WWI was without doubt a cruel and devastating war all over Europe. But at two places, the fights were particularly cruel. Nowhere have so many lives been wasted for so little territorial gains.
In Kobarid, Austrian and Italian armies fought a bitter uphill battle and in Western Europe, in Ypres, Belgian and German armies engaged for years in a quasi-frozen battle. In both cases millions of lives were lost or heavily damaged. It was the incredible price of a pointless “back and forward” that ended with a defeat for Germany and its allies.
The cruelties both hardened and traumatised soldiers in such a way that good 20 years later, they would take revenge when they became Germany’s leading commanders of WWII. There is for instance the story of (the then corporal) Hitler, wounded and stumbling back to the trenches, whose life was spared by a British soldier at the Ypres battlefield.
Back in 1917, at the Soča front, another main character of WWII played an important role. He was called to help the Austrian forces to conquer the heavily fortified Italian positions at Mount Matajur. Since 1915 already 11 bloody battles had taken place in what was basically a stalemate position, with the unbearable price tag of hundreds of thousands young dead or severely wounded men. The tragedy was also inspiration for Farewell to Arms the book written by Ernest Hemingway, who served there as a medical staff.
In the 12th and decisive “Battle of Caporetto (Kobarid)”, a young and ambitious “Oberleutnant” named Erwin Rommel managed to overrun the Italian artillery positions. With his “stormtrooper tactic”, helped by a thick fog and lethal gas, he managed to conquer the strategically very important Italian artillery positions, capturing more than 9000 Italian soldiers with 81 pieces of artillery.
Remarkable fact… after years of stand- still Rommel managed the break-through in only 2 days with less than 150 men using a combination of surprise- attacks, lists and relentless charges. Still “only” 6 of his men died and 30 were wounded. Here, the concept of the Blitzkrieg was born.
For this important victory, Rommel was promoted into Captain and received an exceptional and a prestigious award. His remarkable passage left some prominent traces in the village of Jevšček, near Kolovrat. On the night of October 25, 1917, he stayed there at the Brgolic farm preparing for the battle which would become an important steppingstone in his career. By the way, besides Rommel also the young Friedrich Paulus participated in this battle. In WWII, he became Generalfeldmarschall responsible for operation Barbarossa and the Battle of Stalingrad.
Only a few days later, on the 3th of November, the Italians signed an armistice and withdraw behind the Piave river. It was the sudden end of WWI which raged for too long in this Italian-Slovenian border region.
Later, when the Italians found out by how few men they had been beaten, Caporetto became a standard Italian expression for an immense failure and a disgrace. The German side however called the battle “The Miracle of Kobarid”.
You see, success or failure is very subjective… it just depends whose side you are on.
But clearly the endless rows of names on several monuments prove the sad story that ordinary people never come out as winners. And in fact WWI did not really come to an end. It was the prelude for a much larger conflict some 20 years later in which the former corporal and the ambitious officer would play a major role.
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