Luigi Cadorna

Luigi Cadorna (September 4, 1850 - December 21, 1928) was an Italian Field Marshal, most famous for being the Commander-in-Chief of the Italian army during the first part of World War I.

Biography

Born to General Raffaele Cadorna in Verbania Pallanza, Piedmont, after joining the Italian Army in 1866 Cadorna was offered the post of chief of staff for the first time in 1908, which he rejected due to the issue of political control during the war. He was again offered the position in July 1914. This time he accepted and began building up an army despite Italy’s declaration of neutrality. Cadorna expected war and so decided to concentrate the armed forces along the borders with Austria-Hungary. By the spring of 1915, Cadorna had four cavalry divisions and 25 infantry, and although there were only 120 heavy artillery pieces and 700 machine guns in the four armies.

Cadorna had basically no understanding of warfare and was notably totally blind to the event of the French-German front. Cadorna's operation plan was modeled after Napoleon's doctrine, his manouvre being focused on the road to Lubjana (65 km from the Austrian-Italian border), in the age of the machine gun it came to no surprise that the offensive come to a standstill after few kilometers. This mass attacks on Austria-Hungary in May 1915 basically complied with the requirements of the London Pact but brought no military success. It is remarkable the endurance of the Italian soldiers who managed to fight eleven consecutive battles under such a poor leadership, Cadorna continued to launch attacks despite the massive number of Italian casualties advancing overall of for a mere 20-25 km.

In addition he authorized the execution of thousands of his own soldiers to eradicate what he called “cowardice”.

Cadorna was sacked after the disastrous defeat of Battle of Caporetto for which he may be held morally, if not factually, responsible due to his stubborness in refusing to considering any repositioning of the units on the face of evidence that the Austrian, reinforced by the Germans, were preparing for the counteroffensive. Here Germany decided to attack the Italians with Austria in October 1917. The Italians were caught by surprise and a combination of misty conditions and poison gas resulted in over 300,000 casualties.

After the war, there was an enquiry held by the Italian government to investigate the defeat at Caporetto. It was published in 1919 and was highly critical of Cardorna, at that time a bitter man busy in writing his memories who, quite obviously, claimed that he had no responsability for the defeat. Nevertheless, he was made a Field Marshal in 1924 when Mussolini gained power. It is worth noticeing that another co-author of the Caporetto disaster - Badoglio - was raised to command the Italian Fascist Army. It may be even said that the root cause of the Italian disaster in the 2 World War lies in the unlearned lesson of the 1 World War.

Britain appointed him an honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in 1915.

Field Marshal Cadorna died in Bordighera in 1928.

Trivia

Italian residents in Buenos Aires presumably added Cadorna's name to the already rich Buenos Aires' jargon: the "Lunfardo". Dismayed by the Italian defeat at Caporetto, Italian residents in Buenos Aires used the word "Cadorna" to denote something that is "of bad quality" or "crappy". There is also a slightly different version, more in tune with the usage of this name in current Buenos Aires slang (i.e. to denote skepticism about the feasibility of something, in the phrase "Cadorna will do this!"). According to this alternative account, the saying originated as WW I events were followed with great interest by the city's large European population, eventually being adopted by the natives. When discussing the development of the war, national groups took the side of their respective armies. Italians were so overconfident after Cadorna's initial success against Austria-Hungary that they simply took for granted that the streak would continue when the Germans attacked the Italian front - their boast was Cadorna will stop them!. After the Caporetto disaster, their neighbours recycled this phrase as a sarcastic expression that nobody would be able to do a given task (Cadorna is used interchangeably with Magoya, Montoto, etc.). The word "Cadorna" [with variations such as "Cardorcha", a combination of "Cadorna" and "Garcha"(fallus)] are still used in "Lunfardo".

References

1. ^ "Inchiesta Caporetto" - official post war enquiry - vol II, table 33

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