CHAPTER XLVI
FIGHTING ON MOUNTAIN PEAKS
Much of the fighting on the Austro-Italian front which has been narrated in the preceding pages has been going on in territory with which comparatively few are acquainted. A great part of the front is located in those parts of northern Italy and the Austrian Tyrol and Trentino which for generations have been known and admired all over the world for their scenic beauty and natural grandeur. People from many countries of the world have used this ground which now is so bitterly fought over as their playground, and have carried away from it not only improved health, but also the most pleasant of memories. Though much of its beauty undoubtedly will survive the ravages of even this most destructive of wars, a great deal of damage has been inflicted. For in order to achieve some military ends the sky line of entire mountain ranges has been changed. Summits have been blown up, and contours of mountains which have been landmarks for centuries have been changed.
Pleasant though life is in these regions when peace reigns, they offer particularly great and severe difficulties to the fighting men. The dangers and hardships which these courageous soldiers of Italy and Austria have been called upon to undergo are not easily appreciated unless one has been on the very ground on which they do some of their fighting. The following extracts from descriptive articles from the pen of Lord Northcliffe, Mr. Hilaire Belloc, and some special correspondents of the London "Times" give a most vivid picture of actual conditions in the Austro-Italian mountains in war times.
Speaking of his visit to the Cadore front, Lord Northcliffe says in part:
"In discussing the peculiarities of the hill fighting as contrasted with the fighting on the road to Trieste his Majesty the King of Italy, who has a fine sense of words, and who has spoken English from childhood, said: 'Picture to yourself my men 9,000 feet up in the clouds for seven months, in deep snow, so close to the Austrians that at some points the men can see their enemies' eyes through the observation holes. Imagine the difficulties of such a life with continued sniping and bomb throwing!'
"The illustrated newspapers have from time to time published photographs of great cannon carried up into these Dolomite Alps, but I confess to having never realized what it means. It never occurred to me what happens to the wounded men or to the dead. How do supplies and ammunition reach these lonely sentinels of our Allies?
"Here food for the men and food for the guns go first by giddy, zigzag roads, especially built by the Italians for this war. They are not mere tracks, but are as wide as the road that runs between Nice and Mentone, or the Hog's Back between Guilford and Farnham. When these have reached their utmost possible height, there comes a whole series of 'wireways,' as the Italian soldiers call them. Steel cables slung from hill to hill, from ridge to ridge, span yawning depths and reach almost vertically into the clouds. Up these cables go guns and food, as well as timber for the huts in which the men live, and material for intrenchments. Down these come the wounded. The first sensation of a transit down these seemingly fragile tight ropes is much more curious than the first trip in a submarine or aeroplane, and tries even the strongest nerves.
"Man is not fighting man at these heights, but both Italians and Austrians have been fighting nature in some of her fiercest aspects. The gales and snowstorms are excelled in horror by avalanches. Quite lately the melting snow revealed the frozen bodies, looking horribly lifelike, of a whole platoon which had been swept away nearly a year ago.
"While there have been heavy casualties on both sides from sniping, bombing, mountain and machine guns, and heavy artillery, there has been little sickness among the Italians. The men know that doctors' visits are practically impossible. Therefore they follow the advice of their officers. Yet the men have all the comforts that it is humanly possible to obtain. The cloud fighters are extremely well fed. Huts are provided, fitted with stoves similar to those used in Arctic expeditions.
"Higher yet than the mountain fighting line stand the vedettes, sentinels and outposts whose work resembles that of expert Alpine climbers. They carry portable telephones with which they can communicate with their platoon. The platoon in turn telephones to the local commander."
Of some of the fighting and of life in the Dolomites he says:
"Of the three peaks of the Colbricon only the third, known as the Picolo Colbricon, remains to the enemy. The action which is now being developed on the Colbricon is especially interesting from the fact that the Italian advance there is not due to trained mountain troops, but to the light arm of Bersaglieri, who have there proved themselves equal to their best traditions. In the advance from the first to the second summit of Colbricon the Bersaglieri had to climb a gully at an angle of 70 degrees. At two points the wall rises perpendicularly, and the enemy was able to defend his positions by simply rolling down rocks, which carried in their train avalanches of pebbles.
"In no region of the Italian front is there greater difficulty in the matter of supply, transport, and the care of the wounded. Every stretcher bearer here finds himself continually exposed to the peril of falling over a precipice together with his wounded.
"As the sun rose the great peaks of the Dolomites stood out like pink pearls, set here and there in a soft white vapor. Coming through a Canadian-looking pine forest, with log-house barracks, kitchens, and canteens beneath one such peak, I was reminded of Dante's lines: 'Gazing above, I saw her shoulders, clothed already with the planet's rays.' But poetic memories soon faded before a sniper's bullet from a very near Austrian outlook.
"At one spot the Austrian barbed-wire entanglements were clearly visible through glasses on a neighboring summit at a height of over 10,000 feet. A few yards below in an open cavern protected by an overhanging rock the little gray tents of Italy's soldiers were plainly seen. It may be a consolation to our men on the Somme and in Flanders that the war is being waged here in equally dangerous conditions as theirs.
"The Italians have driven back the Austrians foot by foot up the almost vertical Dolomite rock with mountain, field, and heavy guns, and especially in hand-to-hand and bomb fighting. Sniping never ceases by day, but the actual battles are almost invariably fought by night.
"The only day fighting is when, as in the famous capture of Col di Lana and more recently at Castelletto, the whole or part of a mountain top has to be blown off, because it is impossible to turn or carry it by direct assault. Then tunnels sometimes 800 yards long are drilled by machinery through the solid rock beneath the Austrian strongholds, which presently disappear under the smashing influence of thirty or forty tons of dynamite. Then the Alpini swarm over the débris and capture or kill the enemy survivors and rejoice in a well-earned triumph.
"One needs to have scaled a mountainside to an Italian gun's emplacement or lookout post to gauge fully the nature of this warfare. Imagine a catacomb, hewn through the hard rock, with a central hall and galleries leading to gun positions, 7,000 feet up. Reckon that each gun emplacement represents three months' constant labor with drill, hammer, and mine. Every requirement, as well as food and water, must be carried up by men at night or under fire by day. Every soldier employed at these heights needs another soldier to bring him food and drink, unless as happens in some places the devoted wives of the Alpini act nightly under organized rules as porters for their husbands.
"The food supply is most efficiently organized. A young London Italian private, speaking English perfectly, whom I met by chance, told me, and I have since verified the information, that the men holding this long line of the Alps receive a special food, particularly during the seven months' winter. Besides the excellent soup which forms the staple diet of the Italian as of the French soldiers, the men receive a daily ration of two pounds of bread, half a pound of meat, half a pint of red wine, macaroni of various kinds, rice, cheese, dried and fresh fruit, chocolate, and thrice weekly small quantities of cognac and Marsala.
"Members of the Alpine Club know that in the high Dolomites water is in summer often as precious as on the Carso. Snow serves this purpose in winter. Then three months' reserve supplies of oil fuel, alcohol, and medicine must be stored in the catacomb mountain positions, lest, as happened to an officer whom I met, the garrisons should be cut off by snow for weeks and months at a time."
Mr. Hilaire Belloc vividly pictures some mountain positions and observation posts in the high Dolomites as follows:
"There stands in the Dolomites a great group of precipitous rock rising to a height of over 9,000 feet above the sea and perhaps 6,000 feet above the surrounding valleys, one summit of which is called the Cristallo. It is the only point within the Italian lines from which direct and permanent observations can be had of the railway line running through the Pusterthal. In the mass of this mountain, up to heights of over 8,000 feet, in crannies of the rock, up steep couloirs and chimneys of snow, the batteries have been placed and hidden quite secure from the fire of the enemy, commanding by the advantage of the observation posts the enemy's line with their direct fire. One such observation post I visited.
"A company of men divided into two half companies held, the one half the base of the precipitous rock upon a sward of high valley, the other the summit itself, perhaps 3,000 feet higher; end the communication from one to the other was a double wire swung through the air above the chasm, up and down which traveled shallow cradles of steel carrying men and food, munitions, and instruments. Such a device alone made possible the establishment of these posts in such incredible places, and the perilous journey along the wire rope swung from precipice to precipice and over intervening gulfs was the only condition of their continued survival. The post itself clung to the extreme summit of the mountain as a bird's nest clings to the cranny of rock in which it is built; while huts, devised to the exact and difficult contours of the last crags and hidden as best they might be from direct observation and fire from the enemy below, stood here perched in places the reaching of which during the old days of peace was thought a triumph of skill by the mountaineers. And all this ingenuity, effort, and strain stood, it must be remembered, under the conditions of war. The snow in the neighborhood of this aerie was pitted with the shell that had been aimed so often and had failed to reach this spot, and the men thus perilously clinging to an extreme peak of bare rock up in the skies were clinging there subject to all the perils of war added to the common perils of the feat they had accomplished.
"Marvelous as it was, I saw here but one example of I know not how many of the same kind with which the Italians have made secure the whole mountain wall from the Brenta to the Isonzo and from Lake Garda to the Orther and the Swiss frontier. Every little gap in that wall is held. You find small posts of men, that must have their food and water daily brought to them thus, slung by the wire; you find them crouched upon the little dip where a collar of deep snow between bare rocks marks some almost impassable passage of the hills that must yet be held. You see a gun of 6 inches or even of 8 inches emplaced where, had you been climbing for your pleasure, you would hardly have dared to pitch the smallest tent. You hear the story of how the piece was hoisted there by machinery first established upon the rock; of the blasting for emplacement; of the accidents after which it was finally emplaced; of the ingenious thought which has allowed for the chance of recoil or of displacement; you have perhaps a month's journeying from point to point of this sort over a matter of 250 miles."
A special correspondent of the London "Times" describes the fighting around Monte Pasubio in the Trentino, which has already been mentioned in the preceding pages, as follows:
"When the tide of the Austrian invasion rolled back at the end of June, 1916, its margin became fixed on the crest of the Pasubio, an enormous and irregular group of mountains, of which the Italians remained in possession of the highest peak, but all the northern summits and the top of the whole central ridge called the Cosmagnon Alps remained to the enemy. It was from this ridge that they dominated the Vallarsa, and their first-line trenches were on its edge. Fifteen yards below them the Italians had burrowed in somehow and had hung on until now.
"With the oncoming of winter, however, and the avalanches their hanging on became altogether too problematic. For weeks the weather prevented action through some meteorological phenomenon. When it is fair below in the plain Pasubio is crowned with dense fogs, and vice versa. Finally, the summits revealed themselves clear against the sky. The careful preparation had passed unobserved of the enemy, and during the night of the 8th inst., with increased intensity at dawn of the 9th inst., the artillery attacked on the whole line for several miles.
"Bombs were employed in great number, and are found to be even more effective here than on the Carso, the friable rock breaking into millions of fragments under the explosion.
"In the afternoon a demonstrative attack in the Vallarsa carried the line ahead some 400 yards, and at half past 3 the principal attack carried the trenches of the crest (Cosmagnon Alps), together with the summit called Lora. The arduous mountaineering feat of arriving on the mountain's overhanging brow was accomplished on rope ladders by infantry Alpini and Bersaglieri.
"The line once brought over the crest, the battle raged furiously on the mountain top. The Austrians had constructed magnificent caverns and dugouts, and made them as impregnable as their long residence permitted. Their resistance was specially keen around the fearful natural fortifications called the Tooth, consisting of spires and slender ledges and abounding in caverns. The Tooth still remains in part to the Austrians. From the first day, the Alpini have scaled part of it and still stick there.
"One of the spectacular sights of the day was an Alpini perched on his spire of the Tooth, who kept the Austrian machine gunners from their task, pelting them with rocks every time they set to work.
"The fighting all took place on the rolling surface of the Cosmagnon Alps—closed in by the barrage fire on both sides under the dazzling sky, but with the world below completely shut off by Monte Pasubio's crown of clouds. Shrapnel and shell disappeared in the ocean of clouds."
More so than in any other war theater, fighting on the Austro-Italian front was influenced by weather conditions during December, 1916, and January, 1917. For practically its entire extent it was located in mountainous territory, most of it indeed, as we have seen, being among mountain peaks thousands of feet high.
No wonder then that there was little to report at any time during December, 1916, and January, 1917, except artillery activity of varying frequency and violence. Occasionally engagements would take place between small detachments. These, however, were hardly ever little more than clashes between outposts or patrols. These and quite frequently even artillery activity were stopped entirely for days at a time by the severity of the blizzards and gales that prevailed throughout most of December, 1916.
In January, 1917, much the same condition prevailed. Batteries everywhere were shelling each other and whatever positions of the enemy were within reach as often as the weather was clear enough to do so. On January 1, 1917, Goritz was subjected to a particularly heavy bombardment from the Austrian guns, which caused considerable material damage.
On January 4, 1917, two attacks carried out by small Austrian detachments—one between the Adige and Lake Garda and the other in the Plava sector—were repulsed. An Italian attack on the Carso Plateau resulted in an advance of about 600 feet along a narrow front. Similar small advances were made in the same region by the Italians at various times. In most instances they were maintained in the face of frequent Austrian counterattacks, though some of the latter occasionally were successful.
On January 18, 1917, the Austrians attempted, after especially violent artillery preparation, an attack against the Italian positions between Frigido and the Opacchiasella-Castagnievizza road on the Carso, south of Goritz. Italian gun and rifle fire, however, stopped the Austrian attack before it had fully developed. A few days later, on January 22, 1917, a similar Austrian attack, launched southeast of Goritz, was somewhat more successful and resulted in the temporary penetration of a few Italian positions. The same success accompanied a like undertaking in the vicinity of Goritz near Kostanjeoica on January 30, 1917.
On practically every day through January, 1917, there was considerable artillery activity in the various sectors of the entire front. This increased in violence in accordance with weather conditions, but generally speaking had little result on general conditions, which at the end of January, 1917, were practically the same as had been established after the fall of Goritz.[Back to Contents]
PART V—WAR IN THE AIR AND ON THE SEA
CHAPTER XLVII
AEROPLANE WARFARE
During the six months, covering the period from August 1, 1916, to February 1, 1917, aeroplane warfare at the various fronts was as extensive, varied, and continuous as at any time during the war, if indeed not more so. The efficiency of machines and operators alike became higher and higher developed. Atmospheric conditions became less and less of a factor in flying. If in spite of these facts the number of machines and flyers lost continued to be comparatively huge, this was due to the fact that the development of flying made fairly equal progress in the flying corps of the various belligerents, and that increased efficiency and independence from atmospheric conditions rather had the tendency of increasing the daring of aviators.
It is of course evident that it would be impossible within the limits of these chapters to narrate every flying enterprise undertaken. Hundred, perhaps thousands, of flights made, are never reported either officially or unofficially. The largest number of these of course had as their object chiefly the gathering of information or the more accurate direction of artillery fire.
In the following pages, however, will be found an account of all the more important independent aeroplane enterprises undertaken at the various fronts, as well as aeroplane raids made into the interior of some of the countries at war.
On August 1, 1916, an Italian aerial squadron attacked with considerable success an Austro-Hungarian plant for making Whitehead torpedoes and submarine works located west of Fiume on one of the Croatian bays of the Adriatic.
Two German aeroplanes, coming from the Dardanelles, on August 4, 1916, dropped bombs on the aerodrome of the Entente Allies, located on the island of Lemnos in the Ægean Sea, but were promptly driven off by gunfire from British ships.
On the same day, August 4, 1916, Turkish or German aeroplanes attempted a bombardment of shipping on the Suez Canal. The attack was carried out by two machines over Lake Timsah, forty-five miles south of Port Said. The town of Ismailia, on the lake border, also was bombarded. No damage was done.
Again on August 6, 1916, a bomb attack by aeroplanes over Port Said and Suez inflicted little material damage and caused slight casualties.
On the following day, August 7, 1916, an Austrian squadron made up of twenty-one aeroplanes attacked Venice. They claimed to have dropped three and one-half tons of explosives and to have caused great damage and many fires; the Italian Government, however, stated that the damage caused was comparatively small and that only two people were killed.
On September 5, 1916, two British aeroplanes raided the Turkish aerodrome and aeroplane repair section at El Arish, ninety miles east of the Suez Canal, dropping twelve bombs with good results. Turkish aeroplanes attacked the British machines but ultimately gave up the fight, and the latter returned to camp undamaged.
Again on September 8, 1916, three British machines bombed El Mazaar and the Turkish camp near by.
Early in the morning of September 13, 1916, a group of Austrian seaplanes attacked Venice once more. Incendiary and explosive bombs struck the church of San Giovanni Paola, the Home for the Aged, and a number of other buildings, inflicting some damage, although no casualties were reported. Chioggra also was attacked by the same machines; but here, too, the damage was rather slight.
On the same day in the afternoon an Italian air squadron of eighteen Capronis under the protection of three Nieuport antiaircraft aeroplanes attacked Trieste. Six Italian torpedo boats and two motor boats assisted them in the gulf. Numerous bombs were dropped, but these caused only slight damage, and none of military importance. One man was slightly wounded.
Austrian aeroplanes and antiaircraft batteries obtained hits on the Italian torpedo boats. At the same time an Italian air squadron appeared over Parenzo, dropping twenty bombs in a field. No damage was done.
Still another attack was reported on this day, this time by the Russians. A squadron of four Russian giant aeroplanes of the Slyr-Murometz type bombarded the German seaplane station on Lake Angern in the Gulf of Riga. The Russians claimed to have dropped about seventy-five bombs and to have started a great conflagration. They also claimed that eight German seaplanes counterattacked, but were repulsed by machine-gun fire, and that as the result of the bombing and the air fight not fewer than eight German machines were destroyed or put out of action. None of the Russian machines were reported either lost or damaged.
A German aerodrome, located at St. Denis-Westrem in Belgium, was attacked on September 22, 1916, by British machines who claimed to have killed forty Germans and to have burned two sheds and three aeroplanes. On October 1, 1916, bombs were dropped by British aeroplanes on the Turkish camp at Kut-el-Amara.
Three days later, on October 4, 1916, British aeroplanes carried out a successful bombing attack on Turkish camps in the neighborhood of El Arish. It was claimed then that recent aerial attacks on the Turkish aerodrome at El Arish had had the effect of compelling the Turks to move their machines and hangars from that place.
An Austro-German air squadron on October 12, 1916, was reported to have dropped bombs on Constanza, the principal Rumanian Black Sea port.
On October 20, 1916, a British naval aeroplane attacked and brought down a German kite balloon near Ostend. A similar machine engaged a large German double-engined tractor seaplane, shooting both the pilot and the observer. The seaplane side-slipped and dived vertically into the sea two miles off Ostend. The remains later were seen floating on the water. Both the British machines were undamaged.
Two days later, October 21, 1916, a German aeroplane approached the fortified seaport of Sheerness at the mouth of the Thames, flying very high. Four bombs were dropped, three of which fell into the harbor. The fourth fell in the vicinity of a railway station and damaged several railway carriages. British aeroplanes went up and the raider made off in a northeasterly direction. No casualties were reported.
A German seaplane was shot down and destroyed later that day by one of the British naval aircraft. The German machine fell into the sea. Judging by time, it was probably the seaplane which visited Sheerness.
Margate, a resort on the southeast coast of England, was attacked on October 22, 1916, by a German aeroplane, which succeeded in inflicting slight material damage and injuring two people before it was driven off.
The French made a strong attack on the Metz region on the same day, October 22, 1916, employing twenty-four machines. They claimed that these dropped 4,200 kilograms of bombs on blast furnaces at Hagodange and Pussings north of Metz, and also on the railway stations at Thionville, Mezures-les-Betz, Longwy, and Metz-Sablons. On the same day another French aerial squadron bombarded the ammunition depot at Monsen road (Somme). German aeroplanes dropped several bombs on Lunéville. There were no victims and the material damage was insignificant. On the Somme front two German aeroplanes were brought down and three others were forced down in a damaged condition. Finally, good results were achieved by a French bombing expedition against factories of Rombach and the railway station at Mars-la-Tour.
The Germans, however, claimed that the French air raids did no damage to Metz and other points, but that five civilians were killed and seven made ill by inhaling poisonous gases from the bombs. They further claimed that twenty-two French aviators had been shot down by aerial attacks and antiaircraft fire and that eleven aeroplanes were lying behind the German lines. Captain Boelke conquered his thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth foes.
On October 27, 1916, French aeroplanes dropped forty bombs on the railway station at Grand Pré, eight on the railway station at Challerange, and thirty on enemy bivouacs at Fretoy-le-Château and Avricourt, north of Lassigny, where two fires were seen to break out.
On the same night ten other French machines dropped 240 bombs on the railway station at Conflans and thirty on the railway station at Courcelles. Another French machine dropped six shells on the railway line at Pagny-sur-Moselle.
The British report for the same day likewise announced that aerial engagements took place between large numbers of machines on both sides. It was reported that five machines fell during a fight, two of which were British. On another occasion one British pilot encountered a formation of ten German machines, attacked them single handed and dispersed them far behind their own lines.
On October 28, 1916, it was announced that Captain Boelke, the famous German aviator, had been killed in a collision, with another aeroplane. He was credited with having brought down forty aeroplanes.
Not until almost the middle of November, 1916, did aeroplane warfare develop its usual activity.
On the night of November 9-10, 1916, British aeroplanes dropped bombs without success on Ostend and Zeebrugge. One British machine was forced down and captured and the aviator, a British officer, made prisoner.
On the morning of November 10, 1916, a German battleplane attacked two British biplanes between Nieuport and Dunkirk. It shot down one and forced the other to retreat. In the forenoon three German battleplanes met a superior British aerial squadron off Ostend and attacked it. After a combat the British were forced to withdraw. The German machines returned to their base, having suffered insignificant damages.
Between 10 and 11 o'clock on the morning of November 10, 1916, a group of seventeen British aeroplanes bombarded the steel works at Völklingen, northwest of Saarbrücken. One thousand kilograms of projectiles were dropped on the buildings, which were damaged seriously. In the course of the operations British machines fought several actions against German machines, three of which were felled.
On the following night between 8 and 9 o'clock eight British aeroplanes executed a fresh bombardment of these works, dropping 1,800 kilograms of projectiles. Several fires were observed. All British machines returned safely.
During the night of November 10-11, 1916, British squadrons drenched with projectiles the stations of Ham, St. Quentin, Tergnier, and Nesle, in the Somme region, and the aerodrome at Dreuze, the blast furnaces of Ramsbach, the aeroplane sheds of Frescati (near Metz), and the blast furnaces of Hagodange (north of Metz). These operations caused great damage, and several explosions and fires were observed.
A German aeroplane during the night of November 10-11, 1916, bombarded several French towns. Nancy and Lunéville received projectiles which caused damage or casualties. Amiens was also bombarded on various occasions during the same night. Nine persons of the civilian population were killed and twenty-seven injured.
On November 11, 1916, five German machines were claimed to have been brought down by the British.
The following day, November 12, 1916, a squadron of British naval aeroplanes attacked the harbor of Ostend. A considerable number of bombs was dropped on the dockyards and on the war vessels in the harbor. On the same day it was also reported that two successful air raids had been carried out by aircraft operating with the British forces in Egypt. The points raided were Maghdaba and Birsaba. A ton of high explosives was dropped. Two Fokker machines were brought down by the raiding aeroplanes, all of which returned safely.
Near Saloniki two aeroplanes belonging to the Central Powers were forced to descend behind their own lines. During the night of November 14, 1916, ten British machines at various points in France carried out a series of successful raids on railway stations and rolling stock.
On the same day a Turkish aeroplane flying very high dropped several bombs in and about Cairo, Egypt, killing and wounding a number of civilians. No military damage was done and only one military casualty was incurred.
On November 17, 1916, it was reported that a French aviator had succeeded in flying across the Alps after dropping bombs upon the station at Munich, the capital of Bavaria. He landed near Venice, having flown 435 miles in one day.
London was again attacked on November 28, 1916. An aeroplane, flying very high, dropped six bombs which injured nine people and did considerable damage. A German machine, brought down a few hours later near Dunkirk, was supposed to have been the one returning from the attack on London.
On November 30, 1916, in Lorraine, three British aeroplanes fought an engagement with several German machines. One German machine was brought down in the forest of Gremecy.
On the same day on the Somme front French airmen fought about forty engagements, in the course of which five German machines were brought down.
Six French machines dropped fifteen bombs on Bruyères. Another French air squadron carried out a bombardment of the aerodrome of Grisolles (north of Château-Thierry). Between 3.45 p. m. and 7 p. m. 171 bombs of 120 mm. were dropped.
That night between 9.30 p. m. and 1.10 a. m. four French machines bombarded the blast furnaces and factories of Völklingen (northwest of Saarbrücken).
On December 1, 1916, a group of aeroplanes of the British Naval Air Service bombarded the blast furnaces of Dillingen, northwest of Saarbrücken. During this expedition one ton of explosives was dropped.
A German aeroplane was brought down during the return journey.
During December 2, 1916, Italian aeroplanes bombed Austrian positions at Dorimbergo (Fornberg) and Tabor, in the Frigido (Vippacco) Valley. On the following day, December 3, 1916, another Italian air squadron bombed the railway station for Dottogliano and Scoppo on the Carso (seven and one-half miles northeast of Trieste). Notwithstanding bad weather conditions and the violent fire of the Austrian artillery, the aviators came down low to drop a ton and half of high explosives.
Numerous air flights took place and one Austrian machine was brought down; one of the Italian machines was reported missing.
Austrian seaplanes dropped bombs at several points on the Carso without causing casualties or damage. An Italian aeroplane dropped five large bombs on the floating hangars at Trieste, with excellent results.
On December 4, 1916, Austrian aircraft dropped a few bombs on Adria and Monfalcone without doing any damage.
On the Tigris front, during the same day, December 4, 1916, Turkish aeroplanes bombed successfully British camps. Six British machines immediately made an equally successful counterattack.
On December 14, 1916, a British squadron of naval aeroplanes carried out a bombardment of the Kuleli-Burges bridge, south of Adrianople.
Throughout the balance of December, 1916, there was a great deal of local air activity at many points on all the fronts. Comparatively speaking, however, no major actions occurred.
The same condition existed during the early part of January, 1917.
On January 11, 1917, an Austrian air squadron dropped a considerable number of bombs in the neighborhood of Aquieleja, southwest of Monfalcone. One Austrian seaplane was brought down by Italian antiaircraft batteries. At the same time two aeroplanes bombarded the aviation ground at Propecto and the seaplane base in the harbor of Trieste.
The Russian front reported increased aerial activity on the following day, January 12, 1917. A German aerial squadron, consisting of thirteen airplanes, dropped about forty bombs on the station and town of Radzivilov. Russian aeroplanes bombarded with machine-gun fire a German battery near the village of Krukhov.
Similar exploits were reported from many different points on the various fronts during the following week. Especially was this true of the western front. However, there nowhere occurred any major actions.[Back to Contents]