In mid-September the Italian Supreme Command ordered that a new offensive should get under way in the Karst and this meant the start of the Seventh Battle of the Isonzo. Cadorna, convinced that the loss of Gorizia had weakened the soldiers of Borojevic, also tried to take advantage of the entry into the war of Romania (27th August 1916) that in theory should have forced the Austro-Hungarian Empire to transfer new divisions to the Balkan front. Instead the Habsburg troops were not at all badly prepared: reinforcements, especially material ones, arrived in a short while and there was no need to transfer any soldiers to the new Romanian front. Furthermore, twenty thousand Russian prisoners were moved from prison camps on the Karst to excavate new trenches and to build installations and emplacements for the artillery. In the zone of Vallone four new defensive lines sprung up.
The attack started on the morning of 14th September with a heavy bombardment that destroyed the Austro-Hungarian frontline. It was then the turn of the infantry to get involved: the Third Army led by the Duke of Aosta attacked with 100,000 men along a front that was only eight kilometres wide but all these assaults were steadily rejected by the machine guns, flamethrowers and tear gas used by the 7th Corps of Archduke Josef of Habsburg.
No success was registered in three days of battle and each side suffered very heavy losses. Once again nothing seemed able to stop the tenacious resistance by the Austro-Hungarian troops.
In reality within the Habsburg army the first cracks began to appear: the reinforcements that had arrived during the last few weeks often consisted of middle-aged men who lacked an adequate physical and military preparation while with people of different nationalities and ethnic groups having to live together, this started to create several tensions. One thing that continued to stick them together was their unwavering hatred for the Italian enemy.
