This meant that the Germans, profiting by their success in breaking through the line near Flitsch and Tolmino, were advancing beyond Caporetto and Ronzina. They were already fighting at many places on Italian territory. The number of prisoners had increased to more than 30,000, of whom 700 were officers. The booty amounted to more than 300 guns, including many heavy ones.
The Austro-German offensive now began to gain more and more momentum almost every hour. It became known that Von Mackensen was in supreme command of the forces of the Central Powers. Favored by good weather, the German and Austro-Hungarian divisions pressed forward irresistibly over heights and through the valleys. The steep mountain ridge of Stol was captured and soon afterward the strongly fortified summit of Monte Matajur, 1,641 meters high, fell.
The Germans claimed that by now the number of prisoners had increased to 60,000 and the captured guns to 450 and that inestimable quantities of war materials were yet to be salved from the captured Italian positions.
After having crossed the boundary line between Monte Canin and the head of the Judrio Valley, the Austrians, by October 26, 1917, were attempting to reach an opening on the plains. On the Carso their effort was increasing. Strong offensive thrusts, however, were repulsed by the Italian troops.
The worst fears now began to be realized and with stunning swiftness the Austro-German forces forced back the Italians from territory which the latter had gained only by fighting most valiantly for months. In spite of determined resistance, which only in some instances was not all that might have reasonably been expected, the Italian forces were thrown back by powerful thrusts. In the evening of October 27, 1917, German troops forced their way into the burning town of Cividale, the first town in point of position in the plain. The Italian front as far as the Adriatic Sea was now wavering. The Austro-German troops were pressing forward on the whole line. Goritz, the much-disputed town in the Isonzo battles, was taken early on October 28, 1917, by Austro-Hungarian Divisions.
Cividale is a town of about 5,000 inhabitants, nine miles northeast of the important railroad center of Udine. It is near the entrance to the valley of the Natisone River, along which the Austro-German forces which broke the Italian line in the Tolmino region battered their way. Cividale is in the foothills of the Julian Alps, beyond which lie the plains of northern Italy.
Goritz was captured by the Italians on August 9, 1916. It is a town of 31,000 inhabitants on the Isonzo, halfway down the river from Tolmino to the sea. It is strongly situated among hills of great defensive value, in which there was heavy fighting before the Italians reached the city itself. Goritz is twenty-two miles northwest of Trieste, Austria's big seaport at the head of the Adriatic, the capture of which is one of the principal Italian aspirations in the war.
By October 28, 1917, the defeated second Italian army was retreating toward the Tagliamento. The third Italian army, it was claimed, offered only brief resistance to the attack against their positions from Wippach to the sea and hastily retreated along the Adriatic coast. North of the broad sector which had been pierced, the Italian front also was now yielding as far as the Ploecken Pass.
