It appears that the large quantity of prisoners stemmed from the Austrian command decision that captivity in Italy was preferable to starvation at home. After the armistice, hundreds of thousands of Austrian soldiers without weapons, food and discipline made their way home through the alpine valleys. The alpine villages were caught between the retreating, half-starved soldiers who repeatedly resorted to theft and robbery to survive, and the advancing Italian army. At the same time, great numbers of Italian war prisoners were making their way south towards their homeland. Austria did not have the means to guarantee the orderly retreat of its own army or the organized return of Italian war prisoners. In the meantime, Italian occupation of Tyrol was going as planned. On 11 November, Italian troops occupied the Brenner Pass and the Pass at Toblach. To secure access to the Inn valley, crucial for an advance into southern Germany, Innsbruck, capital of Tyrol, and the village Landeck were occupied as well. On 10 January 1919, the commander of the 3rd army corps, Gen. Ugo Sani, was appointed military governor of northern Tyrol with residence in Innsbruck.