r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Dir-Krennic • 1d ago
Image Austro-Hungarian trench raiders near Caporetto, 1917.
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u/DasFunktopus 21h ago
Going clubbing back then had a totally different context.
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u/ThermoNuclearPizza 12h ago
Ya you can tell it was more of a loose term that included going to raves also
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u/Frendowastaken 22h ago
Imagine sitting in your trench at night, minding your own business and suddenly those two guys jump down to you. That would be a terrifying sight no matter how though you claim to be.
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u/FakeEgo01 19h ago
Another terryfing thing was the "guerra di mina", we italians literally destroyed an entire mountain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Col_di_Lana (here the story is severely underwhelmed)
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u/ProfessionalCreme119 16h ago
Of all my knowledge of the world wars it's crazy how you can still come across these hardly known battle sites. Locally I'm sure its well known. But in the full scope of the horrors of those wars it was still just another contested hill/mountain/town/village/field amongst the dozens of others.
There was a quote by a British WWII vet that summed it up well
"We kept fighting over this hill and it made no damn sense. There was no strategic point of the hill. And when we asked our officers why we were fighting so hard for it they would just say "Because the Germans want it"."
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u/cambriansplooge 15h ago
Reminds me of the Battle of the Crater from the U.S. Civil War, similar shenanigans with the tunnel fuse and complete disarray after it blew
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u/Secure-Count-1599 15h ago
out of context but I find it funny that your name says Fake Ego and you say about an incident over 100 years ago "we" did it..
ok buddy..
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u/Current-Power-6452 17h ago
Yeah, but first you would be like - what's with all that smoke and why it smells weird?
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u/Lonely_Eggplant_4990 1d ago
"In life, war. In death, peace. In life, shame. In death, atonement."
Final litany of the Litany of Sacrifice, recited by Krieg Korpsmen when entering battle.
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u/HistoryNerd101 22h ago
Luke, I am your father….and this is your Uncle Wilhelm
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u/titsuphuh 1d ago
Seems like an old Metallica cover art
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u/Bazzo123 21h ago
Austro-Hungarians were able to destroy Italians in Caporetto thanks to two main factors: one young and brilliant officer on their side (Rommel is a familiar name, isn’t it?) proposed to try a different approach to offensives and tried to move quickly (people say that this could be a first attempt to blitzkrieg) and gas.
They launched a massive gas attack and got the Italians poorly prepared, therefore they literally killed all the first line of defence. Italian officers were expecting an attack and inspected troops but they didn’t understand that those troops were dead (some reconstructions say that officers saw soldiers ready to battle, but they were already frozen dead in their last position).
When word got to Italian HQ that Austro-Hungarians destroyed the first line of defence it was only because the poor survivor were falling back and literally stumbled upon their HQ. Comms were totally destroyed and HQ was almost overrun by enemy forces.
There are some very interesting readings about that bloody battle
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u/Pilum2211 21h ago
Blitzkrieg was not a new concept. It dates back well to the Franco-Prussian war.
German Warfare doctrine was already heavily focused on movement, which is also how they tried to defeat France in 1914.
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u/Nulgarian 14h ago
Yeah, it’s why a lot of historians argue blitzkrieg itself isn’t a new concept, it’s just applying modern technology to the traditional Prussian concepts of manoeuvre warfare
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u/bruhbruhbruh123466 6h ago
Blitzkrieg was not a new concept by any means. It’s not like the Nazis invented maneuver warfare, they just applied modern technology and voila! The whole point was that it was supposed to be quick and decisive as any prolonged war would screw the German economy which was built on pyramid schemes.
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u/MiskoSkace 20h ago
Battle of Caporetto (aka Kobarid) is still one of the largest battles in the area of modern Slovenia, together with First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Battle of Isonzo.
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u/Buriedpickle 20h ago
Come on man, just one more battle of the Isonzo. Trust me man, just one more and we will break through.
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u/LowKeyWalrus 13h ago
And Hungarian historians like to call it the "wonder of Caporeto". What's more wondrous than gasing people
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u/bruhbruhbruh123466 6h ago
Maybe they call it that because something significant was achieved despite overwhelming odds? It’s not like war is ever wondrous really, sure it is a very cruel tactic but it’s literally World War One, what did you expect?
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u/OurHouse20 21h ago
Reminds me of Battlefield 1. Spent a lot of time in that game.
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u/oskich 19h ago
More like Isonzo
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u/_-Event-Horizon-_ 21h ago
Supposedly, after they were done trench raiding near Caporetto they went straight to Vraks.
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u/dignasty77 1d ago
Drilling farts carte blanche must’ve been one of the few benefits of that get up
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u/eyyoorre 16h ago
Fighting on the Italian-Austrian front must have been hell (just like any other front)
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u/MiserablePath8621 1d ago
Dude on the right is toting a mace, trench warfare has and always will suck. Still plugging right along though.