As usual, resumption of military operations was indicated by increased artillery fire.
In the Rovereto zone on March 23, 1916, an artillery duel was followed during the night by Austro-Hungarian attacks against Italian positions at Moriviccio, near Rio Comeraso, and in the Adige and Terragnole Valleys. These were repulsed. Throughout the theater of operations bad weather limited, however, artillery action on the Isonzo, which was active only near Tolmino and the heights northwest of Goritz.
On March 25, 1916, Italian artillery again bombarded the Doberdo Plateau (south of Goritz), the Fella Valley and various points on the Tyrolese front. East of Ploecken Pass (on the Carnia front) Italian positions were penetrated and Italian attacks repulsed near Marter (Sugana Valley).
Severe fighting took place on March 26, 1916, at several points. At the Goritz bridgehead the Austro-Hungarians captured an Italian position fronting on the northern portion of Podgora Heights, taking 525 prisoners. Throughout the entire day and the following night the Italian troops in vain attempted to regain the positions which they had lost the day before east of Ploecken Pass.
In the Doberdo sector on March 27, 1916, the artillery was again active on both sides. Italian attacks on the north slope of Monte San Michele and near the village of San Martino were repulsed. East of Selz a severe engagement developed.
In the Ploecken sector all Italian attacks were beaten back under heavy losses. Before the portion of the Carinthian front held by the Eighth Chasseurs Battalion more than 500 dead Italians were observed. Austro-Hungarian airmen dropped bombs on railroads in the province of Venice.
Especially severe fighting occurred once more in the region of the Gonby bridgehead during March 27, 28 and 29, 1916. On the last of these days the Italians lost some 350 prisoners. Without cessation the guns thundered on both sides on these three days on the Doberdo Plateau, along the Fella and Ploecken sectors, in the Dolomites and to the east of Selz. Scattered Italian attacks at various points failed. Then, with the end of March, the weather again necessitated a stoppage of military operations.
An interesting description of the territory in which most of this fighting occurred was rendered by a special correspondent of the London "Times" who, in part, says:
"There is no prospect on earth quite like the immense irregular crescent of serrated peak and towering mountain wall that is thrown around Italy on the north, as it unrolls itself from the plains of Lombardy and Venetia. How often one has gazed at it in sheer delight over its bewildering wealth of contrasting color and fantastic form, its effect of light and shade and measureless space! But now, for these many months past, keen eyes have been bent upon it; eyes, not of the artist or the poet, but those of the soldier.
"It was such a pair of military eyes that I had beside me a day or two ago, as I stood upon the topmost roofs of a high tower, in a certain little town in northern Italy, where much history has been made of late; and, since the owner of the eyes was likewise the possessor of a very well-ordered mind and a gift of lucid exposition, I found myself able to grasp the main elements of the extraordinarily complex strategic problem with which the chiefs of the Italian army have had to grapple. As I looked and listened I felt that the chapter which Italy is contributing to the record of the greatest war of all time is one of which she will have every reason to be proud when she has at length brought it to its victorious conclusion.