The inglorious twelfth Battle of the Isonzo (autumn 1917), came to be an icon of catastrophe in the national awareness. It has remained one of the most persistent memory sites in Italian culture. However, many of the revolutionary myths proved in time to be little more than legend or false reports of war. There was no betrayal, no organized subversive plot, no attempt to ‘do a Russia’, yet Caporetto still has evocative power over the collective memory, outweighing the ‘splendid recovery’ on the Piave. Not only is it the most written about (and debated) battle in the history of unified Italy, it is also the only one whose name has entered common parlance to conjure up moral and material disaster. This more than explains why it was also the culminating experience in the life of Luigi Cadorna. Not only did it end his career, it turned him into a reprobate. He who even days before had been an untouchable idol, was now tarred with the brush of incompetence, even treason, and put through the public disgrace of a court of enquiry vetting his every act of command. Unsurprisingly, Caporetto was a ghost which Cadorna tried to shake off for the rest of his days.