Battle of Caporetto
The Battle of Caporetto (also known as the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, the Battle of Kobarid or the Battle of Karfreit) took place on the Italian front of World War I.
| Battle of Caporetto | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Italian front (World War I) | |||||||||
Battle of Caporetto and Italian retreat | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
|
Austria-Hungary Germany | Italy | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
Otto von Below Svetozar Boroević Arthur Arz von Straußenburg |
Luigi Cadorna Luigi Capello | ||||||||
| Units involved | |||||||||
|
14th Army 5th Army |
2nd Army | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 353,000 soldiers, 2518 artillery pieces | 257,400 soldiers, 1342 artillery pieces | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 70,000 |
13,000 dead 300,000 stragglers 50,000 deserters 3,152 artillery pieces 1,712 mortars 3,000 machine guns 300,000 rifles | ||||||||
|
600,000 internally displaced people | |||||||||
The battle was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Central Powers and took place from 24th of October to 19th of November 1917, near the town of Kobarid (now in north-western Slovenia, then part of the Austrian Littoral), also was near the river Isonzo. The battle was named after the Italian name of the town (also known as Karfreit in German).
Austro-Hungarian forces, reinforced by German units, were able to break into the Italian front line and rout the Italian forces opposing them. The battle was a demonstration of the effectiveness of the use of stormtroopers and the infiltration tactics developed in part by Oskar von Hutier. The use of poison gas by the Germans also played a key role in the collapse of the Italian Second Army.
The rest of the Italian Army retreated 150 kilometres (93 mi) to the Piave River, its effective strength declined from 1,800,000 troops down to 1,000,000 and the government of Prime Minister Paolo Boselli collapsed.