Ludendorff agreed to the plan, and sent General Otto von Below to command it. Kraft von Dellmensingen recommended an attack on the northern end of the Izuno flank, centred on the village of Caporetto. He send a German expert on mountain warfare, General Konrad Kraft von Dellmensingen to examine the front. Ludendorff decided that the Austrians would probably be unable to withstand another Italian attack, and so decided to launch an attack of his own. By October 1917 the Italians, although making little progress, were at all points fighting on Austrian soil. Even though I am too young to have experienced these horrors, I wonder such a mentality is still kept today.Battle of the First World War, also known as 12th Battle of Isonzo. I consider this quote to reflect one of the most gruesome and sadly true realities of nations and conflict. I took this excerpt from Yuval Noah Harari's Homo Deus. Few people have the stomach to admit such a thing.” For if Italian national myths or communist propaganda are a lie, then I will be forced to concede that my child’s death or my own paralysis have been completely pointless. For exactly that reason, if I have sacrificed a child to the glory of the Italian nation or my legs to the communist revolution, that’s usually enough to turn me into a zealous Italian nationalist or an enthusiastic communist. A poor peasant sacrificing a valuable bull to Jupiter will become convinced that Jupiter really exists, otherwise how can he excuse his stupidity? The peasant will sacrifice another bull, and another (…), just so he won’t have to admit that all the previous bulls were wasted. The more convinced they will be of the existence of the imaginary recipient. If you want to make people believe in your imaginary entities such as gods and nations, you should make them sacrifice something valuable. It underlines numerous religious ceremonies and commandments. “Priests discovered this principle thousands of years ago. It is much easier to live with the fantasy, because the fantasy gives meaning to the suffering.” A crippled soldier who lost his legs would rather tell himself ‘I sacrificed myself for the glory of eternal Italian nation!’ than ‘I lost my legs because I was stupid enough to believe self-serving politicians’. “While it’s difficult for a politician to tell parents that their son died for no good reason, it is far more painful for parents to say this to themselves - and it is even harder for the victims. (…) The politicians again decided it would be best to keep on fighting because ‘our boys didn’t die in vain’.” We will go on fighting until the victory is ours!’ Not surprisingly, the politicians preferred the second option. Alternatively they could say ‘Giovanni and Marco were heroes! They died so that Trieste would be Italian, and we will make sure they didn’t die in vain. We hope you won’t take it too hard, but your Giovanni died in vain and so did your Mateo.’. Yet how could the politicians go to the parents, wives and children of 15k dead Italian soldiers and tell them, ‘sorry, there has been a mistake. Austria-Hungary had no claims against Italy and would have been delighted to make peace because it was a busy fighting for survival against the much stronger Russians. They could have admitted their mistake and offered to sign a peace treaty. By the end of the war almost 700k Italian soldiers were killed and more than a million were wounded.Īfter losing the first Isonzo battle Italian politicians had two choices. The glorious adventure became a bloodbath. Then the Austrian finally counter-attached, and in the 12th battle, better known as the Battle of Caporetto, they soundly defeated the Italians and pushed them back almost to the gates of Venice. So it continued for more than two dreadful years until the eleventh engagement. The Italians hurled themselves against it in eleven gory battles, gaining a few kilometres at most and never securing a breakthrough. the Austro-Hungarian army held a strong defensive line along the Isonzo River. Hundreds of thousands of Italian recruits went to the front shouting, ‘For Trento and Trieste!’. Italian politicians gave fiery speeches in parliament, vowing historical redress and promising a return to the glories of ancient Rome. Italy’s declared aim was to ‘liberate’ Trento and Trieste - two ‘Italian’ territories that the Austro-Hungarian Empire help ‘unjustly’. In 1915, Italy entered WWI on the side of the Entente powers. “In politics known as the 'Our Boys Didn’t Die in Vain’ syndrome. Long enough to require an article format.
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