Forte Lisser

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Forte Lisser after the occupation by Austro-Hungarian troops in 1918

Forte Lisser is a former Italian fortress in the province of Vicenza . The facility, completed in 1914, was only marginally affected by the fighting on the plateau of the Seven Communities during the First World War . After extensive restoration work, it has been open to visitors since 2017.

location

The fortress was built on the summit of Monte Lisser at 1633  m slm on the north-eastern edge of the plateau of the seven municipalities in the municipality of Enego . It is less than 3 km as the crow flies from the former imperial border between Austria-Hungary and the Kingdom of Italy , which runs through the Marcesina depression to the north-west. To the southwest is the Meletta massif, which was heavily contested in the First World War.

history

The first plans to build a barrier on Monte Lisser were presented as early as 1909. According to these plans, the facility was to serve as a link between the two restricted groups Cismon-Brenta in the east and Assa-Astico in the west. A small plant with four cannons of 120 mm caliber under an armored cover was planned, which was to serve as a subsidiary to a main plant planned on the southwestern Cima Echar.

A year later the plans were changed and a design for the construction of a large tank factory on Monte Lisser with four 149A cannons in armored turrets was commissioned. The aim of the building was to prevent enemy attempts at break-in from the Marcesina and Val Brenta areas.

Budget constraints led to several project changes until construction began at the end of 1911. The construction of the reinforcement road was postponed until the Enego-Primolano road was completed and the building material was transported from the bottom of the Valsugana valley to the construction site by means of a specially equipped material cable car . In November 1912 the excavation work was finished and the first masonry work had started.

Completion, planned for 1913, was delayed. When the First World War broke out in August 1914, the 149 mm cannons intended for the armored turrets were still in Enego and the armored domes of the French company Schneider, manufactured under license by Ansaldo in Genoa , were ready for installation on the top.

After the Brenta-Cismon blocking command was called up on August 8, 1914, all blocking groups of the blocking groups were made ready for defense and work on Forte Lisser was hurriedly ahead. On the Monte Lisser a battery of 149G cannons was placed outside the facility. This open battery position, like the other batteries placed in position by the blocking group, was mainly intended to protect its own deployment area, but would only have withstood an energetically driven enemy attack for a short time.

In autumn 1914, the Italian Chief of Staff Cadorna and the Commander-in-Chief of the 1st Army Brusati paid a visit to the plant and were then impressed by the facility.

At the end of 1914 the work was practically complete and in February 1915 the Lisser lock was finally handed over. On May 22, 1915, 24 hours before the Italian declaration of war was handed over to Austria-Hungary, the Cismon-Brenta barrier group was declared ready to defend and on May 23, 1915 they were put on alert.

Forte Lisser after the restoration (2017)

First World War

Operations orders were received on May 24, 1915 at 1 a.m. At this time Forte Lisser was occupied by the 9th and 15th companies of the 9th fortress artillery regiment and by the 7th company of the 7th field artillery regiment. Together with the Coldarco cavern battery, it formed the 2nd group of the restricted group. The group command was also subordinate to three artillery observers with around 30 men upstream of the plant. The factory crew itself consisted of 2 officers and 106 men and 42 machine gun crews.

The operational orders provided that Lisser should artillery support the advance of the infantry if necessary. However, since the Austro-Hungarian troops had withdrawn to a position further back and more defensible, beyond the reach of the fortress artillery, the guns from Forte Lisser did not fire a single shot. As early as May 28, four days after the outbreak of war, the first batteries of the blocking group began to be withdrawn. In mid-June 1915, the 149G battery was withdrawn from Monte Lisser and moved to a position close to the front. However, the fortress artillery was left in the factory and the ammunition stock was secured, as one wanted to be prepared for a possible Austro-Hungarian counter-offensive. In August the situation had stabilized enough that 800 grenades and a few machine guns were handed in.

Plateau between Ortigara and Monte Lisser, on the right the Meletta massif

With the start of the Austro-Hungarian spring offensive in 1916, the partially disarmed Lisser barrier gained importance again as the interface between the Asiago plateau and the Cismon-Brenta section. Therefore, at the end of May, two batteries with new 120 mm autocannons and four 149A guns were brought in. At this point in time two armored turrets were probably still equipped with guns. On June 2, they opened fire on the troops of the 27th Austro-Hungarian infantry and the 2nd Bosnian-Hercegovinian infantry regiments attacking the Meletta massif . However, the artillery fire was too short and hit its own lines, as the eyewitness Emilio Lussu noted in his autobiographical book A Year on the Plateau . On June 8th, in response to the bombardment, several 30.5 cm shells hit the factory without causing any major damage. A shell hit the edge of the battery block without exploding.

After the end of the Austro-Hungarian offensive and the relocation of the front, Forte Lisser was again far behind the front line from mid-June 1916. At the end of June the disarmed and evacuated plant was given to XX Corps assigned as command post. In November of the same year the Cismon-Brenta lock group command was finally disbanded. Interest in Forte Lisser was only reawakened after the Italian defeat at Karfreit in the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo in autumn 1917. As a result of the Italian withdrawal from the Dolomite front, the Italian General Staff briefly considered whether the former blocking group on the Brenta and Cismon could in any way slow down the enemy’s advance. In the course of the second Austro-Hungarian attack on the Meletta massif, Forte Lisser was defeated by III on the morning of November 13, 1917. Battalion of the 81st Austro-Hungarian Infantry Regiment captured after the Italian rearguard had left the factory a few hours earlier. The facility remained in Austro-Hungarian ownership until the end of the war. During this time it was used as an ammunition depot and warehouse.

In the post-war period, the fort passed into private ownership, before it was acquired by the Enego municipality in the 1990s, which subsequently had the work restored. It was finally opened to visitors in summer 2017.

description

The work erected on the summit of Monte Lisser consists of a two-story, approximately 10 m high, 63 m long and 15.5 m wide casemate block made of natural stone and reinforced concrete . The upper floor is filled by the former battery block with the four front armored towers, the battery corridor on the reverse side and several rooms. Access from the first floor was via a single staircase located on the right edge of the battery block. The observation dome and the attached battery command post were located here. Other rooms served as ammunition stores. At the other end of the battery corridor were the two ammunition lifts. Two doors on the reverse side led to the infantry position with several open machine-gun positions, which surrounded the front of the plant for close defense.

The accommodation for the 72 men on call was on the ground floor. The officers had their own accommodations. In addition, supply facilities such as the kitchen, guard room, sickroom and storage rooms for food and ammunition were housed here. At the left end were the armory, the toilets and an entrance hall for issuing orders and the generator room. The diesel-powered generator not only supplied the fort with electricity, but also with compressed air, which was required for smoke extraction in the gun turrets. A staircase leads down from here into the left throat trunk. At the far left end of the casemate block was one of the two retractable machine-gun armored turrets, which are a special feature of Forte Lisser, as it was the only plant on the plateau that had retractable armored turrets. At the opposite end of the casemate block was the second retractable tank turret, the ammunition elevator and two rooms in which the artillery shells were prepared and assembled for use. A staircase leads down from here to the right throat case and to the powder chamber 12 m below, in which, among other things, the propellant charges were stored. The latter was not only deep underground, but also about 30 m offset from the casemate block so that the fort itself would not be destroyed in the event of an explosion. The ammunition stored there was transported to the ammunition elevator by means of hunts running on rails . An approximately 80 m long tunnel that served as an emergency exit also ended at the powder chamber.

The plant was surrounded by a trench about 5 m deep. On Armierungsstrasse, at the first bend below the fort, there was the two-story factory barracks designed for 200 men.

  • Forte Lisser after the Austro-Hungarian occupation with traces of the bombardment of 1916

  • The throat ditch with the left throat trunk in May 1918

  • The casemate block in 2011 before its restoration

  • The reconstructed right retractable machine gun turret. In the background the Feltre basin

  • Canopy and the reconstructed armored domes

  • The casemate block after the restoration

Armament

  • 4 cannons 149/35 S in 18 cm thick armored domes
  • 2 machine guns Mod. Gardner in retractable armored domes later exchanged for Maxim machine guns
  • 5 casemate machine guns, three in the left and two in the right throat case
  • 4 machine guns Perino Mod. 1908 on tripod for infantry positions

At the beginning of the war in May 1915, the plant was also subject to:

  • 4 guns 149G
  • 8 guns 75A

The battery positions of these guns were in the vicinity of the fort.

literature

  • Wolfgang Alexander Doľezal: I Forti Dimenticati: la linea italiana di difesa tra Val Brenta e Val Cismon ei combattimenti del tardo autunno 1917. Monte Lisser; Tagliata Tombion; Tagliata della Scala di Primolano; Tagliata delle Fontanelle; Cima di Campo; Cima di Lan; Covolo di San Antonio . Libreria Pilotto Editrice, Feltre 1999.
  • Luca Girotto: 1866–1918 Soldati e fortezze tra Asiago ed il Grappa. Storia ed immagini dello sbarramento Brenta - Cismon dal Risorgimento alla Prima Guerra Mondiale . Rossato, Novale di Valdagno 2002, ISBN 978-88-8130-080-8 .
  • Leonardo Malatesta: Forte Lisser: Dalla Grande Guerra ad oggi . Pietro Macchione Editore, Varese 2017 ISBN 978-88-6570-419-6 .

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Leonardo Malatesta: Forte Lisser: Dalla Grande Guerra ad oggi p. 13
  2. ↑ Leonardo Malatesta: Forte Lisser: Dalla Grande Guerra ad oggi pp. 24-44
  3. ↑ Luca Girotto: 1866–1918 Soldati e fortezze tra Asiago ed il Grappa. Storia ed immagini dello sbarramento Brenta – Cismon dal Risorgimento alla Prima Guerra Mondiale p. 157
  4. ↑ Leonardo Malatesta: Forte Lisser: Dalla Grande Guerra ad oggi p. 52
  5. ↑ Luca Girotto: 1866–1918 Soldati e fortezze tra Asiago ed il Grappa. Storia ed immagini dello sbarramento Brenta – Cismon dal Risorgimento alla Prima Guerra Mondiale p. 160
  6. ↑ Leonardo Malatesta: Forte Lisser: Dalla Grande Guerra ad oggi pp. 102-104
  7. ↑ Leonardo Malatesta: Forte Lisser: Dalla Grande Guerra ad oggi pp. 105-106
  8. ↑ Leonardo Malatesta: Forte Lisser: Dalla Grande Guerra ad oggi pp. 108-130
  9. ↑ Luca Girotto: 1866–1918 Soldati e fortezze tra Asiago ed il Grappa. Storia ed immagini dello sbarramento Brenta – Cismon dal Risorgimento alla Prima Guerra Mondiale pp. 256–260
  10. ↑ Leonardo Malatesta: Forte Lisser: Dalla Grande Guerra ad oggi pp 188-190
  11. ↑ Luca Girotto: 1866–1918 Soldati e fortezze tra Asiago ed il Grappa. Storia ed immagini dello sbarramento Brenta – Cismon dal Risorgimento alla Prima Guerra Mondiale p. 315, 355
  12. ↑ Leonardo Malatesta: Forte Lisser: Dalla Grande Guerra ad oggi p. 205
  13. ↑ Luca Girotto: 1866–1918 Soldati e fortezze tra Asiago ed il Grappa. Storia ed immagini dello sbarramento Brenta – Cismon dal Risorgimento alla Prima Guerra Mondiale p. 160
  14. ↑ Luca Girotto: 1866–1918 Soldati e fortezze tra Asiago ed il Grappa. Storia ed immagini dello sbarramento Brenta – Cismon dal Risorgimento alla Prima Guerra Mondiale p. 161

Coordinates: 45 ° 56 ′ 42.1 ″  N , 11 ° 39 ′ 46.6 ″  E