The Cadore Offensive: Theoretical Military Geography Considerations

The failure of the attack on the Puster Valley at the beginning of Italian hostilities during the First World War (WWI), known as the Cadore offensive, has been of great interest in the Italian debates. Although the disadvantages of the Alpine front’s geography for the Italian offensive have been widely accepted, specific and systematic studies are still lacking. Therefore, in this paper, we address the military significance of the Cadore offensive’s geography from a theoretical point of view. We analyze General L. Cadorna’s theoretical assessment based on the perspective provided by theoretical considerations resulting mainly from late nineteenth-century military geographers’ theories, as well those gathered from some early twentieth-century military studies.