Forte Monte Verena

Location of Forte Monte Verena and Forte Campolongo as seen from the kuk fortress Verle

Right throat of the battery pack

View from the Vezzena post to the forts Monte Verena (left) and Campolongo (right)

The Forte Monte Verena (originally just: Forte Verena) was an Italian tank fort during the First World War . The fort was the main base of the artillery group of the same name, which included some battery positions that had been completed before the start of the war and which were distributed in the immediate area around Forte Verena.

Intermediate batteries

• Battery Costa del Civello

Pre-war gun placement with a protective wall and a stone building. Equipped with two 28 cm howitzers. Austro-Hungarian designation: Z-34 or Battery Roccolo

• Battery Bosco Arzari

Pre-war gun placement with a protective wall and a stone building. Equipped with two 28 cm howitzers. Austro-Hungarian designation: Z-22

• Battery Spelonca della Neve

Pre-war gun placement with a protective wall and a rock cavern. Equipped with two 28 cm howitzers. Austria-Hungarian designation: Z-32

In the Verenetta and Rossapoan batteries mentioned by name and clarified by the kuk evidence, the former was not equipped and the second was only set up as a mock gun position.

Geographical location

The plant complex is located in the northeastern corner of the plateau of the Seven Municipalities (Altopiano dei Sette Comuni) in the province of Vicenza . Forte Monte Verena is located on the summit of the mountain of the same name at 2015 meters and was therefore the highest fortification on the entire front. The protruding ridge of Monte Verena completely sealed off the Val d'Assa towards the south on Asiago due to its exposed location . Forte Verena was exactly six kilometers to the east of the Austro-Hungarian tank works Lusern and had a direct view of this and the Verle works .

Armored cannon turret model Schneider-Creuzot with a 149 mm S cannon in the forts of Monte Verena and Campolongo

description

investment

Dome No. 1 and 2 (Clearly visible that the domes are two-part, as they were only used in the cannons of the "S" type. The front part of the dome with the gun is missing, the inner skin is exposed. In the right foreground a part of the armored car.)

The right flank of the facility was built directly on a steep wall and thus (for the terms at the time) free of storms, so it could not be attacked by infantry from this side. On the rest of the site, the fort was surrounded by a six-meter-wide trench, sloping on the inside, with a three-meter-high, brick-built Kontreeskarpe as well as a throat building and trench trunk. On both sides, the ditch ended openly at the rockfall leading to the Val d'Assa.

The four armored turrets stood in a line at a distance of ten meters (center to center). The guns rested on center pivot mounts ; the tank turret rotated on ball bearings that rested on the gun platform. The armored domes consisted of two 16 centimeter thick steel half-shells that were butt jointed and only held together by the two centimeter thick inner steel skin with screws. The armored armor was 75 to 80 centimeters deep and consisted of six parts bolted together. Hardened cast steel with high brittleness was used for the domes; the armor was made of ordinary cast iron, very brittle and poor in strength. The domes were connected to one another by a corridor below, from which iron stairs with side ammunition lifts led into the towers. The gun complex was connected by a postern with ready rooms for crew and ammunition rooms . The main ammunition magazine was still below the postern in the natural rock and was completely protected. Accommodation for the men and officers was provided in a barracks consisting of two blocks, located below the fort on the access road . The factory ceiling consisted of a three-meter-thick layer of rammed unreinforced concrete, i.e. H. no rebar had been inserted. The concrete ceiling was made up of three layers, a high-quality concrete layer about 10 centimeters thick at the top and bottom, with 2.8 meters of lining made of extremely lean and inferior material in between, which had catastrophic effects when bombarded by the superheavy artillery. The close combat systems consisted of only one infantry position, which followed the trench, was laid out in a semicircle around the plant and provided with machine-gun stands that were open at the top and the rear. There was no electricity supply in the facility.

Dome No. 3 with opening on the left. The typical ring for the "S" model can be seen on the cannon barrel, the same applies to the barbette, which was also only available on the "S" model.

Armament

• First equipment

The armored turrets made by Armstrong, Mitchell & Co. in Pozzuoli were installed as original equipment. Due to the clear width of around five meters, they could not be transported in one piece and were delivered in three separate parts and put together 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.

four 75mm A cannons

four machine guns in the trench

two mobile machine guns for close-range defense

• Second equipment

In 1913 the gun domes were replaced. Two-part armored domes from the Schneider-Creuzot company, manufactured under license by Ansaldo, were 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 joint halves of the dome had a glaring weak point at the joints. There were now four 149 mm L / 35 “S” cannons from Schneider installed, but they only had the same performance as their predecessor models. The rate of fire was also around two rounds per minute.

history

This mortar on the Lavarone plateau destroyed the forts Verena and Campolongo in June 1915

It was built from 1910 as a long-range combat plant with four armored domes in an axis running from northeast to southwest and facing the Verle plant. Thus this would be in the main shooting direction and be the primary target.

As early as 1913, the three-part armored domes used to date were exchanged for two-part armored domes from the French company Schneider-Creuzot. Since work could only be carried out for six months a year due to the exceptional altitude, the completion took longer. According to the LEINGG (L'esercito italiano nella grande guerra) Volume II, p. 148, the fort was not yet fully reinforced in August 1914 and not yet occupied in the winter of 1914/15. However, on May 24, 1915, the day after Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, it was fully operational.

Fighting

According to unsecured information, Forte Verena fired the first shot in the war against Austria-Hungary on May 24, 1915 at 4:00 a.m. The fort's four long barrel cannons and the batteries belonging to the complex with their 280 mm howitzers completely dominated the field of fire assigned to them, which consisted of the Austro-Hungarian locking bolt Lavarone with the works of Lusern, Verle and the Vezzena post . Due to the high rate of fire, the tank battery (two gun barrels in the turret guns) and the 280 mm howitzers could already be replaced after a few days due to overuse of the material. Since the turret guns of the Austrian barrages were not able to do anything against Verena and Campolongo - the short-barreled howitzers with their 10 cm also had a caliber that was far too weak, Verena was able to continue firing undisturbed until June 2, 1915.

Factory gate and throat suitcase

On June 4, 1915, the howitzer battery 102 belonging to the German Alpine Corps went into position with two 15 cm field howitzers on Monte Rover (it. Monterovere) and began to fire Verena herself. They could not be really dangerous to the fort, but there was damage to the structure and losses in the personnel, which, albeit differently, had an effect on the morale of the crew as well as that of the Austrians.
Politically speaking, this company found itself in a gray area, to say the least, since Germany was not yet at war with Italy at the time. No German soldier was allowed to cross the border - but they were allowed to shoot over it.

After the conditions in the Lavarone bar had become untenable, the Austro-Hungarian General Staff decided to take appropriate measures. Mortar battery No. 12 with a 30.5 cm M.11 mortar , which had previously been in use in Flanders , was brought in to fight the fort and the batteries surrounding it. After taking up the position on the Malga Costa Alta between Lusern and Passo Vezzena, the zeroing began on June 10, 1915. On this day and the next, around 30 rounds were fired without causing any major damage. On June 12th at 1:45 p.m. the mortar started firing again at Forte Verena. Although the Italians had meanwhile roughly clarified the position of the mortar and shot at him with 28 cm howitzers from the Spelonca delle Neve battery and with the 14.9 cm howitzers from the Arzari , Mandrielle and fort batteries , it continued to fire (in the artillery language of that time called "slow fire of destruction"). At around 3:00 p.m. (the exact time can no longer be determined) a 30.5 cm shell with a delay fuse penetrated the factory ceiling and exploded in the magazine room of the third dome. The explosion immediately killed 39 men (including the fort commander, Capitano Truchetti) and seriously injured 22 others. Ten of the wounded then died in the hospital in Asiago, so that a breakthrough claimed 49 lives. On June 14th, the new fort commander, Capitano Grill, had the fort evacuated because, in his opinion, there was nothing to oppose the 30.5 cm mortar. However, Verena was not yet completely incapable of fighting and continued to fire sporadically at the Austrian positions. This meant that the Austrians kept the fort under constant fire until the June offensive in 1916.

• see also: Fights on the plateau of Lavarone / Folgaria

Situation report of the Capitano Grill to the Italian Army High Command

Damage to Forte Monte Verena

• a hole about 2.5 m in diameter in the ceiling of the battery corridor
• a hole about 1 m in diameter in the ceiling (nel calcestruzzo di protezione) of the magazine of the 3rd cannon cupola
• three or four hits near the fourth dome that tore away huge chunks of concrete near the team kitchen
• a hit smashed the entrance to the fort
• 20 or more hits on the factory ceiling with major damage
• The armor of the 3rd dome is broken and torn out

As it stands, the fort is unable to withstand 30.5 cm caliber fire, not even medium caliber fire.

Capitano Grill
IX ° Reggimento Fortezza

During the winter of 1915/16 the fort was not occupied, only in the second half of December it fired eight shots at Costa Alta one night. The facility was not manned again until April 1916; Reason enough for the Austrians to finish off the fort completely on the occasion of the upcoming May offensive . A 42 cm M 14 howitzer of KHB No. 1 on the Malga Laghetto (about one kilometer south of Monte Rover) was added to the already existing 30.5 cm mortar .

On May 19, 1916, at 3:00 p.m., the shooting began on the fort. The bombardment lasted only until May 23, then the plant was finally defeated.

Result of the bombardment

after acceptance by the kuk captain in the staff of genius Ettore Bertuola:

"Report to the 28th ITD dated May 24, 1916 regarding the condition of Fort Verena"

• a) The exact number of hits can no longer be determined.
• b) The bombardment by the 30.5 cm and 42 cm calibers showed devastating effects on the entire substance.
• c) Dome No. 1 (right from north) - direct hit. Penetration with delay fuse, mount and gun well completely destroyed, armor penetrated and smashed. The dome was torn open in half at the abutting edge.
• d) Dome No. 2 - breakthrough from the front, front half of the dome flung away, inner steel skin still largely intact. Gun unusable.
• e) Dome No. 3 - ricochet on the dome, large steel parts blasted off inside, damaging the mount. Gun unusable.
• f) Dome No. 4 - armored armor exposed, dome can still be rotated, gun can still be used.

• The concrete ceiling of the casemate block as well as the battery corridor is broken through several times. Very low resistance of the roofing due to inferior concrete. A direct hit hit the casemate deck, crossed the vault, penetrated the 2 meter thick outer wall (throat wall) and punched a hole more than 4 square meters in size.

The Kontreeskarpen wall and the infantry parapets are badly damaged. The fort no longer represents a combat value.

Bertuola Hptm. Mp

Addendum

• After the war, an investigation was initiated against the construction company because of the fact that the concrete was repeatedly criticized as inferior. The investigation was without consequences, as the construction company was able to prove that the consistency of the concrete exactly met the specifications of the Italian pioneer staff.

• The first Italian cannon shot in this war is attributed to Forte Verena.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Striffler p. 324
2. ↑ Created after the start of the war
3. ↑ Enemy reconnaissance
4. ↑ the previous model, the “cannone da 149 modello I” had the additional designation “G” for “ghisa”, which literally means “cast iron”.
5. ↑ 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. "
6. ↑ Hentzschel, pp. 241–245 and P. 262.
7. ↑ The older cannon models of the "I" (Ispettorato) type with the shorter tubes in three-part domes were no longer used here.
8. ↑ The ones from Werk Verle didn’t come close anyway because of the elevated position of Forte Verena

literature

• 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 3-923995-24-5 .
• Leonardo Malatesta: Il Dramma del Forte Verena. Temi, ISBN 88-85114-99-7
• 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. Compass 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 1933–1939).
• L'esercito italiano nella grande guerra (1915–1918) Volume I – III. Roma: Ministero della Guerra - Ufficio Storico 1929–1974.

Web links

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

Coordinates: 45 ° 55 ′ 49 ″  N , 11 ° 24 ′ 48 ″  E