7. ITALIAN CAMPAIGN. The chain of historical and diplomatic events which brought Italy into the World War is described under ITALY AND THE WAR (CV.). At the time of the declaration of war against Austria-Hun gary on 23 May 1915 the population of Italy was estimated at a little over 35,000,000. The Italian Army, raised by universal conscription, had a peace strength of about 15,000 officers and 290,000 men and a total war strength of roughly 3,270,000 men, of which number 1,070,000 were only partially trained. The able-bodied men annually recruited for service were divided into three sections, partly by exemptions and partly by lot. The first lot—about one-third of the whole— were fully trained; the second undergoing a recruit course and a few repeti tion cour..es in later years, and the third per forming no servke at all. The full period of service wa.s two years with the colors, six years on forlough, and four years in the mobile militia (consisting of fully-trained reservists only). In recent pre-war years large numbers of the last class were called up for brief ((re fresher)) trainings (See ITALY — TEIE ITALIAN ARMY). At the outbreak of war there were 12 army corps, each composed of two infantry divisions (in the Rome district three). The or ganization of the permanent army comprised 96 regiments of line infantry, 12 regiments of Bersaglieri (sharpshooters), and eight Alpine regiments (Alpitu), in all 389 battalions; 150 squadrons of cavalry; 263 horse, field, mountain and heavy batteries; and 190 companies of for tress artillery. and technical troops. On mobili zation a division of mobile militia was added to each corps, bringing its strength up to 37,000 men and 134 guns. Each division comprised two brigades of infantry and a regiment (five battalions) of field artillery. The brigade con tained two regiments, and the latter three bat talions each. A cavalry division comprised two brigades of two regiments each, and two bat tenes of horse artillery. On peace footing there were 29 cavalry regiments. The Ber tt saglieri, with the icturesque feathers on their hats, were the li t infantry. A regiment of four battalions o these troops— three of in fantry and one of cyclists— was attached to each corps. Six battalions of Carabinieri formed a military police force recruited from the regular army, while the Alpini (26 bat talions of the first line, with 36 batteries of mountain artillery) were special frontier trows for the defense of the northern borders. To _ _ some extent the line regiments suffered from having their best men taken for the select corps of Alpini, Bersaglieri and Carabinieri. Al together, the available field force may be esti mated at over 1,000,000 trained men, with a reserve of about 2,000,000 in the territorial militia, the third class, with normally only 30 days' training. The infantry was armed with
the six-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano magazine rifle, pattern 91. A part of the territorial militia still had the Vetterli-Vitali, model 70/87. Officers were equipped with sword and auto matic pistol. The Italian field artillery was at the time in process of re-armament. It pos sessed about 100 field batteries armed with the 75-millimeter Krupp quick-firing field gun, a large number of Krupp howitzers, siege and for tress guns, and siege trains of very large calibre.
The Italian navy, which had gained con siderable experience during the Tripolitan War of 1911-12, consisted at the outbreak of war of six dreadnoughts launched between 1910 and 1913, and two more were nearly completed, as against four vessels of that class belonging to Austria. The Italian dreadnoughts were su perior in speed and gun power. All were armed with 12-inch guns. Italy also possessed eight pre-dreadnought battleships under 20 years of age and three over, all heavily armed, of good speed, and well protected; 10 armored cruisers, all but one under 20 years old, as against only two on the Austrian side; and 16 light cruisers, nine being over 20 years old; 33 destroyers (and 10 building); 65 torpedo boats and 19 sub marines. The total naval personnel before the war was about 40,000. The Italian aviation arm was far superior to the Austrian, both in quality and quantity. Already, in August 1914, Italy had a greater aeroplane fleet than Great Britain, namely, 25 squadrille (of seven ma chines each) in Italy and three squadrille in Africa — about 200 machines. During the nine months of neutrality the Italian government had been building and buying aeroplanes and train ing pilots at a great rate, so that in May 1915 the country was well supplied with all kinds of aircraft — Curtiss waterplanes and flying-boats, Borel monoplanes with floats, Breguet seaplanes, Bossi flying-boats, Savoia-Farman seaplanes, and some half-dozen Italian-built and two German-built dirigibles. Though strong in her naval and aerial branches, Italy had no land army in the modern sense when the war brolce out in 1914. She had men, rifles and field guns, and not too many of the last. Many gaps in organization were filled up in the period of neutrality, but it was impossible to bring the equipment up to the required standard. Italy's industrial resources were strictly limited and not easy of development. The country produced neither coal nor iron, and the output of her steel worlcs was small. Nor was it easy to sup plement deficiencies from outside. England, France and Russia had earlier calls on neutral resources and Italy could only secure, so to spealc, the leavings. For a year at least after entering the war Italy had to rely on the heroism of her soldiers to make up for lack of munitions.