- 22 ore fa
Dal Passo dello Stelvio fino a Trieste. Oltre mille chilometri a piedi in 54 giorni tra cime e valli alpine, ripercorrendo quella linea di frontiera che più di cento anni fa divideva il Regno d’Italia dall’Impero Austro-Ungarico. E’ questo il cammino della Memoria organizzato dall’associazione Ta Pum, a cui hanno preso parte esperti alpinisti e militari provenienti dai Corpi di Cavalleria e Bersaglieri: La nostra fatica è stata piccola cosa rispetto alla sofferenza patita cento anni fa dai milioni di uomini che hanno combattuto e perso la vita per difendere la loro patria, ma andando con le nostre gambe chilometro per chilometro, paese per paese, cima per cima, trincea per trincea, abbiamo reso loro omaggio e capito ancora meglio come da quel sacrificio siano nate l’Italia e l’Europa unite di oggi.
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00:00It's far away from us too, we have to avoid it
00:06The gigantic battle, engaged in pieces
00:10The death of the dead, and the will of the wines
00:13To learn, to live, to go beyond the bounds of a madman
00:17The colors of the dead, we refuse things
00:20The lover, the world does not come true, it does not go
00:25Until the war, and the dead, and the victory
00:29They have not been invaded
00:45I left my mother
00:55I left her to be a soldier
01:06Tapum, Tapum, Tapum
01:12Tapum, Tapu on the table
01:18Tapum is the noise of the rifle, the roar of the fired shot, the crack of the shot
01:24A terrible sound, which all soldiers of the Great War know well.
01:28An atrocious sound, which accompanies the life and death of millions of infantrymen
01:33Something so familiar it can be sung
01:36Tapum is in fact the refrain and the title of one of the most famous songs of the First World War
01:41But Tapum, today, is also an association that in collaboration with the National Research Council
01:48promoted a walk of remembrance in the places of the Great War
01:52An expedition in which expert mountaineers and military personnel took part
01:57coming from the cavalry and bersaglieri corps
01:59from the Stelvio Pass to Trieste
02:02Over a thousand kilometers on foot in 54 days
02:05between Alpine peaks and valleys
02:07retracing that border line
02:09which one hundred years ago divided the Kingdom of Italy from the Hungarian Empire
02:15The idea comes from my friend Walter Pilo
02:18which wanted to significantly celebrate the centenary of the Great War
02:24We talked about it, we've been friends for a long time
02:28and we thought about this path
02:30which materially unites the entire Italian-Austrian front
02:35then from the Stelvio Pass to Trieste
02:38At first we were thinking of a route in stages
02:41we were thinking of a relay
02:43then in the end we decided
02:45let's do it all
02:46I've been away from home for two months
02:49Logistically we will rely on the Alpine refuges
02:52which will then become post-stages of Tapum
02:55why this path then
02:57We hope it will be repeated by other climbers
03:01in part or in full
03:03and so it will just be a little nostalgia
03:05since 1882 Italy and Austria-Hungary were allies
03:10they were part of the Triple Alliance with Germany
03:14but it was an alliance that was in many ways unnatural
03:17for Italy, Austria was in fact the historical enemy of the Risorgimento
03:21the great obstacle to the process of national unification
03:25for this reason despite the triple
03:27Vienna and Rome looked at each other with suspicion
03:30to avoid unpleasant surprises
03:32on most of the Alpine passes that divided the two states
03:35since the end of the nineteenth century
03:37the Habsburgs and the Savoys
03:38they built armored military forts
03:42provided with garrisons capable of resisting an invasion
03:45these were imposing buildings
03:48created taking inspiration from medieval castles
03:51but using the most advanced technologies of the time
03:54to resist enemy artillery
03:57the perimeter walls were almost 3 meters thick
04:01forts and fortresses built along the entire frontier
04:04for a war that no one seemed to want
04:07but that everyone was preparing
04:29we are in the entrance hall of the Venini fort in Oga
04:34we are in the Osaccio area to be precise
04:38this hill has been gutted
04:41to create the military structure that was to protect the Alpine pass
04:45the Braulio valley and the Stelvio
04:48in 1899 the defense of the Italian state
04:52then the Supreme Council of Defense
04:54he decided to arm this whole area
04:57to fortify and entrench it
05:00precisely to avoid possible attacks
05:03from the Austrians who were right here
05:05behind the front
05:06behind the Orto del Cevedale line
05:08behind Mount Reit
05:11Forte Venini was built in just 3 years
05:15in an ideal position
05:16which allowed him to control the whole of the upper Valtellina
05:24the structure of the fortress is clearly of medieval inspiration
05:29the entrance was even protected by a drawbridge
05:32with its moat
05:34where the water had been replaced by the famous chevaux de Frise
05:40under our feet both in the internal perimeter
05:44so in this short stretch of the internal corridor
05:47then we will meet again in the upper corridor
05:49that outside the central courtyard of the Oga fort
05:54we find this track
05:55it was the ingenious and simple system
05:58of the soldiers present in the garrison
06:00for the transport of projectiles
06:07Oga Fort is located almost 2000 meters above sea level
06:11and during the winter the temperature in this area
06:14it drops well below zero
06:17a special system of diffusers had been designed for heating
06:22with pipes that started from the burner located in the basement
06:26near the powder magazine
06:28and which brought hot air into the dormitories
06:32From an engineering perspective, the fort made the most of the technology of the time.
06:36from the retractable turrets
06:38to the large electric generator
06:40up to the armored domes for the guns
06:43Tuesday, May 25, 1915
06:47Two days have passed since the declaration of war on Austria-Hungary
06:51one from the beginning of the hostilities
06:53at 6 o'clock the Italian artillery fires
06:57grenades fall on the square and the church of Luserna
07:00this is the testimony of the parish priest
07:03a terrible noise in the church
07:05the war started only yesterday and Luserna is destroyed
07:09civilians must evacuate the country
07:11but I'm staying here at the fort with the soldiers
07:14they are the ones who need me most
07:16there is a cemetery in the valley
07:29cemetery of us soldiers
07:42May 25th, 15th at 6am
07:46the parish priest began to celebrate the mass
07:48written in his Dario that there were immediately
07:51of the big explosions
07:52they were 280 grenades
07:55of the Italian Navy's coastal guns
07:58and there was a woman injured
08:00and a 16 year old girl
08:03Berta Nicolussi Zatta
08:04she was shot in the stomach
08:07she died 3 days later
08:08and probably indeed certainly
08:10was the first casualty of the war
08:12that Italy had declared to Austria
08:14the day before May 24th 15
08:18Luserna, a small mountain village
08:20it is located in the Astico Valley
08:22a long gorge that 100 years ago
08:24it marked the border between Italy and Austria
08:26here the Habsburgs had built
08:29the famous barrier of the seven forts of the high plains
08:32Tapum's travellers
08:33they reached these places after days of walking
08:39the Luserna fort constituted the most advanced point
08:43of the blockade of the seven Austro-Hungarian forts on the high plains
08:47starting from May 25, 1915
08:51the Italian forts located on the opposite side of the Astico Valley
08:55Fort Verena, Fort Campo Longo and Fort Campo Molon
08:59they unleashed a rain of fire on the Austrian forts
09:03the small towns in the area
09:06the maighe, every settlement was practically razed to the ground
09:12Today, a distant echo remains of all that destruction.
09:16and a beautiful path through the woods leads to Fort Luserna
09:35This fort was built between 1904 and 1910
09:41that is, a climate of tension was foreseen, at least not?
09:49which could have then led to the war that it was
09:53the entire fortification system of which the Eternal Father is also a part
09:59that's what the Italian soldiers called it
10:02the Eternal Father was called so because he was among all the fortresses in this area
10:08probably the most impressive
10:09carried up to 300 soldiers
10:12then he was autonomous
10:13something quite rare too
10:15had its own water source
10:16his electricity thing
10:19and was self-sufficient for 45 days and two months
10:24the Italian soldiers aware of what it could represent
10:29and in fact later represented with the strafexpedition
10:32the first days of the war
10:34the first four days of the war
10:35they bombarded it with more than 5,000 grenades
10:42thus partially compromising its structure
10:45and in the face of this incredible bombardment
10:48the commander at the time raised the white flag
10:52the fortresses around here
10:54the other Austrian artillery positions
10:56they started bombing their fort this
10:59because they didn't want to know about the surrender
11:01they sent an expeditionary force especially for her
11:04to have the white flags that had been removed
11:06they succeeded
11:08the fort never surrendered
11:11evidently the commander of the seal was arrested
11:14and we don't know what happened to him
11:18the Italian forts had a different structure
11:21compared to the Austrian ones
11:23the external walls first of all
11:25they were in both cases
11:27powerful and specially designed
11:29to withstand the shocks of enemy artillery
11:31but only the Austrian walls could count on a very heavy reinforced concrete frame
11:38The Italian forts had been designed to deal with shells of a maximum caliber of only 210 mm
11:46but during the conflict
11:48the war industry made giant strides
11:50and even 420 mm guns were used.
11:56It is easy to understand why a good part of the forts were completely razed to the ground
12:04following the old front line
12:06Tapum travellers have passed Passo Vezzena
12:09and then the blockade of the seven forts
12:11to head towards the Asiago plateau
12:13on the Italian front
12:16This is the area where between May 15th and June 27th 1916
12:21the battle of the high plains was fought
12:25it was the strafe expedition
12:26the punitive expedition against the Italians
12:29who had broken the Triple Alliance pact
12:33For the first time the Austrians used the tactic of carpet bombing
12:38by artillery
12:40the Italian command was forced to mobilize the last conscripts from all over the peninsula
12:47in those 40 days the two armies lost 230,000 men
12:53at the end of the battle the entire territory of the high plains
12:57it was dotted with cemeteries
13:02we are in Roana
13:04precisely in the hamlet of Canove
13:05to the museum dedicated to the Great War
13:07in 1915-1918
13:09the museum is made up of several rooms
13:12kept in their original condition
13:14compared to the natural conformation
13:15of the old railway station
13:18inside the first room
13:20we find a reconstruction of a field hut
13:23in which the Italian soldiers
13:24they tried to give themselves a minimum of comfort and rest
13:27during the First World War
13:28in the side room we find the reconstruction of a trench
13:32with Italian machine gunners on guard
13:34in particular note the machine gun
13:37a liquid-cooled machine gun
13:39had a system that could quickly cool the barrel
13:43through the forced passage of water
13:46and the thing about this machine gun is that many people don't know
13:49but it was already produced by Fiat
13:51what we know today as the automobile manufacturing industry
13:58after long days of marching the travellers of Tapum
14:01they crossed the plateaus
14:02continuing east, towards Trieste
14:04until you come across one of the most significant places of the Great War
14:09the Piave Valley
14:11from Grappa to Conegliano and Vittorio Veneto
14:14some of the main battles on the Italian front took place here
14:19between the end of October and the beginning of November 1917
14:22Italy probably suffered the most serious defeat in the history of its army
14:28the defeat of Caporetto
14:31at the end of the battle our army lost almost all its guns
14:36and over 300,000 men between dead, wounded and prisoners
14:41Austro-German troops poured into Italy
14:45in a race that seemed to have no more obstacles heading to Venice
14:50but it was on the Piave that the Italians managed to regroup
14:54settling on the southern bank of the river
14:57which constituted a natural defensive line
15:00To stop the invaders, the bomb disposal experts blew up all the bridges.
15:05the Piave or rather the Piave as our ancestors called it
15:12until the Great War
15:15it was a dangerous river and feared for its floods
15:20it is a river that has a torrential flow
15:25in the sense that it can be a dry period for a long time
15:31but then suddenly it swells with water and threatens the nearby territory
15:51We are in Riva al Piave to visit a real battle station
15:55we are in an advanced position
15:58It was used especially at night to monitor the riverbed
16:01so that there were no enemy infiltrations
16:04it is an Italian post dug into the rock completely
16:08the two caves moved to the sides
16:11they already indicate the change in use of the machine gun
16:14no longer a frontal shot but a flanking shot
16:18in fact this station was connected to other stations
16:22and they defended each other
16:24Tapum travellers have also crossed the Piave
16:27to head towards Friuli Venezia Giulia up to Lisonso
16:33its waters were stained with the blood of hundreds of thousands of soldiers
16:37during the 12 major battles that were fought there between the Italians and the Austrians
16:45Mount San Michele, Podgora, Mount Sabotino
16:48every hill in this borderland was relentlessly bombarded by the opposing artillery
17:10we are located on the Sabotino ridge which runs east-west right on the right side of the Isonso
17:19the current border between Italy and Slovenia passes through here
17:23This was the key to the Italian success of the sixth battle of the Isonzo and the capture of Gorizia.
17:34Aurelio Baruzzi is a second lieutenant in the Italian army who, at just 18 years old, in 1915
17:40He has already earned a bronze medal for military valor for the courage he demonstrated on the field
17:46He was born in the same town as Francesco Baracca, the flying ace, in Lugo di Romagna
17:51At the foot of Mount Calvary, near Gorizia, there is a railway underpass named after this very young officer.
17:59who between 7 and 8 August 1916 was the protagonist of a sensational action
18:04which precedes by a few hours the conquest of the Friulian city by the Italian army
18:10On the night between August 7th and 8th I thought, while I was at that toll booth there
18:16I considered the idea of attempting a coup at the underpass
18:21I asked my commander for about twenty men
18:24They promised me ten, then at the last minute they gave me four.
18:27and I set off with them towards the underpass
18:31I entered the death tunnel that started down there at the end
18:35and under the fire of our artillery I reached the entrance to the underpass
18:41I was surprised to find myself in front of the mouth of a cannon
18:45and behind there were two officers and a sergeant armed
18:49I immediately ordered them to surrender by shouting
18:51I was esgebetoic you are prisoners man up surrender
18:55they threw down their weapons and surrendered immediately
18:58I then entered the underpass
19:01Inside here everything was lit up and full of Austrians
19:05I thought I was facing 70 or 80 men
19:08as they had indicated to us, instead there were more than 200
19:12Luckily they had racks with all the weapons stored on them.
19:17I ordered them to graduate, I started shouting, you are surrounded to give the impression that I had a lot of troops outside.
19:23Lieutenant Baruzzi is bluffing. He only has four men to rely on.
19:28He puts them on sentry duty in the underpass.
19:31With revolver in hand he walks up and down the passage, threatening the Austrians.
19:35After about a quarter of an hour the first reinforcements arrive, but they are still a small number of soldiers,
19:42no more than 5 or 6.
19:43But for Baruzzi they are enough to move forward.
19:46He orders the Austrians to leave the underpass.
19:49The important thing is to get to the other side, not to get trapped.
19:53Meanwhile, other troops from my regiment in the twenty-eighth panzer had arrived.
19:58Finding myself behind, because here is the Podgora, finding myself behind Calvary,
20:02I immediately thought of taking advantage of the favorable situation, because I was behind the enemy.
20:07And I reported to the Casale infantrymen that they were on Calvary.
20:11They immediately took me for an Austrian and shot me.
20:14Then I took out my flag.
20:16I had a flag that I had bought a few days before at Cormus,
20:20with the intention of planting it on Gorice, on which he had written Romagna,
20:23because the division, the brigade, my regiment, we were mostly from Romagna.
20:28And I signaled the Casale infantrymen with the flag, as soon as they saw the tricolour down here,
20:34they got excited and gave in with great enthusiasm,
20:38winning, overwhelming the last resistance of the enemy on Podgora and Calvary.
20:43The men who came down from Mount Calvary join the men of the Pavia brigade,
20:47who reached Second Lieutenant Baruzzi at the exit of the underpass.
20:51And all together they head towards the Isonzo.
20:54It is not possible to cross the river on foot.
20:57The Austrians have just blown up the railway bridge.
21:00The troops then settled under the bridge, on the river bank,
21:05evaluating the best point to ford it.
21:07There is the point where we forded.
21:10Where we had those dead wounded, swept away by the current.
21:14Luckily we reached the other side of the ford, in numbers of 4-500,
21:18and we were able to immediately form a small bridgehead.
21:21Me with my platoon, another platoon that had asked for the honor, as they said, of fighting in the shadow of mine
21:27tricolor,
21:28I immediately headed to the station to enter Gorizia.
21:30With a little turning maneuver I was able to occupy the station and on the highest chimney
21:34I'm in my flag that I always carried with me to drag my pants towards Gorizia.
21:40Indeed, they shouted with enthusiasm, that is, Gorizia, Gorizia!
21:43And they shot high with joy.
21:45Here to the south you can see Gorizia, the entire plain, and the panorama extends to the sea across the Karst.
21:54In particular, this is a small saddle that was fundamental for the Austrian defense of Sabotino,
22:00which was considered impregnable.
22:03To the north, the Vallone descends, which was the main supply route,
22:08and in which the Austro-Hungarian command and garrison were hidden.
22:12From here the Austrians could observe the southern slope and Podgora, the Oslavia area,
22:18and therefore all the fighting and opposing fronts, in particular the Italian one, in the area in front of Gorizia.
22:26Schapner balls are still found.
22:29This is an iron ball, probably Austrian from 1917, when materials were starting to run low.
22:37And from here, going west, the Austrians, always through trenches,
22:43they reached the front-line trenches.
22:49The Karst is that large rocky plateau that extends to the north-east of Italy,
22:54from the Julian Alps to the Adriatic Sea.
22:58The Lisonzo flows along its valleys.
23:02On these heights, the Italians and Austrians built two endless lines of trenches.
23:09The trench, as you have seen, is dug into the rock.
23:15Unlike the trenches found, for example, on the Piave,
23:18or that we can see on the French Western Front, where there is land,
23:21here, there being rock, the trenches, this here in general, the trenches of the Karst,
23:25they follow the morphological trend of the furrows in the ground.
23:29This way the excavation is easier, because we are already starting from a natural excavation, okay,
23:34and then the trench is less visible too.
23:37The trenches that we see on the Karst today, we must imagine that they are the latest evolution of the trench,
23:44that is, what remained in 1917, before the retreat from Caporetto, is fine.
23:48That is, the trench has evolved.
23:50At the beginning they were simply dry stone walls or furrows in the ground.
23:54Then, as the troops consolidated, they carried out further excavation,
24:00even with pneumatic drills that were already present at that time,
24:03and reinforced concrete structures were made, slits were made,
24:09There were bags of earth on top, as well as corrugated boards.
24:13The important thing was to also protect the troops inside the trench from snap grenades,
24:18those grenades that once they explode in the air shoot lead pellets,
24:23they have a bunch of lead pellets,
24:25and exploding above the trench can hit the soldiers who were inside.
24:32A part of that enormous number of fallen in the war of the Carso rests in the shrines of Redi Puglia and
24:39Oslavia,
24:40the two largest Italian cemeteries from the First World War.
24:45100,000 deaths in Redi Puglia, 57,000 in Oslavia.
24:50And it must be said that most of the bodies have never been identified.
24:56The reasons are various, but the main problem was that the Italian soldiers' identification tags were made of paper.
25:04A mortally wounded soldier could fall into the mud or even the snow,
25:09and often, due to the course of the battles,
25:13it could be left exposed to the elements for days or even months.
25:19His dog tag disappeared into thin air, and so did the soldier's identity and entire life.
25:29Here we are, we have arrived at Redi Puglia, Redi Puglia is the largest shrine in Italy,
25:37certainly one of the largest, if not the largest in Europe.
25:43It was wanted after the end of the Great War,
25:46because they had to, they wanted to gather all the dead in these shrines a little
25:54that the poor things were scattered in hundreds, hundreds of small, sometimes even very small cemeteries
26:02along the entire axis of the front.
26:05The one in Redi Puglia was actually previously located on that hill opposite,
26:11the hill of Sant'Elia which was also the site of a very hard battle
26:16and then precisely when it was decided to build the shrine
26:22Little by little they were all moved here.
26:26There are a hundred thousand in these names, in these names that you see here,
26:32forty thousand in fact have a name, a surname
26:38and sixty thousand are unknown, but all of them are complaining through
26:42the almost obsessive present, present, present, present
26:46the fact that they are present at least in our collective memory.
27:05Trieste, the city whose name resounded throughout Italy during the Great War.
27:11The city that had to be torn from the enemy to complete national unity.
27:16The boys of the young Italian nation set out to redeem Trieste.
27:20Many of them came from the countryside of the South
27:23and they didn't even know exactly where Trieste was.
27:26After having travelled a thousand kilometres of valleys, rivers, mountains,
27:31of landscapes marked by the memory of war,
27:34the arrival at Miramare Castle and the last walk to the Bersaglieri pier in Trieste
27:39they conclude the expedition of the Tapu travellers.
27:42I knew the places we passed through through my studies.
27:47Finding myself there, seeing what the land still tells,
27:52because it's incredible that after a hundred years the earth still speaks so much.
27:57There are places that not only tell you about yourself, but actually want to...
28:03they leave you speechless.
28:05It was a truly time-traveling experience.
28:11We talked to many people, I told them many stories.
28:16I was moved more than once when I heard them.
28:19Whoever will tire of their burdens for days will be ruined without change.
28:31Tapum, tapum, tapum...
28:35Tapum, tapum, tapum...
28:40Tapum, tapum, tapum...
28:44Thank you all.
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