Talk:Italian front (World War I)/Archive 1

Archive 1

Untitled

The Alpine Front (stub)article seem to handle the same subject as the Italian Campaign (World War I). Apart from that the as far as I know the Italian Front is the most common name for it. On the Template:World War I it is handeled on the same way as well as in the article Italian Campaign (World War II) itself. - --84.0.231.8 13:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Looking at this article (and now that I know it exists), I'd definatly support this merge. This article is much better. Mike McGregor (Can) 21:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Now the the Military history WikiProject have to rate the article, see Talk:Alpine Front - Serinde 07:17, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE AUSTRIAN SURRENDER.

The collapse of Austria at the end of WWI is still undervalued but it was important because it hastened the collapse of Germany. In November 1918 it was impossible for Germany to resist (at least for a long time) both in the West (Belgium) and in the South (Tyrol). So the victory of the Italian-British-French-American troops in Italy was as decisive as the offensive in the West. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.144.147.97 (talk) 07:04, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The Road the Russians Built

[1]. 216.86.113.16 04:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

571 - 651

Hi, my trouble is not so much with the casualty figure - 571,000 or 651,000 (the later number comes from World War I casualties (details are as follows, Killed in action or died of wounds 378,000; died of disease 186,000 and an additional 87,000 deaths of invalids from 12 Nov. 1918 until 30 April 1920 due to war related injuries.)) as with the line "the Italian army, consisting of around 600,000 infantrymen,"... almost 5 million men served on the Italian side during WWI. With an army of just 600,000 men (of which 571,000 dead) Italy would have been one of the weakest nations in the war... My guess is that there is a error in the sentence: either the "Second Italian Army" or the "Third Italian Army" is the army mentioned (which each should have had around 600,000 to 700,000 men at that time) or the 600,000 number is wrong (I do not know the exact land force strength of Italy in autumn 1917 but in all the Army had 4 million men during the war see (Italian Army HP for details) - I think we need to check citation - if that does not resolve the discrepancy we can either add "Second" to the text (which I am quite sure is intended Army) or we revise the text as I did before - i.e. not mentioning the Army at all. --noclador (talk) 04:20, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi What I believe Keegan was illustrating is that at any one time, the Italian army constituted 65 frontline infantry divisions (~600,000 fighting men) - rather than the total number of men that served in this army throughout the war - with the view to highlight that the casualty rate was as high as the other major powers. This hasn't come across in the text I included. The paragraph from which I extracted the information is as follows (which followed a paragraph on the relatively harsh disciplinary measures taken within the army):

All armies, however, have a breaking point. The dividing line had been crossed for the French at the beginning of 1917, when the number of deaths suffered already equalled that of the infantry in the front-line divisions: the million and more French deaths exceeded the infantry strength of the army’s 135 divisions. By the Autumn of 1917 the Italian army, with 65 infantry divisions, or about 600,000 infantrymen in fighting units, had suffered most of the 571,000 deaths to be incurred during the war, and the sense that “one’s number being up” may have become collective. “Fifty-one divisions……had been thrown into this massive struggle but by the second week of September the end of the war seemed as far away as ever.”

It was part of a section that lead up to and explained the capitulation at Caporretto, likening the mass surrenders to the French mutinees, etc.

I am happy for a reference check to be conducted. What is the WP procedure? Keegan is quite well known.

For me here, the key information is the “apparent indefinite duration of the war” for the Italians vs the contrasting “the situation is getting drastic” attitude of the Austrians.

We could reword to reflect casualties per front-line division, viz: By the autumn of 1917 the Italian army, consisting of around 65 fighting divisions (~600,000 infantrymen) at any one time, had suffered most of the 571,000 deaths to be incurred during the war, yet the end of the war seemed to still be an eternity away. Alternatively, as you suggest: By the autumn of 1917 the Italian army had suffered most of the deaths it was to incur during the war, yet the end of the war seemed to still be an eternity away.

Romaioi (talk) 06:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

both versions are fine with me, but I suggest we expand it a bit to include a reference that this high number of death and the many failed battles of the Isonzo led to a massive deterioration of morale in the units along the Isonzo front (and subsequently to the rout at Caporetto). Also we do not need a reference check. I looked at your edits over the last days and they are all good and well sourced, plus as you say John Keegan is very well known and a reputable source. I think we just need to word the sentence better so that people don't get the impression that only 29,000 soldier out of 600,000 remained alive in 1917 :-) --noclador (talk) 22:36, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll change it to the second version for now. I agree more expansion is required and will work on adding more when I can. Thanks for constructive words. Citing, or ensuring verifiability, is my main concern. The draw-back is that it can take a while to put together a flowing passage - but the most important thing is that the information is real and factual. For me, the process is even slower when trying to work it in with what has been written before (it can result in multiple iterations - and I guess confusion by other as to who wrote what). The sort of content that you just saw me add is what I was working towards with the content that was initially added by the sock (it didn't get to where I envisaged in the end). It was seeing stuff like that, which was not cited, made sweeping generalizations, had factual inconsistencies, and was what is termed here as "POV", that motivated me to sign up. On the "Italian" topic, I don't know if you have spent much time in OZ, but my general observation is that, until recently, most of the WWI & WWII books available almost completely ignore Italian involvement (or simply addressed it with some generalizations). Ironically, when I observed the contrasting statistics pertaining to where they were involved (after having read so much about other nations and theaters they operated in), that's what sparked my interest. Romaioi (talk) 01:49, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Your contributions are good and I hope there is more coming :-) The reasons I keep an close eye on all Italian Military related articles are two: first it interests me and second: in Italian military circles there is a clear sense that all wars of the Kingdom of Italy were totally harebrained - for none of the wars the Italian Military was prepared- from material, to planning, to tactics it was always unprepared. Political meddling in R&D and armaments spending, cronyism, promotions for the connected, war declarations before a plan of attack was drawn up, lack of training, ... all this as shaped Italian Military doctrine after WWII - which can be crudely reduced to: a) no meddling by politicians b) we decide when we are ready for what c) caution before adventure. So while the Italian Military does happily remember the occasions when Italian troops fought well and proved their mettle, it also remembers the reasons why they fought well and others failed (like: many times the determination to fight came simply from the unit having a commander the soldiers trusted i.e. Reverberi of the Tridentina or disasters while units distrusted their commanders (and his orders) i.e. Luigi Cadorna)

But lately there have been very annoying attempts by Italian neo-fascists to rewrite history on the Italian wiki (something German neo-nazis tried to do on the German wiki during fall 2007 - after tenthousands of socks and meatpuppets were blocked and over a thousand articles protected they gave up in January 2008 (a list of the over 1000 articles they attacked can be found at de:Benutzer:Brummfuss/Nazipedia)) and as I/wikipedians learned: if the nazis were blocked on the German wiki, they would go to the corresponding English article and try to manipulate the material there i.e. Metgethen massacre. So I (and others) are keeping a close eye on all sensitive articles about Italian military and historic topics on the English wiki to spot and revert possible POV/propaganda rewritings of history. General Messe was the first to pop up and I'm sorry up ended up a suspect in this case. Other sock masters will follow (that is inevitable)... In the meantime let us continue to work :-) --noclador (talk) 09:02, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I can appreciate that. Its important to watch for these sort of manipulations. And I can see that it can result in honest attempts being misunderstood. I am strongly anti-fascist (and largely see Italian soldiers of the war(s) as victims of the fascist regime (in WWII) and flippant leadership in general) so I hope you can appreciate why I took umbrage (and initially reacted strongly) to the slightest association with them. Its been a few weeks since I have had a chance to put material together - and it looks like it could be a while; time is, unfortunately, scarce. I am very slowly working on some passages for the Italian Military History (WWII) page, particularly in relation to the "reputation" section (in the nearer future); there are issues of bias in the broader literature that may be useful to address there. Cheers Romaioi (talk) 14:50, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Hemingway photo removed

I just removed the enormous photo of Ernest Hemingway from the article. I'm a fan, too, and we all know he served here; but his participation counts as less than a footnote in this campaign in which 650,000 people died. (I notice he isn't mentioned in the article text, so the photo is even more out of place.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:24, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Deserters

I read somewhere that thousands of soldiers deserted the Italian Army during WWI, and that many of them were executed by firing squad. Does anyone have any information on this? Sca (talk) 19:00, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

There's some info in The First World War by John Keegan. --bodnotbod (talk) 15:50, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Reference to US contribution

In the section "1918: The war ends", specifically "Battle of the Piave", it is stated that "In November 1917, British, French and US forces[citation needed] started to bolster the front line" and "Franco-British (and US) help provided in those strategic materials". The USA declared war on Germany in April 1917, and it took a year for US soldiers to be deployed to Europe. As such, I find it unlikely that US forces would be fighting in Italy by November 1917, as this line suggests. Furthermore, the manner of the writing seems to imply that these references to the USA have been added without much historical basis, as a tag-along to the contributions of the other Allied Powers. As such, I have excised these references. 94.173.12.152 (talk) 16:43, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Avalanche kills 10,000

On 13 December 1916, known as 'White Friday', 10,000 soldiers were killed by avalanches in the Dolomites

Here's a challenge to this claim of 10,000 deaths. 78.149.20.160 (talk) 00:39, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

That date was a Wednesday, so clearly a mistake has been made somewhere. The article White Friday (1916) claims that there were 270 deaths. Xanthoxyl ^< 18:14, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved to Italian Front (World War I). --BDD (talk) 19:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Italian Campaign (World War I) → Italian Front – The primary usage of the proposed title is in reference to this campaign. The current title has the look of having been forced into conformity with Italian Campaign (World War II), but while the term "Italian campaign" is the normal way of referring to the WWII campaign, the term "Italian front" predominates for WWI. A hatnote can take care of the ambiguity issue easily. Relisted. BDD (talk) 20:19, 22 April 2013 (UTC) Srnec (talk) 22:44, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Oppose I would choose Italian Front (World War I) instead. It's generic enough that it should use disambiguation, and be a disambiguation page. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 04:56, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
• Move to Italian Front (World War I), but for different reasons. There is no doubt that a move to Italian Front in some manner is called for. A google book search does show that Italian Front is more common. 7,810 hits[2] of "world war i" "italian front" -wikipedia vs 5160 hits[3] for "world war i" "italian campaign" -wikipedia . However, I have serious concerns that Italian Front (without disambiguation) has ambiguity issues. This is not the only Italian front in history and the term front and campaign get used somewhat interchangeably. I believe that Italian Front should still point to Italian Campaign.--Labattblueboy (talk) 17:09, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, you and 65.92.180.137 are probably right that that is a better title than my own proposal. Srnec (talk) 22:46, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose—too vague for the reader-in-search. Tony (talk) 13:18, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Compare this and this —Srnec (talk) 22:44, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Frontiera Nord / Linea Cardona

it:Frontiera Nord looks like might be useful as the seed for a section and/or an individual article. ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 09:14, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Reference to Romanian Legion contribution

There are details about the Romanian Legion (Legione Romena in Italian) contribution but only in Romanian at: https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legiunea_Voluntarilor_Rom%C3%A2ni_din_Italia

Other data:

Dan Green, Robert M. Bell, The Romanian Legion in Italy (1918-1919), Publisher: Romanian Postal History Bulletin, 1998 - 8 pag — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.112.17.30 (talk) 19:14, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Baratto, Marco; Le vicende della Legione Romena d’Italia; Orizonti culturali Italo-Romeni, n. 1, dicembre 2011, anno I

Bușe, Dorel; Legiunea Voluntarilor Români din Italia, din Primul Război Mondial; Prima Sesiune de Comunicări Științifice organizată de Oficiul Național pentru Cultul Eroilor; 2007;

Coroamă, Radu; Legiunea Română în Italia/ La LegioneRomena in italia; Siamo di nuovo insieme, iulie-septembrie 2014; pp. 4–7 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.112.17.30 (talk) 19:08, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Missing First Battle of Piave

the article closure is about the Second Battle of Piave, which begs the question about the First one, may I add a section about it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.205.194.4 (talk) 12:10, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Change name to Alpine Front (World War I)?

We have the Western Front (World War I) rather than the French front. The Eastern Front (World War I) rather than the Russian front. The Middle Eastern Theatre rather than the Ottoman front, and the Balkans theatre. This is the only front named after one nation. Since it's also known as Alpine front, should we rename it that way? Also consider that the central powers and Italy fought against each other even in the Balkans and the Marne.

Barjimoa (talk) 06:38, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Logical, but we don't name articles by editors' logic; we follow WP:COMMONNAME, which is overwhelmingly Italian front. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 23:38, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Austro-Hungarian army footage HD.webm

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:52, 17 August 2019 (UTC)