Battle of Asiago

The Battle of Asiago (Battle of the Plateaux) or the Südtirol Offensive (in Italian: Battaglia degli Altipiani), nicknamed Strafexpedition ("Punitive expedition") by the Austro-Hungarian forces, was a major counteroffensive 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. Already for some time the Austro-Hungarian commander-in-chief, General Conrad von Hötzendorf, had been proposing the idea of a Strafexpedition that would lethally cripple Italy, Austria-Hungary's ex-ally, claimed to be guilty of betraying the Triple Alliance, and in previous years he had had the frontier studied in order to formulate studies with regard to a possible invasion. The problem had appeared to be serious, mostly because the frontier ran through high mountains and the limited Italian advances of 1915 had worsened the situation and excluded a great advance beyond the valleys of Valsugana and Val Lagarina (both connected by railway) and the plateaus of Lavarone, Folgaria and Asiago. The geographic location of the routes of advance was conducive to the original plan which called for an advance from Trent to Venice, isolating the Italian 2nd and 3rd Armies who were fighting on the Isonzo and the Italian 4th Army who was defending the Belluno region and the eastern Trentino. The preparations for the battle began in December 1915, when Conrad von Hötzendorf proposed to his German counterpart, General Erich von Falkenhayn, shifting divisions from the Eastern Front in Galicia to the Tyrol, substituting them with German divisions.