Blame for the pointless attacks and scorn for men’s lives that the Italian commanders were so often prone to is usually set down to the evil doctrines of Luigi Cadorna’s notorious libretto rosso, probably the war’s most execrated book of regulations. Yet the red booklet was no eccentric anomaly in the prevailing military climate of Europe. Cadorna’s recommendations were consistent with the cult of the offensive, faith in the bayonet charge, and harping on moral principles as the key to victory that could be found in all international military teaching in summer 1914. The real problem was that the commander of the Italian army then proved unable to adapt to the disquieting novelties of a war based on materials and trench combat. More and more problematically, Italy’s Supreme Command went on issuing orders designed for a quite different war than was actually being experienced by the frontline troops.