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Although a member of the Triple Alliance, Italy did not join the Central Powers – Germany and Austria-Hungary – when the war started with Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on Serbia on 28 July 1914. In fact, the two Central Powers had taken the offensive while the Triple Alliance was supposed to be a defensive alliance.
Italy entered into the First World War in 1915 with the aim of completing national unity: for this reason, the Italian intervention in the First World War is also considered the Fourth Italian War of Independence, [1] in a historiographical perspective that identifies in the latter the conclusion of the unification of Italy, whose military actions began during the revolutions of 1848 with the ...
The Italian army also suffered from many shortcomings on the structural level. Artillery pieces and munitions were not the only area where shortages were acute. In August 1914 the Italian army had at its disposal only 750,000 rifles of the standard Carcano 1891 model and no hand grenades available at all. This inadequate supply of equipment ...
In the UK, France, Germany and Austria-Hungary, propaganda was mainly a centrally-managed effort by the government and the armed forces from the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914. Italy did not enter the war until May 1915, and before this there was no organised state propaganda relating to the war.
The military history of Italy chronicles a vast time period, lasting from the military conflicts fought by the ancient peoples of Italy, most notably the conquest of the Mediterranean world by the ancient Romans, through the expansion of the Italian city-states and maritime republics during the medieval period and the involvement of the historical Italian states in the Italian Wars and the ...
Officer recruitment, however, was voluntary. The effect of this at the start of the war was that well over a quarter of the rank and file were Slavs, while more than 75% of the officers were ethnic Germans. This was much resented. The army has been described as being "run on colonial lines" and the Slav soldiers as "disaffected".
The 1st Army originated with the Army of Milan which became, in October 1914, the 1st Army. [1] In addition to various army corps (up to five), it had available to it large units not included in the army corps: infantry and cavalry divisions and groups of Alpine troops. Even the truppe altipiani command was subsequently placed within this Army. [2]
The Austro-Hungarians, despite help from the German Army's Alpenkorps and numerical superiority, failed to take the mountain's summit during the first battle of Monte Grappa, which lasted from November 11, 1917, to December 23, 1917. Armando Diaz allowed his local commanders much more freedom of manoeuvre than his predecessor, which resulted in ...