Today in 1917 the Tenth Battle of the Isonzo was being fought along the Alpine Front from the Bainsizza plateau to the shore of the Adriatic thirty miles to the south.

Quote-thread from @20committee's Isonzo.

Photos stolen, of course, from @PikeGrey1418

ping @thespybrief

1/

Emperor Karl was present on the Isonzo during the fighting... he praised his brave forces, and announced the the 5th Army would henceforth be known as the Isonzo Army, in recognition of its heroic two-year stand.

2/

The 2nd phase of the Tenth Battle... began at exactly 6 A.M. on May 23rd, when the massed guns & mortars of the 3rd Army opened fire, shelling Austrian positions from the Vipacco to the Adriatic.

3/

It was the most powerful barrage ever on the Isonzo, as lethal as any bombardment on any front during the entire Great War. Some 1,250 guns and nearly 600 mortars rained high explosives on every known Austrian entrenchment and position on the whole eleven-mile Carso front.

4/

The Italian rate of fire on the Carso was 100,000 shells an hour. By the time the barrage lifted at 4 P.M., the 3rd Army had unleashed a million artillery shells at the Austrians, twenty shells for every foot of the front.

The impact of the barrage was devastating.

5/

May 24 and 25 saw huge and bloody fights all along the southern Carso as the armies vied for every trench line, position, and dugout.

Some 90,000 Austrian troops were lost.

Cadorna's forces lost almost 160,000.

In human terms the Tenth Battle was a catastrophe.

/END