The Dente Italiano and the Dente Austriaco are two rocky towers of equal altitude facing each other, separated by a saddle but sadly united by history: during the First World War, they were the point on Pasubio where enemy lines were closest.
With the Strafexpedition of 1916, the imperial army reached the Dente Austriaco, but was blocked by royal troops who had arrived on the Dente Italiano. A grueling and bloody standoff began, with several attempts to break through, all in vain. The impending winter prevented further fighting, and both sides began to fortify their positions and make them more livable...
In the Dente Italiano, the Army Corps of Engineers created a veritable underground citadel. It could accommodate 500 men, with all the necessary means of subsistence: shelters, storage facilities, a cistern for drinking water, a generator for lighting, dressing stations, and command posts. The armament consisted of five machine guns, two cannons, and one flamethrower, supported by artillery from the nearby Palon and Cogolo Alto peaks.
In contrast, the Austrian Tooth was transformed into an impregnable fortress, thanks to its elongated, square shape, with fire on three sides. There were 10 machine gun emplacements and six artillery emplacements in the cave, complemented by the armament arrayed along the trenches at the summit: 18 grenade launchers, 12 grenade launchers, four flamethrowers, five cannons, and 10 machine guns. Here, too, the bowels of the mountain housed the troops with all the logistical and survival equipment: shelters, storage facilities, lighting, ventilation, a cistern, a telephone exchange, searchlights, etc.
Faced with the impossibility of advancing, both commands believed the only solution was to blow up the enemy stronghold from the ground up: thus began the war of mines and countermines, with a dense network of underground tunnels. Between the autumn of 1917 and the spring of 1918, there were 10 explosions, five Austrian and five Italian, until the gigantic 50-ton Austrian dynamite charge on March 13, 1918, which shattered the northern slope of the Dente Italiano, altering its morphology and causing casualties on both sides. After years of war and thousands of deaths, the great war on Pasubio ended with the front line virtually unchanged!
To pass between the two Denti, one passes through the chasm created by the mine, amidst enormous boulders and debris: impressive.
Translated by Google •
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