Carlo Caneva

Carlo Caneva (1845 to 1922) was an Italian general, born in Udine when the town lay in the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia within the Austrian Empire. He began his career as an artillery lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Army, moved to the Italian army in 1867 after the Austrian defeat at Sadowa, studied at the Scuola di Guerra and was attached to Italy's general staff. In 1896 he went to Eritrea as an infantry colonel to fight against Ethiopia and the Dervishes, and in those campaigns he rose to major general. In 1911, after commanding divisions and an army corps, he was selected to lead Italy's Libyan campaign against the Ottoman Empire and Libyan resistance forces under Omar Mukhtar, which ended in 1912. His slow, conventional conduct of that campaign was criticised, and Giovanni Giolitti remarked that he lacked initiative. He was recalled in 1912 and promoted to general, retired in 1914, and in 1917 was appointed to preside over the inquiry into the defeat at Caporetto.