From May 1915 till the end of 1917, 200 generals commanding the major fighting units and at least 600 senior officers were sacked by Cadorna’s direct order or authorization. Though not only an Italian phenomenon, the degree of that officer purge is puzzling. Cadorna always inflexibly defended his absolutist (pre-modern) handling of the officer cadres: he would weed out any commander rumoured to be weak or cowardly, but likewise anyone who contradicted a superior or voiced doubts as to the certainty of victory, or the infallibility of the Chief. Still more draconian were his disciplinary measures against the troops. Cadorna set out to eliminate three great enemies within his army: the soldiers’ indiscipline and cowardice, indecision by the officers, and leniency by the courts. These he pursued by dint of special tribunals and ordering an extraordinarily high number of executions. ‘Discipline is the spiritual flame of victory’, ran one of his best-known circulars, issued in the first September of the war. And, particularly revealing of the supreme commander’s inflation of the discipline factor: ‘the most disciplined troops win, not the best trained’.