It has been pointed out that in these operations General Cadorna had to consider other things besides the immediate problems facing his troops. The Italo-Austrian warfare was but a small factor in the great plan of the Entente allies, who as the war progressed, realized more and more the importance of cooperative action. All that happened in Galicia, Poland, Lithuania and Courland had a direct influence upon Cadorna's plans. Russian reverses and the failure of all attempts by the French and British to break the German line in France and Belgium made the Italian commander cautious. The series of Teutonic victories made it possible that at any time he might have to face an overwhelming host of Austrians and Germans equipped with artillery which he could not hope to equal and backed by an apparently limitless supply of ammunition. For political reasons, also, he could not risk, even in the hope of reaching Trieste, sacrificing his men in an offensive costing anything like the quantities of human material being used up each day in other theatres. His preponderance of troops at the opening of operations in May was gradually reduced. But the enemy's positions and his superior artillery offset the Italian's greater numbers. On the whole it may be said that the Italians accomplished quite as much as any of their allies. They penetrated farther into the Alps and the rugged tableland west of Trieste than the British and French with their colonials did into the hills of Gallipoli or into the ridge of the Lille region, and the length of their thrusts was greater than the French advances in Artois and Champagne.
The Italians were more successful in concealing the extent of their losses than most of the other belligerents. A conservative estimate places their total casualty list between the last week in May and the first of August, 1915, at 25,000. The Austrians in the same period on the same front lost about 15,000 dead, 50,000 wounded and 15,000 prisoners. The slight Italian losses compared with their enemy's is remarkable in view of the fact that they were almost constantly on the offensive. By far the greater portion of the casualties were suffered in the east, during the two assaults on the defenses of Gorizia.
Measuring the territory gained during these two months and comparing it with the concessions offered by Austria as the price of Italy's neutrality—on this basis the Italians had no cause to regret their decision. On the Venetian Plain by the lower Isonzo a few thousand men in two days with comparatively small loss conquered all the territory which the Italian nation had been offered for keeping out of war. This conquered territory, however, was far less than the prize the Italian King and his Cabinet set before the eyes of the people when they declared war.[Back to Contents]
PART X—THE DARDANELLES AND TURKEY
CHAPTER LXX
BEGINNING OF OPERATIONS
During the month of January, 1915, the British and French naval authorities came to a decision to attempt a naval attack upon the Dardanelles. It was decided, too, to lose no time in the matter, but to push the campaign with all speed. Undoubtedly, behind this decision there were many political factors of a grave kind because, on the face of it, there were many reasons why the attack should have been delayed until fine weather. Once having come to a decision, no time was lost. The Island of Tenedos was seized, and under an agreement with Venizelos, the Greek Premier, the island of Lemnos was occupied. In the latter the large harbor of Mudros offered an ideal naval and military base for operations against the Dardanelles, overcoming one of the chief original handicaps of the allied command, distance of base from scene of operations. Lemnos was less than fifty miles from the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula, while Tenedos was but twenty-two miles away, lying close to the Turkish coast. At these two depots a considerable Anglo-French naval squadron was rapidly collected. They came from all parts of the world.
The elimination of the German commerce raiders from the high seas, and the obvious intentions of the main German and Austrian fleets to avoid a general action against overwhelming odds, freed a large number of allied, and especially British, warships of secondary fighting value.
By the middle of February, 1915, the rendezvous was complete. Besides the ships belonging to the British and French Mediterranean fleets, there had arrived, fresh from the battle of the Falkland Islands, the Inflexible, a dreadnought battle cruiser. The Queen Elizabeth, too, arrived, the newest and strongest of the ships of the whole British navy. It is evident that great reliance had been placed on the enormous gun power of this vessel, it being hoped that her great 15-inch pieces would blow the Dardanelles defenses to pieces, somewhat in the way the gigantic German land guns had blown the Belgian forts into fragments. In no other way is it possible to explain the risking of this capital ship in the highly dangerous operations in the Ægean sea.
In addition to the Queen Elizabeth and the Inflexible, the British force included the Agamemnon, the Irresistible, the Vengeance, the Triumph, the Albion, the Lord Nelson, the Ocean and the Majestic. The French ships numbered the Charlemagne, the Gaulois, the Suffern, and the Bouvet.