Replacement plant Busa Grande

Greatly simplified reconstruction of the armored domes on Busa Grande

Actual appearance of the gun domes

The replacement plant Busa Grande , also known as Busa Granda, is an Austro-Hungarian fortress from the time of the First World War in the northern Italian province of Trento . It was built on the hilltop of the same name above Levico Terme in the Valsugana , which in parts also belongs to the municipality of Vignola-Falesina .

location

The facility is located in the hamlet of Compet above Levico Terme below the Busa Grande hill of the same name at almost 1500  m slm. At Compet, the former reinforcement road also turns south-westerly from Strada provinciale no.11, which leads from Levico to Vetriolo –30 minutes on foot to the former factory premises.

history

As early as 1906, the General Staff of the Austro-Hungarian Army had to fortify Busa Grande as a fortification, but due to a lack of financial resources, no further project development took place.

At the beginning of 1915, when Italy's entry into the war became more and more likely, Austria-Hungary began to question and revise the existing defense plans on the border with Italy. In this sense, the two permanent barriers Colle delle Bene and Tenna erected in the upper Valsugana at the end of the 19th century , even after the experiences already made on the Eastern Front , were no longer considered contemporary and bombardment by modern artillery was no longer considered classified grown. Accordingly, they began to look for alternatives and decided to disarm the two factories and move the factory artillery to another location.

At the beginning of February 1915, the first project sketches for the construction of a cavernous battery on Busa Grande above Colle delle Bene were available to the geniuses in Trento . The first work on site began just four weeks later. In April 1915, the tower howitzers at the Colle delle Bene plant were dismantled and brought to the Busa Grande. Work on the system was carried out around the clock, including at night, so that after three and a half months before the Italian declaration of war on May 23, 1915, it was ready for use. It was occupied by units of the fortress artillery regiment No. 1 "Trient", a total of around 50 men, as well as by riflemen of the Kaltern II battalion , another 50 men who had been assigned to guard and close defenses.

During the advance of the Italians in the Valsugana in the first year of the war, the Italian troops were repeatedly taken under fire by the guns of Busa Grande. In April 1916, west of Roncegno Terme near S. Osvaldo, the Italians attempted a breakthrough followed by an Austro-Hungarian counter-offensive by the 18th infantry division, in which the batteries on Busa Grande also intervened.

In the course of the Austro-Hungarian spring offensive , which began in mid-May 1916, the warfare shifted beyond the reach of the guns lying on Busa Grande, so that they were subsequently expanded and brought closer to the front. Until the end of the war, Busa Grande served as an anti-aircraft position for this purpose several anti-aircraft guns and searchlights were set up. After the end of the war, the facility slowly fell into disrepair and some of it collapsed.

Between 2014 and 2016, the replacement plant Busa Grande was extensively restored for over 410,000 euros and turned into a museum. The rubble was removed, the dome was freed from vegetation, the facility was secured, electrical interior lighting was installed, the former armored domes were reconstructed for illustration purposes , some of the interior spaces were reconstructed, and numerous multilingual information boards were set up. Busa Grande has been open to visitors again in the summer months since September 2016.

description

During the construction of Busa Grande, under the direction of Franz von Steinhart , who was responsible for the genius management in Trento, the latest fortification knowledge was already used. For example, the three armored domes, with the artillery observer under the third northernmost dome , were drawn apart so that the enemy artillery would not be too easy to attack. In accordance with the new findings, the self-propelled howitzer battery was placed completely underground in the rock, as was the case in the last generation of barriers, such as B. at the Valmorbia plant or the Ponale roadblock .

From the 110 meter long main tunnel, which runs north-south through the summit of the Busa Grande, a series of side tunnels or caverns turn left and right, some of which are up to 60 meters long. To the east of the main tunnel, the two gun wells with their ammunition lifts, around 12 meters high, are about 20 meters apart, which have been completely exposed again after the restoration, while the access to the artillery observation post, which branches off from the main tunnel east of the main entrance, is already there buried after a few meters and is no longer accessible.

In addition to the accommodations for the crew and officers, the ammunition stores, a workshop, a generator room, a water cistern, a first aid station, the kitchen and the toilets were also housed underground. One of the field gun batteries located outside was accessed via one of the western side tunnels.

At the southern end of the main tunnel, a short descending postern leads to the southern exit of the cavernous battery position. From here a trench extends around the summit of the Busa Grande, which was partially exposed again during the restoration of the facility and via which the other field gun and machine gun positions distributed around the facility can be reached.

Armament

Battery Busa Grande gun well and ammunition elevator

The main armament consisted of two 10 cm tower howitzers model 1905 from Škoda , which were mounted under two armored domes and brought to Busa Grande in the spring of 1915 after the disarmament of the Colle delle Benne plant. In addition to these self-propelled howitzers, Busa Grande had three open battery positions with a total of eight 9 cm M.75 field cannons. Two of these batteries, each with two guns, were located to the east slightly below the plant, while the third battery with four guns connected directly to the west of the caverned main facility.

For close defense, the plant also had two upstream caverned machine gun stands, one in the south and the other east of the main plant, which were armed with Schwarzlose M07 machine guns and Montigny 11 mm / 1869 mitrailleusen .

literature

• Nicola Fontana: La regione fortezza. Il sistema fortificato del Tirolo: pianificazione, cantieri e militarizzazione del territorio da Francesco I alla Grande Guerra. Museo Storico Italiano della Guerra , Rovereto 2016.
• Volker Jeschkeit: Le linee avanzate della fortezza di Trento: la difesa della Valsugana e le vie di collegamento agli altipiani , Curcu & Genovese, Trento 2010 ISBN 978-88-96737-14-9
• Volker Jeschkeit: La storia del Forte Busa Grande 1906–2018. Comune di Vignola Falesina, Vignola Falesina 2019.
• Fridolin Tschugmell: "During the mass the grenades sang". War diary of the Liechtenstein pastor Fridolin Tschugmell 1915–1918 Dolomites / South Tyrol , Alpenland-Verlag, Schaan 2004 ISBN 978-3-905437-04-1

Web links

Commons : Substitute Busa Grande  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Nicola Fontana: La regione fortezza. Il sistema fortificato del Tirolo: pianificazione, cantieri e militarizzazione del territorio da Francesco I alla Grande Guerra p. 215
2. ↑ Volker Jeschkeit: Le linee avanzate della fortezza di Trento: la difesa della Valsugana e le vie di collegamento agli altipiani pp. 208–210
3. ↑ Diary entries of the medical sergeant Fridolin Tschuggmell on Busa Grande p. 37-41 (PDF; 552 kB), accessed on August 11, 2017
4. ^ Municipal resolution on restoration in Italian (PDF; 48 kB), accessed on August 10, 2017.
5. ↑ Brochure on Busa Grande with historical photos and plans (PDF; 6.95 MB), accessed on August 12, 2017
6. ↑ Volker Jeschkeit: Le linee avanzate della fortezza di Trento: la difesa della Valsugana e le vie di collegamento agli altipiani p. 208

Coordinates: 46 ° 2 ′ 8.6 ″  N , 11 ° 17 ′ 51 ″  E