OBITUARY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 26 December 1928, Page 5

OBITUARY

FIELD-MARSHAL CADORNA

United Prejs Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Australian Press Association.—United Service)

- ROME, 24th December. The death is announced of Field-Mar-shal Count Luigi Cadorna, Commander-in-Chief of the Italian Army from 1915 to 1917, at the age of 78.

Though towards the end of the war and since Count Cadorna sank somewhat into obscurity, his reputation, much damaged by the disaster of Caporetto in November, 1917, which led to his transference to another sphere, has revived. When Cadorna was appointed Com-mander-in-Chief of the Italian Army in July, 1914, he found the forces in a deplorable condition, both as to personnel and material. In the interval between 1914 and Italy's entry into the war in May, 1915, Cadorna served Italy much as Kitchener served Britain. He made a new army. For over two years Cadorna led the Italian Army in probably the most difficult theatre of the whole war, facing the mountains, his back to the plains, a truly uphill fight, in which he succeeded in wresting Gorizia from the Austrians. In 1916-17 the Italians began to suffer from war weariness, and Cadorna complained that the Government permitted an anti-war propaganda detrimental to the morale of the army. To this slackness of morale as well as the superiority of the Austrian strategical position was due the great disaster of Caporetto which robbed Italy of all her military gains and threw her backon the Piave River. Cadorna was superseded and sent to Versailles to join the Allied Military Council. It is considered now that lie fitted the Italian army for war and that his plan of campaign, successful in the long run, under General Diaz, was justified.