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Südtirol Offensive Battle of Asiago | |||||||
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Part of the Italian Front (First World War) | |||||||
The remaining alpine vegetation after the attack on Asiago. | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Kingdom of Italy | Austria-Hungary | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Luigi Cadorna Roberto Brusati Guglielmo Pecori Giraldi Pietro Frugoni |
Conrad von Hötzendorf Archduke Eugen of Austria Viktor Dankl von Krasnik Hermann Kövess | ||||||
Units involved | |||||||
1st Army 5th Army |
11th Army 3rd Army | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
172 battalions 850 guns |
300 battalions 2,000 guns | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
15,453 killed 76,642 wounded 55,635 missing or captured[1] |
10,203 killed 45,651 wounded 26,961 missing or captured[2] |
The Südtirol Offensive, also known as the Battle of Asiago or Battle of the Plateaux (in Italian: Battaglia degli Altipiani), wrongly nicknamed Strafexpedition "Punitive expedition" (this name has no reference in official Austrian documentation of the time and it is considered to be of popular origin),[3] was a major offensive launched by the Austro-Hungarians on the territory of Vicentine Alps in the Italian Front on 15 May 1916, during World War I. It was an "unexpected" attack that took place near Asiago in the province of Vicenza (now in northeast Italy, then on the Italian side of the border between the Kingdom of Italy and Austria-Hungary) after the Fifth Battle of the Isonzo (March 1916).
Commemorating this battle and the soldiers killed in World War I is the Asiago War Memorial.[4]