04. bitva na Soči (Isonzu) [1915]

After the regrouping of forces and three-hour artillery training, the Italians attacked the Goric bridgehead and Doberdo. In heavy fighting, they finally advanced to the foreland of the border town of Gorica, but they did not conquer the main pillar of the defense - the Austro-Hungarian position on Calvary. They were partly trapped on the Karst plain. They lost 50,000 men, the Austrians 45,000. The fighting was stopped by the coming winter ...


Source:
Josef Fučík, Marek Pavlík: Sočská fronta 1915-1917 (Prague 2008)

From the witness's memories:


... It was getting more and more dawn, and now we have overlooked the whole massacre that has hit Italy in the vineyard. They attacked - as always in droves and like a herd of hares. The vines in the vineyard stretched on wires about a meter from the ground in rows that stretched to a wall about two meters high. Behind him were machine-gun nests. The Italians flocked to the alleys between the vines, otherwise they could not, facing the machine guns. There was no protection for them, so they had no chance of surviving - especially when the machine guns were Dalmatians. The cannon brushes completed the work of destruction and we now had the result before us. Perhaps there was not as much wine in that vineyard as there were dead young bodies. How many such headless attacks they had suffered during the war, how many of them fell unnecessarily or could be captured. We have come to believe that their command is worthless. We saw with our own eyes the results of another great battle over Soča ...


Source:
valkanaitalii.webnode.cz