Battle of Vittorio Veneto

Battle of Vittorio Veneto
Part of the Italian Front of World War I

Map of the battle
Date24 October – 4 November 1918
Location
Vittorio, Kingdom of Italy
45°57′21″N 12°20′49″E / 45.95583°N 12.34694°E / 45.95583; 12.34694
Result

Italian victory[1][2][3]

Belligerents
Italy
United Kingdom
France
United States		 Austria-Hungary
Commanders and leaders
Armando Diaz AD. Joseph August
Alexander von Krobatin
Svetozar Boroević
Strength

57 divisions:[7]

  • 1,415,000 in 52 divisions
  • ≈40,000 in 3 divisions
  • 25,000 in 2 divisions
  • 1,200 in one regiment

Total : 1,486,200

7,700 guns
600 aircraft

61 divisions:

  • 1,800,000[7]
    6,145 guns
Casualties and losses

40,917
38,000

  • 7,000 killed
  • 23,000 wounded
  • 8,000 missing and captured
2,139
778
8		 528,000[8]
30,000 killed
50,000 wounded
448,000 captured
5,000+ artillery pieces captured

The Battle of Vittorio Veneto was fought from 24 October to 3 November 1918 (with an armistice taking effect 24 hours later) near Vittorio Veneto on the Italian Front during World War I. After having thoroughly defeated Austro-Hungarian troops during the defensive Battle of the Piave River, the Italian army launched a great counter-offensive: the Italian victory marked the end of the war on the Italian Front, secured the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and contributed to the end of the First World War just one week later.[1][2][9][4] The battle led to the capture of over 5,000 artillery pieces and over 350,000 Austro-Hungarian troops, including 120,000 Germans, 83,000 Czechs and Slovaks, 60,000 South Slavs, 40,000 Poles, several tens of thousands of Romanians and Ukrainians, and 7,000 Austro-Hungarian loyalist Italians and Friulians.[10][11]

  1. ^ a b Burgwyn, H. James (1997). Italian foreign policy in the interwar period, 1918–1940. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 4. ISBN 0-275-94877-3.
  2. ^ a b Schindler, John R. (2001). Isonzo: The Forgotten Sacrifice of the Great War. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 303. ISBN 0-275-97204-6.
  3. ^ Mack Smith, Denis (1982). Mussolini. Knopf. p. 31. ISBN 0-394-50694-4.
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Luden was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Marshall Cavendish Corporation (2002). History of World War I. Marshall Cavendish. pp. 715–716. ISBN 0-7614-7234-7. The Battle of Vittorio Veneto during October and November saw the Austro-Hungarian forces collapse in disarray. Thereafter the empire fell apart rapidly.
  6. ^ World War I: The Definitive Visual History from Sarajevo to Versailles. Penguin. 2014. p. 319. ISBN 978-1-4654-3490-6.
  7. ^ a b Stevenson, David (19 September 2011). With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918. Harvard University Press. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-674-06226-9. Retrieved 26 July 2015. According to the Commando supremo the Allies had 57 divisions and 7,700 guns.
  8. ^ Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War 1914–1920, The War Office, pp. 356–357.
  9. ^ Mack Smith, Denis (1982). Mussolini. Knopf. p. 31. ISBN 0-394-50694-4.
  10. ^ Thompson, Mark. The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915–1919. Basic Books, 17 March 2009. p. 363.
  11. ^ Arnaldi, Girolamo (2005). Italy and Its Invaders. Harvard University Press. p. 194. ISBN 0-674-01870-2.