The Italian campaign refers to a series of battles fought between the armies of Austria-Hungary and Italy, along with their allies, in northern Italy between 1915 and 1918. Italy hoped that by joining the countries of the Triple Entente against the Central Powers it would gain Cisalpine Tyrol (todays provinces of Trento and Bolzano-Bozen), Istria, Gorizia and Gradisca, northern Dalmatia and the port of Trieste. Although Italy had hoped to begin the war with a surprise offensive intended to move quickly and capture several Austrian cities, the war soon bogged down into trench warfare similar to the Western Front fought in France.

Although a member of the Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Germany, Italy did not declare war in August 1914, arguing that the Alliance was defensive in nature and therefore that Austria-Hungary's aggression did not obligate Italy to take part. Italy had a long standing rivalry with Austria-Hungary, dating back to the Congress of Vienna in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars, which granted several regions on the Italian peninsula to the Austrian Empire. More importantly, a radical nationalist political movement, called Unredeemed Italy (Italia irredenta), founded in the 1880s, started claiming the Italian-inhabited territories of Austria Hungary, especially in the Austrian Littoral and in the County of Tyrol.

By the 1910s, the expansionist ideas of this movement were taken up by a significant part of the Italian political elite. The liberation and annexation of those Austrian territories (inhabited not only by Italians, but also by ethnic Germans, South Slavs and Friulians) became the main Italian war goal, assuming a similar function as the issue of Alsace-Lorraine had for the French. In the early stages of the war, Allied diplomats courted Italy, attempting to secure Italian participation on the Allied side, culminating in the Treaty of London of April 26, 1915 in which Italy renounced her obligations to the Triple Alliance.

On May 23, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary. Italy opened the war with an offensive aimed at capturing the town of Gorizia on the Isonzo (Slovene: Soča) river, and capturing the highlands on the Kras plateau and in the western Julian March, which would enable them to secure a further advance towards Trieste, Rijeka (Fiume), Kranj (Krainburg) and Ljubljana (Laibach). However, the Italian Army was poorly equipped in artillery, vehicles, and ammunition.

At the beginning of the war, Italy had just 600 vehicles to move troops. As with most contemporary militaries, the Italian army primarily used horses for transport, and these failed to move supplies fast enough in the tough terrain of the Alps. Also, the newly appointed Italian commander, Luigi Cadorna, had no combat experience and was highly unpopular amongst his men.

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