't sacked until after 12 battles of the same damn river.

[milodelacher]

Im from Austria and hiked a long way along the Isonzo frontline with my dad while he would read me storys and reports about the battles. There are still so many old bunkers, positions and fortresses left covered in barbed wire and laiden with old tin cans, beyonettes and gasmask filters. It truly was a horrific part of the war and should never happen again between our nations.
Rip to all fallen.

[E.mc]

Excellent video.
In Argentina until now the word "Cadorna" is related to disaster and also as a synonym to the slang word used to refer to the male reproductive organ.
This happened because at the time of WWI the Italian immigration was really vast in Argentina

[ROMANTIKILLER]

As an Italian, I have always found borderline insulting that across the country there are still squares and streets named after Cadorna, although I read that in very recent years some towns are actually removing his name.
It still baffles me how such an incompetent butcher, who still thought of warfare in Napoleonic terms in the era of machine guns, managed to be in charge of the Italian forces for so long despite disastrous loss after loss.

[chefrowlet]

Wow a FarCry 3 reference in the year of our Lord 2022. Whoever drew that thumbnail deserves a raise.

[lukaswilhelm]

Just a small fact here: The commander of the German stormtroopers that help to break Italian line was no other than Erwin Rommel himself.
Before becoming tank specialist and genius of blitzkrieg he was a genius infantry commander.

[Solozzo]

Italian General : "Attack it again."

Italian Officer : "But sir, we already tried that."

Italian General : *"They won't expect the same thing for the 12th time."*

[baryon]

Fun fact: Luigi Cadorna got the job basically just because his father Raffaele was an esteemed and capable general who participated in the conquest of Rome in 1870. Who could have thought he was going to be bad?

[FlagAnthem]

My family has lost one to his arrogance and stubborness. A beloved husband and father, who recommended his family to the creator every step he took towards the train to the north. We never found his body, his brother searched every field hospital only to be met with raised shoulders.

"Cadorna" is one of the heaviest swearword under my roof

If you want to understand how Italy feels about him, take a look to "Uomini Contro" best WW1 movie ever made

PS: for those wondering how a sammarinese family got involved in that cursed bloodbath, he was from my grandma branch of family which was 100% italian, so he and his brothers were drafted. Useless to say double citizenship was not an option so my mother took my grandfather sammarinese citizenship and here I am.

[patrickazzarella]

We don't talk about Luigi Cadorna, he's the Conrad von Hötzendorf of the Italian Army in ww1

[Treblaine]

"I know loads about WW1 history"
"Oh really? Name 12 battles of WW1."
"Uhh, the Battles Of Isonzo?!!?"
"That's on me, I set the bar too low."

[Kappadoom]

I live in Triest, which is really near the Isonzo, these battles are really important to this day. A poet that I studied in school, wrote that even the austrians were surprised of the italians charging recklessy, shouting 'why why are you charging like this' or something similar. When these things happened in your area, you feel more the stories than reading them in a book

[Oblivius]

The therm "It was a Caporetto" or "you have done a Caporetto." was a popular catchphrase among italians for a while.
Just to underline how big of a disaster it was on the public's eye.