Gschwent plant

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Gschwent plant, valley side of the casemate block
Plan of the Gschwent plant
General view of the Gschwent plant

The Gschwent plant ( called Forte Belvedere by the Italians ) was one of a total of seven barriers of the Austro-Hungarian fortress bar on the edge of the plateaus of the municipalities of Folgaría , Lavarone and Luserna , above the Val Sugana and south of the village of Levico Terme and Lago di Caldonazzo . The Austro-Hungarian military administration designated this area as the plateau of the seven municipalities regardless of their actual location.

  • The commanders were Lieutenant Perschitz and Captain Trakl
  • Construction began on May 10, 1909, under the supervision of Captain Rudolf Schneider
  • Completion on May 18, 1912 under the supervision of Captain Edgar Weingaertner

Geographical location

The Gschwent plant is located on a hill (1170 meters above sea level) northeast of the village of Lastebasse and at this point dominated the Val d'Astico with the important road from Arsiero to the Adige Valley . Neighboring plants to the east were the Lusern plant (4 km as the crow flies) and the Cherle / Sebastiano plant to the west (5 km as the crow flies). Due to its location, the plant was storm-free , i. That is, infantry attacks were hopeless because of the location.

planning

The work was planned by Captain Rudolf Schneider. In 1908 it was planned to sink it completely into the rock and to put the armored domes on gun wells that were to be drilled through the rock ceiling. Ultimately, the previous statements were used and the rock was blown away in order to erect concrete structures in its place. However, the casemate block was already listed separately from the battery block. Two tower howitzers and two traditors , each with an 8 cm minimal charter cannon, were intended as artillery armaments to sweep the Astico valley. This plan was changed in April 1909 to the effect that the traditors were dropped and a third tower howitzer should be installed. The actual construction plan then roughly corresponded to the specifications of 1909.

However, there was a major mistake in the planning, as the front trench had been created at too shallow an angle to the battery block. As a result, the Kontreeskarpenkoffer was not covered against cross fire from the batteries to the east at Spelonca della Neve and received several heavy hits from this direction.

The construction

The work consisted of:

  • the battery pack
  • the casemate block
  • the left and right interspace strokes as infantry combat
  • the Kontreeskarpenkoffer as infantry combat equipment

It was provided with food supplies for 90 days, whereas the cistern was only sufficient for 60 days. A total of 3600 rounds of ammunition were stored for the howitzers.

Built in the years 1909–1912, knowledge that had been gained from fire tests with a 30.5 cm mortar at a test facility in Felixdorf was incorporated here.

Contrast carpen case

According to the state of the art of fastening technology at the time, the plant was provided with a reinforced concrete ceiling up to 2.5 m thick . In places the ceiling lay on I-beams , which additionally supported them at a distance of 50 cm. In contrast to the other works of the Sperrgruppe, Gschwent was only equipped with three instead of the usual four tower howitzers of 10 cm caliber and had no rotating observation stands. The battery pack and fighting stalls were already pulled far apart to reduce the impact. Parts were embedded in the rock. The right and left flanks were each covered by a close combat system, each armed with an armored dome with two and two armored casemates with two machine guns each . The armored domes were designed asymmetrically and at the same time set up for artillery observation. Each of these armored domes had three telescope slots, which resulted in a maximum field of vision of 240 °. Two of the slots could be equipped with machine guns. In front of the Kontreeskarpenkoffer, which was armed only with two machine guns on each side because of the relatively short trench, was a small, two-part melee system, each equipped with a machine gun in an armored casemate. All parts of the factory were connected to one another by posternes blasted into the rock . Since the two flanking systems and the Kontreeskarpenkoffer had their own accommodation rooms, the volume of the casemate block could be kept correspondingly smaller.

The middle of the three self-propelled howitzer towers was a test model M.1906, which had only 12 instead of the usual 24 locking positions. The Austro-Hungarian Turmhaubitzen were at the barbettes equipped with a locking device to prevent uncontrolled turning away of the tower at the side hits. To straighten the tower, it was raised, swiveled, lowered into the required position and locked again.

crew

The planned standard crew of the Gschwent plant at the outbreak of war:

In fact, all works on the plateau of Lavarone / Folgaria as well as that of Tenna and Colle delle Benne were initially carried out with a detachment of the Imperial and Royal Rifle Regiment "Bozen" No. II , the 2nd company of the fortress artillery battalion No. 1 ( Trento ), and the 1st - 4th company of the fortress artillery battalion No. 8 ( Haidenschaft ) occupied. After the arrival from the eastern front, the planned crews were also assigned.

A few months after the beginning of the war, an additional reinforcement of 200 infantry men was placed in the fort.

Armament

  • 3 10 cm tower howitzers M.9
  • 7 tank casemates with 3 machine guns each
  • 2 tank casemates with 1 machine gun each
  • 2 armored domes with 2 machine guns each
  • 2 wall loops with 1 machine gun each
Total: 22 M07 / 12 machine guns
  • two headlights 90 cm
  • six headlights 35 cm
  • four headlights 21 cm
Situation from May 1915 to June 1916

Bombardment in May 1915

Like all installations on the plateau, Gschwent was also fought artillery by the Italians from the beginning of the war on May 23, 1915. In the first phase at the beginning of the war, they used the 14.9 cm turret guns from the forts Monte Verena and Campolongo and used 28 cm howitzers that fired from Monte Campomolon and Monte Torano. When the attackers ran out of ammunition in June of the same year and had to give up the fire, around 1200 severe impacts were counted in the vicinity of the facility. However, there was only one direct hit when on May 18 (or 28?) A shell went through the ceiling of the Kontreeskarpenkoffer and wounded five men. After the end of this bombardment, the factory ceiling was reinforced with a layer of wooden beams and a layer of gravel .

Bombardment from August to October 1915

Since the Italians had recognized the defensive strength of the fortification against infantry attacks, they ignored the work and concentrated on the works Lusern , Verle and Vezzena , which formed the Lavarone sub-group of the barrier and where the actual breakthrough was planned.

149 mm (G) cannon of the Italian field artillery (the same calibers were in the Verena and Campolongo tank works)

In addition to the too weak 149 mm projectiles of the old Italian field guns and the fortress guns from Forte Monte Verena (these tried to destroy the 90 cm searchlights with shrapnel grenades), the fort was also fired by two 30.5 cm mortars with around 80 Shot taken under fire. Another 100 shells with a caliber of 28 cm fell into the vicinity. The damage caused by the artillery fire was not serious and was repaired immediately (mostly at night), there were no breakthroughs. An infantry attack by the Italians did not take place.

From November 1915, 1243 beds for the tower howitzers were set up north at the height in order to bring the precious guns from the endangered positions in the works here to safety. The expansion of the guns began on February 20, 1916 at the earliest, when at least one gun can be shown to have been relocated.

Bombardment from April 1916

In order to divert attention from the upcoming spring offensive, the section artillery commander Colonel Janečka ordered the fortress artillery to fire on the Italian positions. As a result, the Italians began to shoot back massively. In order to protect the factory artillery for the preparatory fire at the start of the offensive, the gun barrels were then withdrawn into the domes. The pipe notches were closed with sandbags and turned backwards. This bombardment ended with the start of the Austro-Hungarian offensive in June 1916. Approx. 800 impacts of 28 cm caliber and a far smaller number of 30.5 cm caliber were counted. There was no serious damage. After the offensive began, the Gschwent plant fell out of the range of the Italian artillery and was no longer involved in combat operations until the end of the war. However, it was repaired again. So the ceiling of the Kontreeskarpenkoffers was concreted and the hole caused by the shell breakthrough closed. Except for a tower howitzer, the plant was then disarmed and only housed a guards crew.

Hit position

  • April 15, 1916: Breakthrough through the armored armor of Tower Howitzer No. II - at least 1 man killed
  • April 15, 1916: 30.5 cm direct hit on Dome III. The bullet penetrated 19 cm and got stuck
  • April 29, 1916: A shell penetrated through the 6 cm thick machine gun armored shield on the upper floor of the throat case .
  • Penetration through the side wall of the throat case
  • May 18, 1916: 30.5 cm breakthrough in the countercarpen case - the number of those killed is uncertain, between 2 and 24 men.
  • Another eight hits on the armor resulted in no damage.

In total, the plant was shot at with around 2000 shells with a caliber of 28 cm and around 100 shells with a caliber of 30.5 cm. The own ammunition consumption was 10,141 shells.

Personnel losses

In total, at least three men were killed from the crew. The exact number is not known, but will be higher as an unknown number of the wounded may have died.

post war period

After the end of the war, the plant became the property of the Italian army. In the Mussolini era , the steel parts began to be removed from the fortifications. While the other works were used with brute force and they were completely ruined, insofar as the effects of the war had not yet happened, the Gschwent plant was treated much more gently, as the Italian King Vittorio Emanuele III. , who visited the plant in 1935, declared it a memorial and saved it from demolition. Nevertheless, the expansion of the steel parts continued, in 1940 the armored domes, the first layer of the cross members and the sheet metal roof cladding were dismantled. After the Second World War, the plant first became the property of the Trentino-Alto Adige region , before moving to private ownership in 1966 and turning it into a museum.

Current condition

The building has been owned by the Lavarone municipality since 1996 and is maintained by the Fondazione Forte Belvedere Gschwent foundation under private law in cooperation with the Lavarone municipality and the Association of Tyrolean Kaiserjäger in Innsbruck . The museum housed in the factory is part of the Rete Trentino Grande Guerra museum network . The former fortress has been restored as much as possible to its original state and is constantly being maintained. Because the work underwent almost no changes during the war, it is now almost in its original state. The missing howitzer domes were cast in concrete. All posterns , infantry works and battery corridors are electrically illuminated and accessible. With the help of multimedia and interactive installations, an attempt is made to convey impressions of everyday war life to the visitor.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A bunker protruding from the outer trench wall into the front trench, which was equipped with artillery and / or machine guns to control the trench.
  2. ↑ Lavarone / Folgaria was in the scheduled defense section of this regiment, which at that time was still in Russia
  3. ↑ Classification of the war for the spring of 1915 in: “Austria-Hungary's Last War” Volume II, Appendix 14. The planned occupation was still on the Eastern Front, so everything that was somehow tangible was initially taken.
  4. ↑ This is where the unfinished Forte Campomolon was , the two howitzers were in the courtyard of the fort
  5. ↑ Introductory story to the Gschwent work , accessed on July 2, 2018.
  6. ^ The Foundation , accessed on July 2, 2018.

literature

  • Walther Schaumann : Scenes of the Mountain War 2 - Pellegrino Pass - Pasubio. Ghedina & Tassotti Editori, Cortina, 1973.
  • Heinz von Lichem : Spielhahnstoss and Edelweiß: the peace and war history of the Tyrolean high mountain troops. The Kaiserschützen from their beginnings until 1918: Kk Tiroler Landesschützen-Kaiserschützen Regiments No. 1, No. 2, No. 3. Leopold Stocker Verlag , Graz 1977.
  • Heinz von Lichem: Mountain War 1915–1918. Volume 2: The Dolomite Front from Trento to the Kreuzbergsattel. Athesia, Bozen 1997 ISBN 978-88-7014-236-5
  • Wilhelm Nussstein: Dolomites. Austrian fortresses in Northern Italy. From the seven municipalities to the Flitscher Klause. Mittler, Hamburg et al. 1997, ISBN 978-3-8132-0496-4
  • Rolf Hentzschel: Austrian mountain fortresses in the First World War. The Folgeria and Lavarone plateaus. Athesia, Bozen 1999, ISBN 978-88-8266-019-2
  • Erwin Anton Grestenberger: Imperial and Royal fortifications in Tyrol and Carinthia 1860–1918. Verlag Österreich ua, Vienna 2000, ISBN 978-3-8132-0747-7
  • Mario Puecher: Forte Belvedere Gschwent: guida all'architettura, alla tecnica e alla storia della fortezza austro-ungarica di Lavarone. Fondazione Belvedere Gschwent, Lavarone 2006 ISBN 978-88-89898-14-7
  • Rolf Hentzschel: Fortress war in the high mountains. Athesia, Bozen 2008, ISBN 978-88-8266-516-6 .
  • Leonardo Malatesta: Per Trento basto io! La storia costruttiva e bellica del Forte Belvedere di Lavarone, a protagonista della Prima guerra mondiale. Fondazione Belvedere Gschwent, Lavarone 2015.
  • Nicola Fontana: La regione fortezza. Il sistema fortificato del Tirolo: pianificazione, cantieri e militarizzazione del territorio da Francesco I alla Grande Guerra. Museo Storico Italiano della Guerra , Rovereto 2016.
  • Wilibald Richard Rosner: Fortificazione e operazione. Lo sbarramento degli Altipiani di Folgaria, Lavarone e Luserna , Centro documentazione Luserna, Trento 2016 ISBN 978-88-6876-124-0
  • Compass Carta turistica: Rovereto – Monte Pasubio. Compass Fleischmann S.ar.I. Instituto Geografico, Gardolo.
  • euroedit / KOMPASS Karten GmbH, Carta escursionistica, cicloturistica, Altipiano di Folgaría, Lavarone e Luserna. 1: 25000.
  • Compass Carta turistica Trento – Lévico – Lavarone. Instituto Cartografico Fleischmann SA 38100 Trento (Italia) ISBN 3-87051-085-4 .

Web links

Commons : Werk Geschwent  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 45 ° 55 ′ 21 ″  N , 11 ° 17 ′ 15 ″  E