With British Guns in Italy: A Tribute to Italian Achievement

by Baron Hugh Dalton Dalton

THE ASIAGO PLATEAU

About the middle of March the British Divisions moved up from the Montello to the Asiago Plateau, and all the British Heavy Artillery was concentrated in the Asiago sector. We, therefore, moved six miles to the west and found ourselves in support of British, and no longer of Italian, Infantry. Our Brigade ceased to be a "trench-punching" and became a "counter-battery" Brigade. Most of our work in future was to be in close co-operation with our own Air Force.

My Battery was destined to remain here, with two short interludes, for seven months. It was in many ways a very interesting sector. The British held the line between the Italians on their left and the French on their right. To the right of the French were more Italians. The move had amusing features. One compared the demeanour of the lorry drivers of different nationalities. The scared faces of some of the British the first time they had to come up the hundred odd corkscrew turns on the mountain roads, taking sidelong glances at bird's eye views of distant towns and rivers on the plain below, were rather comical. Even the self-consciously efficient and outwardly imperturbable French stuck like limpets to the centre of the road, and would not give an inch to Staff cars, hooting their guts out behind them. The Italian drivers, on the other hand, accustomed to the mountains, dashed round sharp corners at full speed, avoiding innumerable collisions by a fraction of an inch, terrifying and infuriating their more cautious Allies. But I only once saw a serious collision here in the course of many months.

The Asiago Plateau is some eight miles long from west to east, with an average breadth of two to three miles from north to south. On it lie a number of villages and small towns, of which the largest is Asiago itself, which lies at the eastern end of the Plateau and before the war had a population of about 8000. Asiago was the terminus of a light railway, running down the mountains to Schio. The chief occupation of the inhabitants of the Plateau had been wood-cutting and pasture. In Asiago were several sawmills and a military barracks. Army manoeuvres used often to take place in this area, which gave special opportunities for the combined practice of mountain fighting and operations on the flat. It was moreover within seven miles of the old Austrian frontier. Asiago was hardly known before the war to foreign tourists, but many Italians used to visit it, especially for winter sports.

Across the Plateau from north to south ran the Val d'Assa, which near the southern edge, having become only a narrow gulley, turned away westwards, the Assa stream flowing finally into the river Astico. The Ghelpac stream, which flowed through the town of Asiago, joined the Assa at its western turn. Apart from these two streams the Plateau was not well watered. In summer, when the snows had melted, water was even scarcer on the surrounding mountains. All our drinking water had to be pumped up through pipes from the plain.

The Plateau was bounded at its eastern end by Monte Sisemol, which stands at the head of the Val Frenzela, which, in turn, runs eastward into the Val Brenta near the little town of Valstagna. Sisemol was of no great height and was not precipitous. It had a rounded brown top, when the snow uncovered it. But it was a maze of wire and trenches, and a very strong point militarily. There had been very bitter fighting for its possession last November and it had remained in Austrian hands.

At the western end the Plateau was bounded by the descent to the Val d'Astico. On the northern side of the Plateau rose a formidable mountain range, the chief heights of which, from west to east, were Monte Campolungo, Monte Erio, Monte Mosciagh and Monte Longara. This range was thickly wooded with pines, among which our guns did great damage. I always more regretted the destruction of trees than of uninhabited houses, for the latter can be the more quickly replaced. This range was pierced by only four valleys, through each of which ran roads vital to the Austrian system of communications, the Val Campomulo, the Val di Nos, the Val d'Assa and the Val di Martello. The Austrians had also a few roads over the top of the mountains, but these were less good and less convenient.

Along the southern side of the Plateau ran another ridge, less mountainous than the ridge to the north, and completely in our possession. This ridge also was thickly wooded, and pierced by only a few valleys and roads. The road we came to know best was the continuation of the wonderful road up from the plain, through Granezza to the cross-roads at Pria dell' Acqua, and on through the Baerenthal Valley to San Sisto. Thence it led through the front line trenches into the town of Asiago itself. At Pria dell' Acqua, a most misleading name, where there was no water, but only a collection of wooden huts, another road branched off westwards, running parallel to the front line, behind the southern ridge of the Plateau.

The Italian Engineers had created a magnificent network of roads in this sector of the Front. Before the war there had been only one road into Asiago from the plain. Now there were half a dozen, all broad and with a fine surface, capable of taking any traffic. And, in addition, there were many transverse roads, equally good, joining up and cutting across the main routes at convenient points.

When the British troops took over this sector in March, the whole Plateau, properly so called, was in Austrian hands. It had been taken last November in the mountain offensive which followed Caporetto. At one perilous moment the Austrians had held San Sisto and their patrols had passed Pria dell' Acqua, but they had been thrown back by Italian counter-attacks to the line they now held. Our front line ran along the southern edge of the Plateau, and, on the right, along the lower slopes of the southern ridge, just inside the pine woods. On the left, further west, it ran mostly on the flat and more in the open. Where the Val d'Assa turned west, our front line ran on one side of the shallow gulley and the Austrian on the other. The Austrian front line was completely in the open. The first houses of Asiago were only a few hundred yards behind it.