Forte Campolongo

Throat side of the battery block after the Austrian-Hungarian. Spring offensive 1916

The Forte Campolongo was a fortification of the Italian defense bar on the former border with Austria-Hungary and belonged to the Sbarramento Agno-Assa, III. Sector Schio .

It is located on the Cima di Campolongo (1720 m) in the northern area of ​​the plateau of the seven municipalities in the province of Vicenza and had the task of sealing off the Val d'Astico to the south. The favorable strategic location made it possible for the fort to sweep the Astic Valley between Campagna and Lastebasse for about five kilometers. Furthermore, the system was responsible for securing the flanks and backing the Monte Verena Fort Group .

The facility is located directly opposite the Austro-Hungarian armored plant Lusern , from which it is separated by the Val Torri. The distance is six kilometers as the crow flies

Plan Forte Campolongo (battery deck)

Building history

Full details of the architectural history are no longer present in the Italian archives, so it must follow the declaration of kuk evidence Bureaus recourse. Accordingly, the leveling began in July 1910; as early as April 1911, four short-tube Cannone 149 G were brought to the construction site to be set up in makeshift beds. After the earthworks were finished, the construction of the front trench began on October 1st with a few workers, which was stopped a short time later - due to the onset of winter. On May 1, 1912, the records office was able to determine that the cistern and two annex batteries had been completed. The G-cannons that were set up first were brought into the latter. In February 1914 the construction work was almost finished; until September 1914, there was still work to be done, such as the creation of the wire shed by Alpini .

Building description

Armament

The armament corresponded to that of Forte Monte Verena .

• First equipment
  • The armored turrets of the company "Armstrong, Mitchell & Company" in Pozzuoli were installed as original equipment. Due to the clear width of 4.61 meters, they could not be transported in one piece, so they were delivered in three separate parts and assembled on site. The wall thickness was 14 cm and the total weight of the dome was about 22.5 tons. The armored vehicles also consisted of several parts. The guns used here were four 149 mm L / 35 "A" cannons from Armstrong with steel tubes (in contrast to the bronze tubes used earlier) with a caliber length of L / 36.6 (5.46 meters) and a weight of 3.7 t used. The maximum firing range with a 42 kg HE grenade was 12,400 meters, a 52 kg shrapnel grenade filled with 1057 lead bullets (15.2 mm diameter) flew 12,000 meters.

4 × cannons 75 mm B (without barrel return) 4 × machine guns for close-range defense

• Second equipment
  • In 1913 the gun domes were replaced. Two-part armored domes from Schneider-Creuzot were now used as replacements. These had a shell thickness of 15 centimeters. Both shell halves were mounted on an inner skin two centimeters thick. The butt-butted dome halves had a glaring weak point at the joints. There were now four 149 mm L / 35 “S” cannons from Schneider installed, which had the same performance as their predecessor models. The rate of fire was also around two rounds per minute.

149 mm L / 35 “S” cannon in the armored turret

It was a straight two-storey facility that was equipped with an armored observation post in addition to the four cannon domes. The long line of the plant ran from southwest to northeast, so that the front was directed against Lusern. The left flank of the battery deck lay on a steep slope against the Val Torri. There was no storm here and a ditch was not necessary. In front of the front there was a five meter deep trench with a brick outer wall. The fort was accessed via a postern , which was covered by a guard casemate. The ammunition depot was housed under a ten-meter-thick rock ceiling and only accessible from the street post. Two ammunition lifts led to the gun systems. Below the facility, a 40 meter high semicircular retaining wall was erected in front of a rock demolition and a barracks was built on the small plateau that was created. From the barracks , another postern led first to the road passage and from there to the basement of the fort. The barracks plateau can also be reached via an access road. A so-called infantry line for close-range defense was located on the factory premises. It was a concrete wall about 1.50 meters high, which was accessible through a small open work yard on the right side of the battery block and through the postern, and was equipped with a small platform for a machine gun. The armored domes were laid out in line and had a distance of ten meters between the centers of the domes. The factory ceiling consisted of 2.5 meters of unreinforced concrete in three layers. On the outer wall of the trench was a 2.20 meter high obstacle grid; the bottom of the trench was secured with permanent wire fencing. Access from the basement to the upper floor was only possible through the uncovered staircase in the valley ditch.

Tower 1 and 2. The box structure of the tower barbeds is clearly visible, as only appeared in the Schneider-Creuzot towers.

The dimensions of the battery block were 52 × 13 meters.

Fighting

On May 24, 1915, Forte Campolongo opened fire on the Lusern tank factory opposite . There are no exact figures on the Italian side about the exact number of shots fired in total. The rate of fire, however, was very high, which led to the fact that on May 30, 1915, there was a bolt crack in one of the gun turrets, which damaged the mechanics of the turret so badly that it was not possible to install a replacement tube at that time. Two men of the tower crew were killed and two others wounded.

On June 6, 1915, the Austrians began bombarding the Italian forts with 12-inch mortars . Like Forte Monte Verena, Campolongo was not up to the heavy caliber. As early as June 12, 1915, the Italian side regarded the facility as destroyed and abandoned it. The three still intact cannons were removed on July 2, 1915 and used in field positions.

Before the start of the Austro-Hungarian spring offensive in 1916 , the kuk Evidenzbureau tried again to find out something about the condition of the work, but could not gain any reliable information. An aerial photo from March 22, 1916 shows that the entrances had been shoveled, but no traces in the snow could be found outside. Nevertheless, one came to the conclusion:

" The work has suffered from our fire, but apparently not to the extent that the work cannot be defended "

The disarmament had apparently escaped the Austrians, so that from May 19, 1916, the fort was fired at with a 42 cm M14 coastal howitzer and a 30.5 cm mortar battery No. 5 and laid in ruins. On May 22nd, the bombardment was stopped because the troops of the Austro-Hungarian III. Corps had reached the Monte Verena – Cima di Campolongo line. On May 23rd, an artillery commission arrived at the plant "in order to find useful cannons, to learn how to use them, then to turn them around and turn them against the enemy" . However, there were no more cannons, and the dummies made of tree trunks described by Fritz Weber in his book “Alpenkrieg” were not available, as can be clearly seen from the photos.

Tower 3 and 4

State after the fighting

According to the report by Hauptmann im Geniestab Luschinsky, who had inspected the fortress, the concrete slabs of the 3rd and 4th cannon towers had been shot down and the armor was completely smashed. The gun wells were exposed at the front and rear and the rotating mechanism destroyed, making the systems unusable. In the case of the second cannon tower, the armored armor was undercut by a projectile, the shell exploded inside the tower and hurled the armored dome backwards; she was upside down on the deck. The first cannon tower received a direct hit on the dome, the shell penetrated and exploded inside the tower. The dome was torn open and leaned forward on the tower shaft. Several direct hits tore open the ceiling of the battery corridor, a (probably) 42 cm shell penetrated the factory ceiling behind the 1st armored turret and exploded on the floor of the battery corridor, pushing it down into the cistern.

Location of Forte mths Verea and Campolongo from work Verle from

On June 2, 1916, the III. Army Corps to the following conclusion and reports to the Archduke Eugen Army Group Command:

“ Mte Verena and Campolongo have no further fortification value of the conquered plants.

The ranged batteries are useless, the concrete shelters almost entirely smashed. Since no guns are placed in the works, they are not considered for long-range combat. But they cannot be used as bases for close combat either. They stand on very prominent points where they attract enemy gunfire. Even if the damage in the badly damaged and very poor quality concrete masonry were poorly repaired, resistance to bombardment with heavy artillery would no longer be achievable. Only at Campolongo are two very wet rock spots and the factory ammunition magazine intact.

In summary, it can be said: In their intact state, the works did not correspond to any direction of attack for which they were built. They are destroyed by heavy gunfire and cannot be used for the opposite direction of attack. "

The fort remained in Austro-Hungarian hands until the end of the war.

Since 2005, extensive safety and repair work has been carried out on the structure.

Throat side of the battery block after the restoration

Ceiling of the battery block after the restoration

swell

• Robert Striffler: From Fort Maso to Porta Manazzo: History of the construction and war of the Italian forts and batteries 1883-1916. Buchdienst Südtirol E. Kienesberger, Nuremberg 2004, ISBN file: Forte Campolongo Batterieblock.jpg -923995-24-5.
• Rolf Hentzschel: Fortress war in the high mountains. Athesia, Bozen 2008, ISBN 978-88-8266-516-6 .
• Vienna State Archives / War Archives
• Carta Touristica Trento-Lévico-Lavarone Kompass Fleischmann S.ar. L. Istituto Geografico / Gardolo (Trento).
• Austria-Hungary's Last War 1914–1918 Volumes I – IV. Publishing house of the military science reports (Vienna 1933–39).
• L'esercito italiano nella grande guerra (1915–1918) Volume I – III. Roma: Ministero della Guerra - Ufficio Storico 1929–1974.
• Leonardo Malatesta: Il Forte di Cima Campolongo. Temi 2009, ISBN 978-88-89706-62-6 .
• Ministero della Guerra: Instruzione sul Servicio delle installatione Schneider per Cannoni da 149 S. Edizioni Voghera, Rome 1915.

Web links

Commons : Forte Campolongo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ the previous model, the “cannone da 149 modele I” had the additional designation “G” for “ghisa”, which literally means “cast iron”.
2. ↑ from GLOSSARIO DEI TERMINI TECNICI USATI NEL SITO: “I materiali utilizzati per costruire un cannone erano di vario tipo: Bronzo; Ghisa, detta anche Ferraccio; Sterro, ossia una lega di rame, zinco, ferro e stagno; Acciaio. "
3. ↑ Hentzschel, pp. 241–245 and P. 262.
4. ↑ The older cannon models of the "I" (Ispettorato) type with the shorter tubes in three-part domes were no longer used here.
5. ↑ Striffler p. 304

Coordinates: 45 ° 53 ′ 19.2 ″  N , 11 ° 23 ′ 17.1 ″  E