PIAVE, a river in Italy, which played an important part in the latter period of the World War on the Italian front. It rises under the Paralba pass in the Carnic Alps and flows in a south westerly direction past Belluno as far as Feltre and then turns to the south-east, flowing into the sea at Cortellazzo to the north-east of Venice, with another, older mouth nearer to Venice. Its course is 220 km. in length. Its depth and width vary very con siderably according to the seasons of the year, a fact which had an important bearing on the operations along its banks. In its lower reaches its bed is a vast extent of gravel only filled iri times of heavy rains or at the melting of the snows. After the Austro German break-through at Caporetto in October 1917, the re mains of the Italian II. army and all the III. fell back on the Piave between Pederobba and the sea and were reconstituted be hind that river. The Austrians made repeated attempts to cross the river in the Nov. and Dec. battles, but were eventually driven back on to the left bank. For a time some British troops held a sector of the Piave front, but they were afterwards transferred to the Asiago plateau. On June 15, 1918 the Austrians delivered a general attack along the greater part of the Italian front, known as the battle of the Piave, their object being to break through into the rich agricultural area of the Veneto. They concentrated their attacks on the sector between Falze di Piave and Nervesa (opposite the Montello hill, rising along the right bank), and on that between the Grave di Papadopoli, a gravel covered island in the river, and Musile. Two Austrian forces succeeded in get
ting across and occupied half of the Montello and some other points, but were forced by Italian counter-attacks to recross the Piave, after suffering heavy losses. Later an Italian local attack resulted in the conquest of the area between the old and the new Piave near the estuary. In Oct. 1918 an Italian offensive on a large scale was effected. The battle, which takes its name from Vittorio Veneto, east of the Piave, began on October 23, but did not extend to the Piave until the 27th. On that day a small mixed Italian force crossed the river near Valdobbiadene and a part of the X. army also crossed the Piave at the Grave di Papadopoli (this army, commanded by the earl of Cavan, comprised two British divisions). The bridges of the VIII. army were swept away by the current and the regiments which had got across were isolated, and as the British forces which had crossed were not strong enough to outflank the Austrians on the dominant position of San Salvatore, Gen. Caviglia, commander of the VIII. army, sent his XVIII. corps across on the British bridges; while that corps advanced up the river the British pushed east towards the Monticano; thus by the 29th the Austrian forces on the Piave were cut in half. On the 3oth the bulk of the Italian attacking forces were across the river and the Austrians in full retreat.