Redipuglia
| Sacrario Militare di Redipuglia | |
|---|---|
 Entrance area |
|
| Data | |
| place | Fogliano Redipuglia, Province of Gorizia / Gorizia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia |
| architect | Giannino Castiglioni , Giovanni Greppi |
| Construction year | 1935-1938 |
| Floor space | 520,000 m² |
| Coordinates | 45 ° 51 '6 " N , 13 ° 29' 23" E |
The military memorial Sacrario di Redipuglia (Slovene Sredipolje ) is located in the municipality of Fogliano Redipuglia (province of Gorizia-Gorizia ). It is the largest war memorial in Italy and was built according to the plans of the architect Giovanni Greppi and the sculptor Giannino Castiglioni and inaugurated in 1938 . It contains the bones of around 100,000 fallen from the First World War .
Location and historical background
The memorial is located between Monfalcone and Gradisca , about 5 kilometers west of the Slovenian border. It was built on the slopes of Mount Sei Busi , which was fiercely fought in the first phase of the war. This inconspicuous hill formed a strategically important position on the lower Isonzo and the access to the plateaus of the western Karst and thus the southern wing of the entire Alpine front . The Italians struggled here to get the important access to the Austrian city of Trieste under control. In most Isonzo 1915 to 1917 here fiercest fighting took place, and the Italians were the front line in erbittetem trench warfare only about 1½ kilometers to the one year Monte San Michele advancing.
Not far from the mausoleum are the Parco Tematico della Grande Guerra di Monfalcone and the Museo all'aperto del Monte San Michele .
Description of the mausoleum
The entrance to the mausoleum is symbolically bordered by a large anchor chain, which comes from the torpedo boat Grado . Immediately behind it, a generous square, which is paved with slabs of karst stone, extends slightly upwards . The central line is Via Eroica ('Heldenstraße'). It runs between two rows of bronze plaques (19 plaques on each side) that bear the names of the places where the hardest and bloodiest battles took place. At the end of the “Heldenstrasse” is the tomb of the Duke of Aosta , the commander in chief of the Third Army. The Duke died in 1931 and was buried here as a former commander of the 3rd Army on the basis of his last will . The tomb was from a 75-ton porphyry - monoliths knocked out. It is flanked by the urn graves of fallen generals of the 3rd Army.
Behind it there is a giant staircase with 22 steps, with graves of 100,187 people known to have fallen into the steps (as of 2015). This arrangement is intended to indicate a large roll call area, on which the fallen are symbolically lined up, are called and shout “Here!”, Which is to be expressed by the text Presente , which is attached to the upper edge of the respective step above each grave site.
On the lower steps are the tombs of the 39,857 identified Italian fallen in alphabetical order from bottom to top. Each grave site is marked with a bronze plaque with name and rank. There are three crosses on the last step. Below them is a memorial chapel. In the adjoining rooms, items of equipment from the fallen soldiers are exhibited, which are of both Italian and Austro-Hungarian origins . To the right and left of these rooms is the last step of the communal grave of the approx. 60,330 unidentified dead.
Open-air museum at Colle Sant'Elia
The large mausoleum was the first war cemetery of the III. Army upstream on the Colle Sant'Elia , which was leveled after the reburial of the dead and today serves as a kind of open-air museum or “Park of Remembrance”. Along the avenue , which is formed by tall cypress trees , you can find tombstones and inscriptions from the abandoned cemetery.
At the top of the hill is part of a Roman column that came from the excavations in Aquileia . This column is dedicated to the memory of those who fell in all wars “without differentiating between times and origins”.
Museo all'aperto della Dolina del XV Bersaglieri
In 2000 the open-air museum Dolina del XV Bersaglieri ('Doline of the 15th Bersaglieri') was set up on the site. It is located directly on Monte Sei Busi, not far from the Sacrario and Colle Sant'Elia, and shows the remains of a section of the positions.
Austro-Hungarian military cemetery (Cimitero Militare Austro-Ungarico)
The Cimitero Militare Austro-Ungarico is located in the Fogliano district on Via III Armata.
The cemetery was created by amalgamating cemeteries from the surrounding villages. In 1974 it was revised by the Styrian youth fire brigade and redesigned in 1989 by the Austrian Black Cross in collaboration with the Commissariato generale onoranze caduti in guerra and the municipality of Fogliano di Redipuglia.
Above the entrance to the cemetery it says: “United in life and death”. 14,550 dead are buried in 2,550 individual graves and in three mass graves, two of them to the right and left of the entrance with 2,500 dead each and one at the end of the cypress-lined middle path with 7,000 dead. Her home was in 141 cities and regions of Central Europe, from Bohemia to Trieste and Gottschee, from Vorarlberg to Krakow.
At the end of the middle path, closing the cemetery after the largest mass grave, a high unifying arch rises above a plaque with the inscription calling for reconciliation:
- "Here the fraternal compassion of Italy gathered in the light of the unknown 7000 heroes of the Austro-Hungarian army who had fallen out of patriotism."
Between 2004 and 2007, the association Die Leoben Blue Hats - Friends of the Paths of Peace, as part of an international youth and peace project, re-inscribed the 2,250 weathered name boards on the individual graves. On July 7, 2007 the cemetery was consecrated with the participation of military delegations from Italy, Austria and Hungary and numerous guests of honor.
Following the restoration of the nameplates, a search program was developed that enables graves to be found using the Internet.
literature
- Marko Simić: On the trail of the Isonzo front. Mohorjeva Hermagoras, Klagenfurt et al. 2004, ISBN 3-85013-884-4 .
- Enzo Bologna, Elvio Pederzolli: Guida ai sacrari italiani della grande guerra da Redipuglia a Bligny. 19 itinerari lungo il fronte italiano. Gaspari, Udine 2011, ISBN 978-88-7541-198-5 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Redipuglia Military Memorial . Turismo Friuli Venezia Giulia, turismofvg.it (accessed May 21, 2015).
- ^ Museo all'aperto della Dolina del XV Bersaglieri. itinerarigrandeguerra.it (accessed May 20, 2015).
- ↑ See on this and on the following information: Records of the association Die Leoben Blue Hats - Friends of the Peace Ways (8700 Leoben, Mareckkai 42. zH Chairman Eugen Lang).
- ↑ www.blaumuetzen.at