A look at the seniormost Italian military comander in the Great War, His Army, and their War.

Prof. Mondini (Padua) gives us the first English biography of Luigi Cadorna, who commanded the Italian Army for most of the Great War, until the disaster at Caporetto. It is a very rich, complex work. Mondini not only covers the general’s life, personality, and conduct of the war, but also offers a deep analysis of the Italian Army and the relationship between the army and Italian society.

Although from a military family, Cadorna was not a member of the old Piedmontese nobility. A man of considerable ability, he was nevertheless over-confident, and not open to new ideas or criticism, “torpedoing” contrarian voices. He frowned on initiative, which often left troops unable to adapt to changing front line situations. Well aware of the unanticipated ways in which combat developed during the Great War, Cadorna lacked the vision that might have enabled his army to cope with them. He was also contemptuous of his troops, and the Italian people as a whole, believing that they lacked discipline and courage, which required stern measures to correct; he probably executed more of his own men than any other army commander.

Mondini reminds us that the primary mission of the Italian Army, inherited from its Piedmontese roots, was internal security and the preservation of the house of Savoy. Ill-trained (prewar conscripts were often discharged within months), and poorly equipped, the army was unprepared for war in mid-1914 when the war began and Italy wisely stayed out. It was still not prepared in the Spring of 1915, when Italy joined the war on the side of the Allies.

The catastrophe at Caporetto (October 24 –November 19, 1917) removed Cadorna from command, led to many reforms in the army and, arguably, by getting the front out of the Alps, set the stage for a revival of Italian prospects.

Marred primarily by the absence of maps (three very basic ones are available online), The Generalissimo is not only a very good look at Cadorna and his army, but is also an excellent treatment of Italo-Austrian war.

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Note: The Generalissimo is also available in e-editions.

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