Thompson Werk

Last year I wrote a brief analysis of the First Battle of the Isonzo.  Now nearing the ninety-fifth anniversary of the first Isonzo battle I thought it might be somehow fitting to highlight the connections between this engagement and the Second World War.  Recently I read a post over at The Spitfire Site, where an ongoing post-blogging project on the Battle of Britain addressed Italy’s entrance into the war.  The similarities between the Italian assaults against Austrian-Hungarian positions during the First World War and the invasion of France in the Second World War are striking. 

In the entry for the week of 10-24 June 1940, The Spitfire Site discusses Italy’s declaration of war again France and Great Britain.  On the heals of the German battlefield victories, Benito Mussolini sought territorial gains from a weakened France.  Upon entering the war, Italian forces invaded the French Alps in hopes of conquering Provence.  During the interwar years, the French constructed a series of bunkers and firing positions that overlooked the mountain passes leading through the French Alps.  Such fortifications were on par, or superior, to those built by the Austrian-Hungarians during the Great War.  Reminiscent of the failed human wave attacks at Isonzo during the First World War, Italian forces suffered many casualties from the static enemy gun emplacements.  After nine days of combat, Italian forces acquired little ground and incurred 1,247 men dead and 2,631 wounded.¹  Italian solders were saved from frigid mountain temperatures and French munitions only by the capitulation of France to the Germans.  In that sense, the Italian invasion of France was a catastrophic failure.  Consequently, it seems that as of the Second World War, Italy had not learned the costly lessons of the Isonzo battles.