First Battle of the Piave River 1917
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 26 November 1917 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1917 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | World War I era (1914–1918) | derived from year |
| Location | Italy | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Italian Front | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 45.8500, 11.7333 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The First Battle of the Piave River (Italian: Prima battaglia del Piave), or first battle of Monte Grappa, was fought during World War I between the Austro-German armies and the royal Italian army along the Piave river and in the area of Monte Grappa.
The Italian Army was in all-out retreat after the Austro-Hungarian autumn offensive of 1917. The Italian Chief of the general staff, general Luigi Cadorna, had ordered the construction of fortified defenses around the Monte Grappa summit in order to make the mountain range an impregnable fortress. When the Austro-Hungarian offensive routed the Italians, the new Italian chief of staff, Armando Diaz, ordered the Fourth Army to stop their retreat and defend these positions between the Roncone and the Tomatico mountains, with the support of the Second Army.
The Austro-Hungarians and the German Army's Alpenkorps, despite numerical superiority, failed to take the mountain's summit during the first battle of Monte Grappa, which lasted from November 11, 1917, to December 23, 1917. Armando Diaz allowed his local commanders much more freedom of manoeuvre than his predecessor, which resulted in a more elastic and effective Italian defense.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article First Battle of the Piave River (revision 1370619120), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
- Battle of Monte Grappa 1918 · 0 km
- Battle of Bassano 1796 · 9 km
- Battle of Asiago 1916 · 18 km
- Battle of Mount Ortigara 1917 · 24 km
- Battle of La Motta (1513) 1513 · 34 km
- Second Battle of the Piave River 1918 · 37 km
Other battles of the Italian Front
- Battle of Hill 383 1915
- Battle of Monte Piana 1915
- Battles of the Isonzo 1915
- Battle of Asiago 1916
- Battle of Doberdò 1916
- Battle of Monte Grappa 1918
- Battle of San Matteo 1918
All 8 battles of the Italian Front →
Browse more: battles in Italy · Europe · World War I era battles