Riva fortress

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Sketch plan for Riva Fortress

The fortress Riva , located at the northern tip of Lake Garda, was the flank protection for the larger fortress Trento and belonged to the system of Austrian fortifications on the border with Italy .

history

After Austria-Hungary lost the Sardinian War against France and the allied Sardinia-Piedmont in 1859 , it had to give up large areas in northern Italy, including Lombardy , and withdraw from them. This also resulted in the loss of the so-called fortress quadrangle of Peschiera , Verona , Mantua , Legnano , which had previously prevented an incursion into Trentino and South Tyrol .

Suddenly the only fortifications up to the Brenner Pass consisted of the old citadel (Doss di Trento) of Trento, which, however, would not have been capable of any serious resistance. Already during the planning for the construction of the Trento fortress it was obvious that its right flank had to be secured, since a breakthrough over the Ampolatal or the Ledro valley , also east of the Lake Garda over the Loppio valley, even amphibious operations over the lake itself was possible the latter existed defensive plans of the kuk Kriegsmarine . Therefore, in 1860, at the same time as the construction work in Trento, the first works of the future Riva fortress were built.

The official appointment to the fortress Riva took place in 1910. The kuk Geniedirektion Riva had already been launched in December 1907 and started its activities on January 1, 1908. This was directly subordinate to the 14th kuk corps command in Innsbruck . Until the founding of the independent directorate in Riva, the Genius directorate in Trento was responsible for the section between the Judicaria and Terragnolo . After the Italian entry into the war , the genius management was relocated from Riva to San Giacomo, between Riva and Arco . It existed until the end of the war in 1918.

The first fortress commander of the Riva fortress was Leopold Rollinger von Rollegg. During the First World War, other fortress commanders were Anton Schiesser and, in the meantime, Otto Ellison von Nidlef , who was in charge of the Riva genius management even before the war.

Anton Schiesser fortress commander of Riva during the First World War

Fortifications

The following systems were built from 1860:

Up until the beginning of the First World War, there were also:

These fortifications were placed in a semicircle around the city of Riva, which was not itself provided with defenses.

The San Nicolo, Bellavista and Nago works are the only ones that have remained undamaged and are still in civil use today.

Combat Sections

The following combat sections were assigned to the individual plants and groups of plants:

  • San Nicolo, together with Bellavista the lakeshore from Torbole to Val di Ledro,
  • Lock Monte Brione the plain of the Rio Sarca to Arco ,
  • Bellavista, lock Ponale and defense wall as lock Ponale road and the exit of the Val di Ledro,
  • Rocchetta lock the Val di Ledro
  • Barring Nago the road from Rovereto and coming from Arco
  • Tombio plant together with Rocchetta the northern valleys (Val di Concei and Val Lomasone)

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.
  • 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 : Forts in Riva del Garda  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Inventory of the Tyrolean barriers (in Italian) (PDF; 148 kB), accessed on November 10, 2017.
  2. ^ Nicola Fontana: La regione fortezza. Il sistema fortificato del Tirolo: pianificazione, cantieri e militarizzazione del territorio da Francesco I alla Grande Guerra p. 253

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