With almost continuous combat in the area, the precise number of battles forming the Isonzo campaign is debatable. Huge number of casualtiesĪustro-Hungarian supply line over the Vršič pass. In the south (along the coastal zone) geographic peculiarities, including an array of ridges and valleys, also gave an advantage to the Austro-Hungarian defenders. He was well aware that the river was prone to flooding – and indeed there were record rain-falls during 1914-18.įurther, when attacking further north the Italian army was faced with something of a dilemma: in order to safely cross the Soča (Isonzo) it needed to neutralise the Austro-Hungarian defenders on the mountains above yet to neutralise these forces the Italian forces needed first to cross the river - an obstacle that the Italians never succeeded in satisfying.

Not that he expected operations in the Isonzo sector to be easy. However he also believed that the Italian army could strike further north and bypass the mountains either side of the river so as to come at the Austro-Hungarian forces in the rear. Italian Chief of Staff Luigi Cadorna judged that Italian gains (from Gorizia to Trieste) were most feasible at the coastal plain east of the lower end of the Soča (Isonzo). The Austrians had fortified the mountains ahead of the Italians' long-expected entry into the war on. With the rest of the mountainous 400-mile length of the Front being almost everywhere dominated by Austro-Hungarian forces, The Soča (Isonzo) was the only practical area for Italian military operations during the war. Italian troops entrenched along the Soča (Isonzo) river. The area between the northernmost part of the Adriatic Sea and the sources of the river Soča (Isonzo) thus became the scene of twelve successive battles. Italian Field Marshal Luigi Cadorna, a staunch proponent of the frontal assault, had dreams of breaking into the Slovenian plateau, taking Ljubljana and threatening Vienna. The Italian army wanted to break through this passage in order to penetrate in central Carniola. The corridor is also known as the 'Ljubljana Gate'.

It runs from the Vršič and Predil Pass in the Julian Alps to the Adriatic Sea, widening dramatically just few kilometers north of Gorizia, thus opening a narrow corridor between Northern Italy and Central Europe, which goes through the Vipava Valley and the relatively low north-eastern edge of the Kras plateau to Inner Carniola and Ljubljana. The valley is flanked by relatively high mountains on both sides, which are lower in the western and higher on the eastern side. During World War I, however, the sixty-mile long river ran entirely inside Austria-Hungary in parallel to the border with Italy. The Soča (Isonzo) River is located in present-day Slovenia and Italy. Remains of an Austro-Hungarian fortification between Bovec and Log pod Mangrtom

11th battle of the isonzo