Italians on the Battlefield

2021 ◽  
pp. 57-78
Author(s):  
Vanda Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
General Staff ◽  
Difficult Terrain ◽  
Trench Warfare ◽  
Austrian Border

From the period of neutrality onwards, Italy mobilized a mass conscript army which drew on Italians from around the peninsula as well as emigrants overseas, though after much debate colonial troops were not brought to Italy. Despite the lack of widespread war enthusiasm, most men within Italy complied with the draft, and the army was soon able to deploy over a million men at the front. For emigrants, the decision to return and fight was complex yet many did so. Fighting was concentrated along the Italo-Austrian border, where chief of general staff Cadorna hoped to break through Austrian defences. The tactical difficulties of trench warfare combined with difficult terrain led to strategic immobility along this front, with eleven battles fought along the river Isonzo. In 1917 a joint Austro-German attack at Caporetto achieved a major victory but Italy was able to recover and defend itself successfully, with Allied support, before eventually returning to the offensive in 1918.

The former chief of P. N. Wrangel’ staff P. S. Makhrov on the Red Army campaign to Western Ukraine and Western Belarus in 1939

2020 ◽  
pp. 461-471
Author(s):  
Andrey V. Ganin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Russian Civil War ◽  
World War ◽  
General Staff ◽  
Red Army ◽  
Western Ukraine ◽  
Southern Russia

The memoirs of general P. S. Makhrov are devoted to the events of 1939 and the campaign of the Red army in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. Pyotr Semyonovich Makhrov was a General staff officer, participant of the Russian-Japanese war, World War I, and the Russian Civil war. In 1918, Makhrov lived in Ukraine, and in 1919-1920 he took part in the White movement in Southern Russia, after which he emigrated. In exile he lived in France, where he wrote his extensive memoirs. The events of September 1939 could not pass past his attention. At that time, the Red army committed approach in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. Contrary to the widespread Anti-Sovietism among the white emigrants, Makhrov perceived the incident with enthusiasm as a return of Russia to its ancestral lands occupied by the Poles.

Understanding the Prussian-German General Staff System

1992 ◽  
Author(s):  
Obersti G. Christian ◽  
O. E. Millotat
Keyword(s):  
General Staff

Imperial Armies in the Period of Rearmament and Appeasement, 1933–1939

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas E. Delaney
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
British Army ◽  
General Staff ◽  
Far Eastern

European and Far Eastern threats made the 1930s more serious for the armies of the British Empire. In 1934, the Defence Requirements Sub-Committee (DRC) of the Committee of Imperial Defence recommended British measures to rearm and put the prospect of a continental commitment back to a place of prominence in British Army planning. But manpower problems continued to figure prominently in any general staff appreciation of possible army commitments, so Britain still looked to India and the dominions. The problem was that they were of very different attitudes politically, and generally unwilling to make commitments in advance of hostilities. Even so, generals across the empire had to plan for worst cases and they continued to pursue measures that would ensure reasonable cooperation when war came. Dominion and Indian officers still attended the staff colleges and the Imperial Defence College, and exchanges of periodical letters continued with renewed vigour.

scholarly journals Verification of geophysical models in Alpine permafrost using borehole information

2000 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 300-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel S. Vonder Mühll ◽  
Christian Hauck ◽  
Frank Lehmann
Keyword(s):  
Geophysical Methods ◽  
Swiss Alps ◽  
Rock Glacier ◽  
Surface Microtopography ◽  
Refraction Seismics ◽  
Geophysical Surveys ◽  
Ground Conditions ◽  
Lateral Extent ◽  
Ice Content ◽  
Difficult Terrain

AbstractAt two permafrost sites in the Swiss Alps a range of geophysical methods were applied to model the structure of the subsurface. At both sites, borehole information was used to verify the quality of the model results. On the Murtèl-Corvatsch rock glacier (2700 m a.s.L; upper Engadine) a 58 m deep core drilling was performed in 1987. D. c resistivity measurements, refraction seismics, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and gravimetric surveys allowed the shape of the permafrost table beneath the marked surface microtopography to be determined and the lateral extent of a deeper shear horizon to be established The validity of each method was verified by the borehole information (cores, density log and temperature). A coherent model of the rock-glacier structure was developed. At the Schilthorn (2970 m a.s.L; Bernese Oberland), it was not clear whether permafrost is in fact present. Various geophysical surveys (d.c. resistivity tomography, refraction seismics, GPR and EM-31) gave results that were not typical of permafrost environments. A 14 m percussion drilling revealed warm permafrost and a very low ice content. These geotechnical and geothermal data allowed reinterpretation of the geophysical results, improving modelling of ground conditions. The paper demonstrates that in the difficult terrain of Alpine permafrost, boreholes may be critical in calibration and verification of the results of geophysical methods. The most useful combinations of geophysical techniques proved to be (a) seismics with d.c. resistivity, and (b) gravimetry with GPR.

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