To the great surprise of all the soldiers of the Second Army, at 2.00 in the morning of 24th October 1917 the Italian lines between Plezzo and Tolmino started to be attacked by an unprecedented bombardment both as regards its intensity as well as its precision. The cannons of the Austro-German troops were aimed at the rear, on their lines of communication, on observers and on the artillery positions. The bombs fell relentlessly for five hours and destroyed a large part of the Italian structures. The frontline was isolated and at seven in the morning the infantry came out of its trenches. The Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo was under way.
The Austro-German troops moved simultaneously both in the north, around Mount Rombon, as well as in the south, at Tolmino. The first zone was well defended by the Italian army but besides bombs, even hand grenades and poison gas were used and in a short while more than 700 soldiers of the Friuli Battalion were killed. The survivors were given the order to withdraw and so allowed free passage to the village of Saga to the Army Corps led by General Alfred Krauss.
At Tolmino instead the Italian troops were taken completely by surprise: the order to retreat towards the nearby plateau of Kolovrat, received on 10th October, was ignored for several days. General Pietro Badoglio only started to organize this retreat on 22nd October and allowed the Austro-German forces a considerable advantage.
The German battalions started to climb back from the bottom of the valley in a northerly direction, meeting on their way only a few Italian soldiers who, in the absence of any official orders, did not even fire a single shot. At noon they reached Kamno and two hours later they were at the doors of Caporetto, preceded only by Italian soldiers who were hurriedly abandoning all their positions. At 3.30 pm the bridge on the river Isonzo was blown up but despite this, before sunset the German troops entered the small city together with two thousand Italian prisoners.
Also on the same day a contingent consisting of Alpenkorps and of a mountain battalion from Württemberg left Tolmino and attacked directly the western side, aiming at the peaks of the Kolovrat. Even in this case the bombardments were devastating and the soldiers easily reached Height 1114, the seat of a fortified Italian position. Instead of engaging in a frontal attack, a young officer Erwin Rommel ordered that this position be bypassed and that the successive advance should be towards west.
