Caporetto

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Caporetto

a population center in northern Italy, on the Isonzo River, where the Austro-Hungarian forces (the German Fourteenth Army, supported by the Austro-Hungarian Tenth and Second armies) inflicted a crushing defeat on the Italian Second and Third armies during World War I (Oct. 24—Nov. 9, 1917).

The Austro-Hungarian forces began their attack on October 24 and immediately broke through the Italian front, driving the Italian forces into chaotic retreat. Only when 11 Anglo-French divisions were thrown into battle was the front stabilized by November 9 along the Piave River. As a result of the breakthrough, the Italian Army lost more than 130, 000 soldiers killed and wounded, 355, 000 taken prisoner (according to Italian figures, 40, 000 killed and wounded and 215, 000 captured), 3, 152 artillery pieces, 1, 732 mortars, 3, 000 machine guns, huge supplies of provisions, and about 14, 000 sq km of territory. About 300, 000 soldiers, unable to continue fighting, fled into the country’s heartland. Despite its successes, the Austro-German advance on the Italian front did not alter the general strategic position of the Entente. The defeat of the Italian forces at Caporetto greatly aggravated the internal situation in Italy and promoted the growth of a revolutionary crisis there.

REFERENCES

Kaporetto: Razgrom ital’ianskoi armii na r. Izontso v oktiabre 1917. Moscow, 1938.
Conquet, A. Srazhenie pod Kaporetto (1917). Moscow, 1940. (Translatedfrom French.)

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Ma il suo contributo si manifesto in maniera molto diversa: fu indirizzato al sostegno morale e spirituale della popolazione, ed all'assistenza sanitaria dei militari mettendo a disposizione della Croce Rossa il seminario vescovile di Thiene; inoltre invito i parroci a costituire dei comitati per l'assistenza dei civili, in particolare dei profughi dopo la rotta di Caporetto.

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The French rifles and carbines sent to Italy as part of the emergency aid package following the disastrous breakthrough at Caporetto were a mix of Mle 1907/15s and Mle 1916 rifles with an unknown number of Berthier carbines included in the mix.

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They followed me to the port of Caporetto, which, as you know, doesn't open to the sea.

In like Flynn

On 24 October 1917, the Germans attacked Italian forces at Caporetto, Italy where they soundly defeated them.

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His vicissitudes are not the retreat from Caporetto in A Farewell to Arms but the vaguely homosexual Lieutenant Pinkman who catches him performing a drunken friend's guard detail.

Robert Lowry

had been interpreted by many as a call to desert; and an attempt was made to see desertion pure and simple as the main cause of the Caporetto defeat (which was not correct).

Giorgio Levi Della Vida: Remembered Ghosts (extracts)

Ademas, ya al iniciarse el invierno de 1917 buena parte de las posiciones italianas de montana habian sido evacuadas despues de la desastrosa batalla de Caporetto en octubre y las tropas habian retirado a terreno mas bajo.

El tragico saldo oculto de la guerra blanca: en toda Europa los glaciares estan retrocediendo debido al calentamiento de la Tierra. En las montanas del norte de Italia, a medida que el hielo se funde afloran armas, uniformes, municiones, equipo, documentos de identidad y los cadaveres semimomificados de hombres y bestias sepultados por las avalanchas

The Italian defeat at Caporetto mobilized Italians in America to raise funds for their compatriots overseas, while the plight of Jewish refugees in Eastern Europe had a similar effect on New York's Jews.

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Indeed, it recovered from Caporetto and the next year drove Austria-Hungary from the war in the Battle of Vittorio-Veneto.

The Myth of the Great War: A New Military History of World War I

39) Jokes on this theme persisted down through the nineteenth century, (40) during the First World War, particularly at the time of Caporetto (41) and during the Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War.

Humour is not a strategy in war

Consequently, the retreat from Caporetto was film ed without any visual references to the nationality of the retreating soldiers, a silly stratagem that could have deceived no one worth deceiving.

The Measure of what You Bring: Three Recent works on Hemingway

As we journey through the twenty-two slim chapters, we are busy reconstructing an entire epoch (Milan at the turn of the century and of a culture; the trenches, Caporetto, the war-camp near Hannover; Italy and South America in the 1920s); we are occupied in cross-examining witnesses and documents otherwise not immediately available (the diaries of Adele Lehr, Gadda's mother, and Carlo's own school compositions, for instance), in making newer and even stronger connections between life and literature (as between Adele's affective hierarchies and the affective injustices deliriously denounced in La cognizione del dolore).