22/08/2021
During the days just before Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian military and officials were trying to launch a massive counter intelligence operation. They wanted Italian spies to report back that the Austro-Hungarian military presence was much larger and powerful than what it truly was. While this was done along the Isonzo in the form of civilians lying to the invading Italian army, in the Carinthian and Tyrolean sectors they would bring in the same unit by train to make it seem more and more troops were arriving and reinforcing the frontiers daily. Fritz Weber gives an example in Isonzo 1915: They would bring a train in to Hermagor and a Landsturm battalion would march to Kötschach, however instead of going to the Plöcken pass, they would march north to the Pustertal valley. At night they would cross the Gailberg saddle to Oberdrauburg and then were taken back to Hermagor via Villach. It was over a 40km march done daily to pull off the illusion. The other piece of information passed amongst everyone was that due to the great victory on the Eastern front in Gorlice, there would be over 300,000 battle tested soldiers from the Ortler to the Adriatic.
Of course the truth was that Austria-Hungary was pulling its final reserves in militia (Landsturm and Standschützen), police and border guard units, training and replacement units, and sending whoever they could to defend the frontiers. It seemed that this counter intelligence operation was a success as the Italian army advanced very slowly and very cautiously. Most military tacticians and analysts were expecting the Italian army to advance past all lines of defense and were expecting a deep breach into Austrian territory. An Austrian officer in Tyrol wrote “If the Italians knew their business, they would march overnight and reach the Puster valley inside of Austria by morning”. It seems that this small victory was brought on by two conditions, the Austro-Hungarian counter intelligence operation, and Italian military incompetence.