Memories of War: Fort Verena

Of the several fortresses built by the Kingdom of Italy on the Asiago Plateau in the years that preceded the war, Fort Verena (Forte Verena in Italian) became the most famous and feared, although its myth would be short-lived.

Built between 1910 and 1914 on the top of Mount Verena, at a height of 2,015 m (6,610 ft), this fort was the best that Italian military technology of the time could offer: its main armament consisted of four modern 149 mm steel guns, each of which was housed in a revolving steel cupola whose thickness was 16 to 18 cm. The four cupolas were ten meters apart from each other, oriented west/north-west and overlooking the Assa Valley; Fort Verena faced three Austro-Hungarian fortresses, Fort Lusern, Fort Verle and the smaller Fort Vezzena. Together with the similar Fort Campolongo and the larger Fort Corbin, Fort Verena was part of the 3^rd Sector (Asiago) of the Agno-Assa fortified line.

In the right end of the main concrete body (the same where the main guns were placed) there was an armoured observation post, and below it there was the command chamber. Behind the main body, in defiladed position, there were the barracks where the garrison was accommodated; the close defenses of the fortress consisted of eight 75 mm steel guns in two batteries, Verenetta and Rossapoan (one situated to the east of the fort and the other to the west), and six FIAT machine guns (two in armoured emplacements and four in a casemate).

The 149 mm guns of the Italian fort had a longer range than the 105 mm howitzers of the Austro-Hungarian forts; the latter were unable to hit Fort Verena, which instead could shell them with impunity. However, the Italian fort had a fatal weakness: its armour could not withstand the shells of the new Skoda 305 mm howitzers. The thick walls were not made of reinforced concrete, but of normal concrete; as the subsequent Commission of Enquiry would later discover, dishonest builders had violated the building contract and integrated in the concrete mixture stones, rocks and even wood, old wheelbarrows and discarded tools.

The armoured cupolas would soon prove as well to be too thin to handle 305 mm howitzer shells fired on a parabolic trajectory. Negligence of the builders notwithstanding, the fort had been designed to withstand the hits 150 mm guns, and would not have handled 305 mm hits anyway.

Fort Verena was garrisoned by about 200 men of the 9^th Fortress Artillery Regiment, under the command of Captain Carlo Alberto Trucchetti.

The fort today.

On 24 May 1915, at three o’clock, Fort Verena fired the first shot of the war between Italy and Austria-Hungary. During the next two weeks the fort, in cooperation with batteries of 280 mm howitzers placed on the nearby Cima Civello, in Bosco Arzari and in Spelonca della Neve, continuously shelled the Austro-Hungarian fortresses, which were unable to return fire and suffered heavy damage. Fort Vezzena was nearly destroyed (the garrison dug tunnels below the ruins of its main body to continue the resistance) and both Fort Verle and Fort Lusern were heavily damaged, with most of their 105 mm howitzers put out of action, their main bodies partly ruined, and dozens of casualties among their garrisons. Those who were not killed or wounded, spent their days under constant artillery shelling, which deeply shook their nerves: on 28 May the commander of Fort Lusern had a nervous breakdown and ordered a white flag to be hoisted, but more Austro-Hungarian troops were sent and prevented the surrender.

Fort Verena gained the nickname of “Ruler of the Plateau”.

Despite the damage done to the fortresses, however, most machine guns and barbed wire were still intact, and the reiterated attacks of the Italian infantry against them were repelled with heavy losses.

The Austro-Hungarian commands soon decided to neutralize the dangerous Italian fort, in view of a future offensive; on 12 June 1915 some 305 mm howitzers, placed on Cost’Alta near Fort Lusern, opened fire against Fort Verena. After adjusting fire, a 305 mm shell penetrated the fort. Contrasting accounts were told about what happened: according to some, the shell penetrated the elevator shaft of the fort and exploded inside the casemate; according to others, the shell penetrated through a gap made in the main front of the fort to air the humid interior, and exploded in the underlying room, considered the safest of the fort, where the vast majority of the garrison was housed. The report of General Pasquale Oro, commander of the 34^th Division, stated that at 15:15 the shell had penetrated the concrete covering near the command cupola, had crossed the entire casematte corridor and then had exploded. Another report sent on 29 June by the Engineer Command of the 1^st Army to the supreme command explained that three 305 mm shells had hit the fort: the first had destroyed a section of the cast iron ring that encircled the no. 3 gun cupola, and part of the nearby rampart; the second had passed through the gap opened by the previous hit, and exploded inside the underlying room; the third hit the vault of the corridor that was behind the cupolas, opening a large crater.

Whatever really happened, the explosion of the (second, according to the report of 29 June) shell resulted in a carnage: the commander of the fort, Captain Carlo Alberto Trucchetti, was killed along with 41 of his men (two officers, two non-commissioned officers, five corporals and 32 artillerymen), most of them Vicentines (according to other sources, the dead were 44 or 46); at least 17 more men were wounded. Their bodies were buried in the cemetery of Rotzo. The bell ringer of this village, Vincenzo Slaviero, was tried for “defeatism” after remarking that a single 305 mm shell had been enough to disable the most powerful of the Italian fortresses. He was acquitted.

A room inside the fort.

Captain Luigi Grilli, having volunteered to take Trucchetti’s place (all the officers had been killed), reorganized the surviving garrison, and the fort, which actually had not been disabled, kept returning fire during the following days. While the fortified structure resisted well to the 152 mm shells, however, additional 305 mm hits caused more and more destruction: on 13 June, more 305 mm hits damaged the gates and the mess room; on 14 June, Fort Verena suffered fifteen 305 mm hits, which partly ruined the rear part of the main body. While part of the garrison kept returning fire, other men cleared the rubble. On 15 June, Major Bonizzi visited the fort and reported that it was so weakened by the 305 mm shells that now it would not be even to withstand even medium caliber hits. Higher commands, however, considered that the fort could resist and keep firing on the Austro-Hungarian positions (all the 149 mm guns were still operational), and ordered it to be repaired and kept in use.

On 26 June, Fort Verena suffered twelve direct hits; one 305 mm hit destroyed the no. 2 cupola and knocked out its 149 mm gun, and another pierced the roof of the corridor and exploded in the underlying room.

On 2 July 1915, following the carnage at Fort Verena, the Italian commands ordered the remaining guns to be removed and redeployed in open-air positions, hidden in the woods; the same was to be done with all forts within the range of the new 305 mm mortars. Two days later, before the order was carried out, Fort Verena was hit again by several shells that destroyed the machinery that allowed the cupolas to rotate, thus immobilizing them, ruined a large part of the main body and destroyed the infirmary. Shortly thereafter, the surviving 149 mm guns were removed and deployed elsewhere, as ordered.

Thus ended the operational life of Fort Verena, now reduced to an observatory. The Austrian writer Fritz Weber, then part of the garrison of Fort Verle, wrote with satisfaction: «Verena, that bloody beast, is now nothing more than a mass of ruins. No sentries will ever walk on its battlements».

One of the 149 mm gun emplacements. The cupolas were scrapped after the war to salvage the steel.

During the winter of 1915-1916 the fort underwent some restoration work, but with the beginning of the Austro-Hungarian offensive later known Battle of Asiago or Battle of the Plateaux, in May 1916, Fort Verena was once again shelled by 305 mm, 381 mm and even 420 mm howitzers, which effectively destroyed it.

On 22 May 1916, the abandoned ruins of Fort Verena were captured by the advancing Austro-Hungarian troops; the annihilation of the once-feared Italian fortress was joyfully celebrated, with fireworks and soldiers sending home photos of the now harmless steel cupolas, lying here and there torn open or overturned on the edge of the Assa Valley. Fort Verena remained in Austro-Hungarian hands till the end of the war.

Today, the remains of Fort Verena can be reached either on foot from the Verenetta Hotel (1,654 m) or by chairlift. In recent years, the fort has been cleaned and restored, and today it is freely visitable. Trilingual panels (in Italian, German, and English) illustrate its history.