Battery San Nicolo

Northern corner of the Reduit of the Battery San Nicolo

The Battery San Nicolo (also Beach Battery San Nicolo ) was part of the defense system of the Riva fortress and was thus part of the Austrian fortifications on the border with Italy .

It is located on the eastern outskirts of Riva del Garda below the road to Torbole in the current marina; the reduit is completely preserved.

description

The main task was to cover the flanks of Riva while blocking the Torbole-Riva road and protecting the reinforcement road to Monte Brione with the Monte Brione blocking group consisting of the Central Battery, North Battery and Garda Works. It was a semicircular battery system with four 9 cm M 61 casemate cannons standing on a bench (open on the wall) and protected by crossbars.

The Reduit has a basement, ground floor and first floor, the latter two being completely uncovered above the surface of the earth. An oven is installed on the top floor with a daily output of around 320 bread portions. On the barrel vaults of the upper floor there is an approximately two meter thick clay ceiling, which was intended to serve as a shatter layer and seal. The gable roof above was probably not put on until after the Second World War ; there is no information about the actual point in time. The Reduit has two gun casemates with M61 casemate cannons in the direction of fire to the northwest to support the Tombio plant in closing the road from the Judikariental . The courtyard located in the rear part of the complex was closed off by a crenellated wall with an artillery slot - shot in the direction of Monte Brione. This gun slot was equipped with a 9 cm field cannon. The road from Torbole to Riva ran between the throat of the battery and a rock face, which was blocked by two ditches (each three meters wide and two meters deep) with lattice gates and dropping bridges. The field cannon in the courtyard of the battery could also be used against the road towards Torbole.

history

The Reduit, built in stone masonry between 1860 and 1862, was connected to the Riva aqueduct in 1899, although there was still an emergency supply from Lake Garda. There was a telephone line to the switchboard in the Mittelbatterie plant and a light signal connection to the Rocca barracks in Riva and the north battery of Monte Brione. Although the system was modernized in 1911/12 and equipped with new guns (seven 9 cm M 4 casemate cannons, at the start of the war an additional 9 cm M 75 field cannon in the courtyard), the combat strength in May 1915 was only very high to be classified as low. The Austro-Hungarian Combat Command only considered the facility to be shell-proof - less storm-free , which ultimately meant that it would only offer a certain duration of resistance to shooting with field guns less than 15 cm caliber. During the war, the battery was used as a magazine and troop accommodation.

During the Second World War, from 1944 until the end of the war, there was an assembly hall for small submarines from the Caproni company in the facility. In the Caproni workshop , prototypes for the navy were assembled and then tested in Lake Garda. Today the reduit houses offices of various private institutions. It can therefore not be visited.

literature

• Erwin Anton Grestenberger: Imperial and Royal fortifications in Tyrol and Carinthia 1860–1918 . Verlag Österreich ua, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-8132-0747-1 .
• Wilhelm Nussstein: Dolomites. Austrian fortresses in Northern Italy. From the seven municipalities to the Flitscher Klause . Mittler, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 3-8132-0496-0 , ( military history travel guide ).

Web links

Commons : Battery San Nicolo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 45 ° 52 ′ 37 ″  N , 10 ° 51 ′ 25 ″  E