CADORNA DISGRACED

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 167, 15 July 1918, Page 5

CADORNA DISGRACED

: PUT ON RETIRE© LIST. • WITHOUT BANK OB PAY. (Received : 11.15 a.m.) " : ROME, July 14. A decree hae been published "placing General Cadorna on the 'retired Let, without rank or pay, and also General Porro, ex-chief of the staff, and General Capello, ex-commander of .the second army.(A. and N.Z. Cable.) Cadorna's dismissal followed 'a searching inquiry into the ' debacle" of . laet October, when the Germans .broke through at Caporetto, for which Generals Cadorna, Porro, and Capello were held responsible. Cadorna's appointment to the Versailles Council was withdrawn. It ie understood' that the inquiry decided that Cadorna did not . put forth the utmost staunchness against" the Anetrians, and suggested that his staff was under the influence of the Austrian Clerical party.—(A. and NX Cable.) The degradation of the famous Italian Commander-in-Chief and his Chief 61 Staff is the outcome of the Qaparetto disaster of last October, when the Germans broke through line of the Second Army on the Isonzo front, and compelled the whole eastern line to go back to the Piave. ' Shortly afterwards General Cadorna, -who had been Com-mander-in-Chief since the beginning, was detached to represent Italy on the new War Council that the Allies set up to watch operations from the English Channel to the Adriatic After a while he was recalled to Italy in view of the inquiry that the Government decided to hold into the disaster of October. That inquiry has now decided that he and hie Chief of Staff and the commander of the Second Army were responsible to such a grave extent that they ere to be retired without rank or pay—a serious punishment for a high officer. * The breakdown of the Second Army's moral by propaganda hae been generally accepted as the chief cause of the disaster* But" as early as November 23 there appeared in' "I/Homme Libre," a paper owned by M. demenceau (now but not then Premier of France), an article in which the Italian High Command was charged with having made grave errors of disposition and lack of foresight. Faulty disposition of the front line troops on the Isonzo front, it was alleged, was alone sufficient to bring about a catastrophe. Then there were no reserves close at hand to fill the gap when the break through occurred. There was also "a complete lack of entrenchments .in view of a possible retreat," and no road of retreat had been prepared, errors which Were to be explained by "blind confidence in the solidity of the conquests made."