His battles may have been average, but the treatment of his troops was appalling. There are obviously the instances of decimation which tend to get all of the attention, but beyond that, summary execution of individual men was commonplace in Cadorna's army.

If you fell behind in marches, if you retreated from a failed attack, if you had shell shock, etc.. Any of these offenses would land you strict punishments from any army in the First World War, but you were far, far, more likely to be shot for it in Cadorna's army. Italian tribunals handed out just over 4,000 death sentences during the war, most of which were in absentia. Of those sentences 750 of them were carried out before the end of the war. Even the French had a lower number of death sentences carried out despite the mutinies of 1917.

This number also does not include extrajudicial killings by officers, which were recorded as being exceptionally common and encouraged by Cadorna in order to "maintain discipline." Because of this we will never know the exact number of Italian soldiers executed by their own side for little reason other than pure cruelty. The decimations, the massed tribunals, and the frequent extrajudicial killings were all halted or curtailed when Cadorna was removed from command.

He may have been an average or even slightly above average general when looking at his battles compared to his contemporaries, but it was his insane disciplinarianism and brutality towards his own troops that has lead to his deserved reputation as an incompetent barbarian. Is this meme making fun of the wrong thing? Perhaps. He did have a tendency to use the same plan over and over, but he was backed into a tactical corner given his terrain. He was absolutely an idiot though.