Battle of Asiago

Battle of Asiago Strafexpedition
Part of the Italian Front (First World War)
The remaining alpine vegetation after the attack on Asiago.
Date 15 May – 10 June 1916 Location Asiago plateau, Veneto, Italy Result Italian defensive victory
Belligerents
Kingdom of Italy	Austria-Hungary
Commanders and leaders
Luigi Cadorna Roberto Brusati replaced by Guglielmo Pecori Giraldi Pietro Frugoni	Conrad von Hötzendorf Archduke Eugen of Austria Viktor Dankl von Krasnik Hermann Kövess
Units involved
First Army Fifth Army	11th Army 3rd Army
Strength
172 battalions 850 guns	300 battalions 2,000 guns
Casualties and losses
140,000 casualties: 12,000 dead 80,000 wounded 50,000 taken prisoner	100,000 casualties: 15,000 dead 75,000 wounded 15,000 missing and taken prisoner

The Battle of Asiago (Battle of the Plateaux) or the Trentino Offensive (in Italian: Battaglia degli Altipiani), nicknamed Strafexpedition ("Punitive expedition") by the Austrians, was a counteroffensive launched by the Austro-Hungarians on the Italian Front on May 15, 1916, during World War I. It was an unexpected attack that took place near Asiago in the province of Vicenza (now in northeast Italy, then on the Italian side of the border between the Kingdom of Italy and Austria-Hungary) after the Fifth Battle of the Isonzo (March 1916). Commemorating this battle and the soldiers killed in World War I is the Asiago War Memorial.

Already for some time the Austrian commander-in-chief, General Conrad von Hötzendorf, had been proposing the idea of a Strafexpedition that would lethally cripple Italy, Austria-Hungary's ex-ally, claimed to be guilty of betraying the Triple Alliance, and in previous years he had had the frontier studied in order to formulate studies with regard to a possible invasion.

The problem had appeared to be serious, mostly because the frontier ran through high mountains and the limited Italian advances of 1915 had worsened the situation and excluded a great advance beyond the valleys of Valsugana and Val Lagarina (both connected by railway) and the plateaus of Lavarone, Folgaria and Asiago.

The geographic location of the routes of advance was conducive to the original plan which called for an advance from Trent to Venice, isolating the Italian 2nd and 3rd Armies who were fighting on the Isonzo and the Italian 4th Army who was defending the Belluno region and the eastern Trentino.

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