Forte Monte Maso

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Forte Monte Maso: valley side with factory entrance

Forte Monte Maso (also just called Forte Maso ) is a former Italian fortress in the municipality of Valli del Pasubio in the province of Vicenza .

location

The plant is located above the village of Sant'Antonio del Pasubio in the upper Leogra valley ( Italian Val Leogra ) on the western side of the valley at an altitude of 727  m slm. Not far away is the border with the province of Trento , at the end of the first World War the state border between the Empire Austria-Hungary and the Kingdom of Italy ran. The Valli del Pasubio – Passo Pian delle Fugazze pass road passes below the plant, from which a gravel road branches off to the plant.

history

Forte Monte Maso was built between 1883 and 1887, as can be seen from a memorial stone from the Vicenza construction company, Fabrello , that was placed in the factory. It was the first work of the Agno-Assa barrier belt, which was erected by the Kingdom of Italy after the Third War of Independence and the annexation of Veneto to Italy in 1866 until shortly before the First World War. With the Bariola roadblock ( Tagliata Bariola in Italian ) below and the open cannon position Monte Castelliero, the main task was to secure enemy penetration into the upper Leogra Valley and, in particular, to fire the strategically important crossroads at Ponte Verde.

Between 1904 and 1910 the facility was modernized by removing the earth cover from the core plant and adding a 2.00 to 2.20 meter thick concrete cover , which was supposed to achieve greater resistance to the steadily increasing penetration of the artillery shells. When war broke out in May 1915, parts of the 6th fortress artillery regiment were sent to Forte Monte Maso. At that time it was only partially armored. Due to the fact that the front ran much further west near Rovereto in the first year of the war , the plant was almost completely disarmed and used by the Italian army only as an arms and ammunition store, which did not change until the end of the war.

In 1939 it was auctioned off by the Italian state and became private property. In the period that followed, the system was partially cannibalized and the building material obtained in this way was sold. The structure suffered major damage when the armor in the former battery block burst out. During the Second World War , the Todt Organization built four smaller bunkers in the immediate vicinity, which were connected to the plant via trenches. The foundations for two anti-aircraft guns were laid on the right side of the works trench.

After the Second World War, the decline continued, among other things, the facility was used as a storage and stable area. Since 2011, a private association has been restoring Forte Monte Maso. In several steps, parts of the plant were cleared of rubble, so that it can be viewed again since 2013. In the same year a project was presented to set up a museum in Forte Monte Maso.

description

Forte Monte Maso is an armored casemate plant, which consists largely of broken stones and bricks. It was the first real mountain fort built by Italy.

The facility has a square floor plan and was originally completely surrounded by a brickwork ditch. Of the latter, only the two flank trenches are well preserved. The valley ditch , over which a drawbridge led into the plant, was filled in after 1939. The glacis on the side of the valley was almost completely removed , of which only a sparse remains.

The work had in lying to the front casemates block three floors, in Kehl building two and the two sides each have a floor. The casemate block and the throat building were separated from each other by an open inner courtyard. In the casemate block, the front-facing battery block was housed on the upper floor, with crew and officer quarters and depots below. In the right corner of the casemate block and separated from it was the left moat . Further crew quarters were housed in the two plant flanks. In the throat building there were four gun casemates with stone slits on the upper floor, which could coat the throat side of the work, including rifle slits for close-up defense and other crew casemates. The factory ceiling was originally filled with about two meters of earth and set up for rifle defense.

Was separated from the complex to the left of Kehl building, in Glacis -scale munitions depot that has a Poterne was connected to the core business, and the right grave pranks.

According to the Austro-Hungarian registry office, the plant was designed for a crew of 300 men.

Forte Monte Maso: Front ditch with a former battery block

Armament

A total of ten guns were planned as the main armament of Forte Monte Maso when construction began. The battery block on the front was set up for six cannons of the model 149 G (G stands for Ghisa, ital. Cast iron ) in armored casemates with 48 mm thick steel armor. The latter were produced using the chilled casting process developed by the Gruson works and are therefore also known as chilled cast armored batteries.

Another four guns were to protect the rear of the work in the throat building. Casemate howitzers were also planned for this purpose, also in caliber 149 mm. For close defense, the plant had rifle slots both in the throat front and in both flanks, as well as two trench flanking systems that could line the respective trenches.

Additional batteries of smaller caliber could be placed outside the factory if required.

Forte Monte Maso was designed as a pure long-range combat plant with the primary fire area to the north.

This armament of the plant was only on paper and never went beyond the planning phase. In fact, only three 149 mm caliber guns had been installed in the Forte Monte Maso battery block.

Web links

Commons : Forte Monte Maso  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Mariano de Peron: Siti di guerra sui monti delle valli Leogra - Posina - Astico. Cornedo 2011.
  • Ecomuseo Grande Guerra Prealpi Vicentine (ed.): Maso, Enna, Campomolon, Casa Ratti. Forti dello sbarramento Agno-Astico-Posina. Marcolin, Schio 2014.
  • Ministero della Guerra - Comando del Corpo di Stato Maggiore - Ufficio Storico (ed.) L'Esercito Italiano nella Grande Guerra (1915–1918) - Volume I – III. Roma 1929–1937.
  • Robert Striffler: From Fort Maso to Porta Manazzo: History of the construction and war of the Italian forts and batteries 1883-1916. Book Service South Tyrol E. Kienesberger, Nuremberg 2004, ISBN 978-3-923995-24-0 .

References and comments

  1. ↑ For the construction company Fabrello and Forte Monte Maso in Italian , accessed on 2 March 2017th
  2. ↑ In the few Italian and German-language texts that deal with Forte Monte Maso - mostly based on reports by the Austro-Hungarian secret service and only superficially going into the history of Forte Maso - there are also the details of 1885 and 1883–1885 . See, for example, Striffler p. 43.
  3. ↑ Named after the two tributaries or streams Agno and Assa, between which this barrier was to be built. This was still divided into several sectors, Monte Maso was part of the Schio sector (sector no. 1).
  4. ^ Robert Striffler: From Fort Maso to Porta Manazzo: Building and War History of the Italian forts and Batteries 1883-1916. P. 82.
  5. ↑ a b c d Factory history up to the First World War in Italian , accessed on March 2, 2017.
  6. ↑ Ponte Verde is a few kilometers below the Pian delle Fugazze pass. Here the pass road branches off to Passo Xomo in the Posina valley. The intersection was undermined and could be blown up if necessary. Fort Maso was supposed to prevent any repair of the road with its guns.
  7. ↑ During this time there were also changes to the structure of the facility, such as the installation of additional window openings to ensure additional ventilation.
  8. ↑ On the Second World War and the current use of Forte Monte Maso in Italian , accessed on March 2, 2017.
  9. ^ Museum project Forte Monte Maso in Italian , accessed on March 2, 2017.
  10. ↑ Ecomuseo Grande Guerra Prealpi Vicentine (ed.): Maso, Enna, Campomolon, Casa Ratti. Forti dello sbarramento Agno-Astico-Posina. o. S.
  11. ↑ The earth wall was lower on the front and on the throat side so that the factory guns had a free field of fire there.
  12. ^ Robert Striffler: From Fort Maso to Porta Manazzo: Building and War History of the Italian forts and Batteries 1883-1916. P. 44.
  13. ↑ From the outside, the work still looked like a single-storey building, as the front and back sides were lowered.
  14. ^ Robert Striffler: From Fort Maso to Porta Manazzo: Building and War History of the Italian forts and Batteries 1883-1916. Pp. 44-47.
  15. ↑ The rifle slots were on the lower floor, which today, like the throat ditch, has been heaped up. The openings that can be seen today under the four large stone slits, on the other hand, were only created in the course of the First World War and served as additional ventilation for the plant, which was converted into an ammunition store during the war.
  16. ↑ The trattoria is located there today.
  17. ^ Robert Striffler: From Fort Maso to Porta Manazzo: Building and War History of the Italian forts and Batteries 1883-1916. P. 52 f.
  18. ↑ The registry office dealt extensively with Forte Monte Maso and also created a series of sketches (PDF; 676 kB), accessed on March 6, 2017.
  19. ↑ With which the lateral direction of the guns was limited to 30 ° from the capital. See Striffler p. 44.
  20. ^ Robert Striffler: From Fort Maso to Porta Manazzo: Building and War History of the Italian forts and Batteries 1883-1916. P. 61.

photos

  • Right flank ditch
  • Observation post with a view of the fire area Ponte Verde and the pass road
  • Separate entrance to the powder chamber
  • Detail entrance gate

Coordinates: 45 ° 45 ′ 22 ″  N , 11 ° 12 ′ 30 ″  E