// Workers AI · dad joke modeIs Fort Verle strong? Verle-y defensive.

Fort Verle (Italian: Forte Verle, German: Werk Verle) is one of seven forts built in the Lavarone-Folgaria group, a series of forts located near the municipalities of Lavarone and Folgaria in Northern Italy. These were a group of forts commissioned and built by the Austro-Hungarian military between 1880 and 1915. Like most forts in the Lavarone-Folgaria group, Verle was a relatively new fort and was one of the most up to date in the various fortifications surrounding Trento. Construction began on Oct. 22nd, 1908, and lasted until March 30th, 1913. The fort was built at an altitude of 1508m (5,000ft), and was in a very exposed position. It was also 7km from the Italian Forte Verena, but because Verena was 500m higher, Verle’s tower howitzers (T.H) couldn’t hit the fort.

Fort Verle seen facing the Trentino-Veneto border today, the border runs along the same path as the Italian-Austro-Hungarian border.

The neighboring “Fort Vezzena” (for it wasn’t really a fort, it was meant to observe) was also used as an observation post for Verle. The fort was built as what was called a “Fort of Unity” which meant that artillery and infantry were incorporated into one structure. The fort was built in an irregular square shape, with a trench going around only 2 of the walls.

Armament

• 4 10cm T.H M09 howitzers placed in 25cm thick rotating armored domes
• 2 8cm guns as a flanking battery facing towards Fort Lusern
• 4 6cm cannons in casemates protecting the trenches
• 15 M.07/12 Schwarzlose machine guns, these were emplaced in:
  • 4 armored casemates with 2 guns each
  • 3 armored domes with 2 guns each
  • 1 in a rotating observation turret with 1 gun

Construction

The fort was built out of solid concrete and was only occasionally reinforced by steel. The ceiling was 2.15m thick consisting of compacted concrete. The concrete ceilings were mounted on steel I-Beams, so that the force of a blast would be transferred to the side walls. Fort Verle was built partially underground, although the most vital parts of the fort didn’t enjoy the protection of the natural rock. This made the fort vulnerable to artillery because there was not sufficient amounts of earth above to protect the vitals of the fort. Unlike the earlier works of Forte Belvedere Gschwent and Fort Serrada, the guns were located farther apart, and thus Verle’s armament couldn’t be knocked out with a few well-placed shots. The battery block is located on the South-East side of the fort, near the curve in the outbound walls between turrets II and III. The distance between guns III and IV is greater than the distance between guns II and III, since an armored dome with machine guns is located in-between. Inside the battery block there were: 3 ammunition rooms, 2 standby rooms for the crews, a signal station for communicating with Fort Vezzena, a 25cm spotlight, a toilet, and an emergency exit. The howitzers in this block were mounted on negative depressors (so that the guns can aim at a negative elevation level) so that they could fire at an angle of -15 degrees. The casemate block consisted of 3 floors, with storage rooms, a cistern and a tomb for the dead. The ground floor of the fort consisted of: an engine room with an emergency generator, 2 standby rooms, a workshop, kitchen, an 8 bed infirmary with a doctors office, and guard room next to the entrance. The upper floor consisted of: 4 standby rooms, 2 officer’s barracks, the commander’s room, 1 ammo magazine, and a telephone room. After the second shelling in Sept. 1915, this floor was abandoned and filled with 1m of concrete, making the ground floor a lot more safe.

Turm: turret, Nahkampfanlage: Close Combat Facility, Kasematt: Casemate,

Protruding Caponier: this consisted of: 1 staircase leading to the postern, 1 standby room, 2 stands for 21cm spotlights, 1 armored casemate sporting 2 machine guns, and 2 gun rooms for 2 6cm field guns each. In addition to this caponier there was also an outlying facility, called a melee facility. This consisted of: an armored spotlight stand, 2 armored domes for 2 machine guns each, 1 ammo room, and a defensible standby room. During the course of the shelling during World War I, the facility was completely destroyed, with both its turrets lying in the surrounding trenches.

World War I

The wartime complement of the fort was 5 officers, and 233 enlisted men. The artillery crew came from the 3rd company of the 6th Artillery Battalion of k.u.k. State Shooter Regiment No.I “Trento”. During World War I, Verle was severely shelled up until the Battle of Asiago. The first shot in the war between Austria-Hungary and Italy was fired at Verle by the Italian Forte Verena at 4am on May 24th, 1915, according to Italian sources. By the end of May 1915, the Italians had brought up 21cm, and 28cm guns, in addition to 30.5cm naval mortars.

Damage from the first shelling of 1915

• May 26th: pre-armor of gun tower No.II holed by 28cm shell, 2 killed and 2 wounded
• May 27th:  a 28cm shell hits howitzer dome No.IV, 4 injured.
• May 28th: 28cm shell hits and immobilises turret No.I.
• May 31st: shell penetrates into the battery block near tower of howitzer dome No.IV.
• June 8th: a shell hits the armored spotlight stand in the melee facility
• June 17th: 2 holes punched in the corridor of the casemate block

The Giebermann Affair

After a 28cm shell penetrated the pre-armor of turret No.II during the first day of shelling, the commander, Oberleutnant Alfred Giebermann, wrote to his commander Major Jelinek asking for permission to abandon his position on May 26th. Up to this point, only turret No.II was damaged, otherwise there were no shell holes in the fort. Despite this, Major Jelinek granted Giebermann’s request without examining the situation. At 10pm that day, Giebermann announced that Verle would be abandoned, with only 42 of the garrison remaining. 2 ensigns, Weber and Knopfmacher stayed behind with the remaining garrison. On May 27th, at about 6pm lieutenant Papak decided to return to the fort and take control. Between May 28th and 30th, the fort was fully reoccupied. Since the Lieutenant-in-chief Giebermann refused to return to Verle, he was transferred to a military hospital in Trento. At the suggestion of Major Jelinek, Giebermann received the Military Cross of Merit class III, Giebermann was later transferred to the Eastern Front to command a mortar battery. Lieutenant Papak was also awarded the Military Cross of Merit class III alongside Weber and Knopfmacher who received the Bronze Medal of Bravery, with Knopfmacher ultimately getting the Military Cross of Merit class III.

Damage from the second shelling

• August 15th: a 30.5cm shell hits below gun tower No.III, a 34cm hole was punctured in the armored howitzer dome. The damage rendered turret No.III unusable.
• August 16th: hole punctured between turret No.IV and the armored observation turret, 3 seriously wounded. Turret No.III was hit again, with 2 severely wounded, guns inoperable.
• August 19th: hole shot through pre-armor of turret No.II
• August 20th: turret No.II’s pre-armor is punctured again
• August 22nd: Hidden battery of 8cm guns hit, with 1 gun being unusable because of a broken barrel
• August 23rd: 30.5cm shell punctures between turrets No.II and III, and lands in a standby room. 3 killed, 6 seriously injured. The postern between the melee facility and the fort was also severed.
• August 27th: the front side armored machine gun turret in the melee facility ripped out by a near-miss 30.5cm shell. The casemate block was also punctured
• August 28th: ceiling above the standby room in the caponier punctured, with the shell hitting the second armored machine gun turret. This turret was torn out and slid into the frontal trenches. The casemate block was also hit, with the emergency exit of the battery block being damaged.
• August 29th: aisle above the battery block punctured, with several killed or seriously wounded
• August 31st: ceiling of the postern punctured between the casemate and battery blocks, it stopped in the passage of the battery block near turret No.II
• September 1st-7th: 30.5cm shell hits between armored dome and  pre-armor of turret No.IV, the shell exploded inside the tower. The dome was ripped into 3 parts and removed from its housings, the gun was destroyed but the barrel was found intact across the fort. (This was the only dome of its kind to be destroyed, a subsequent investigation concluded faulty casting.)
• October 31st: shell punctures the casemate battery, hitting the telephone exchange
• An Unspecified Date: a shell punctures the casemate block

The land outside of the fort closely resembled a moonscape after weeks of shelling.

Damage sustained

From May 23rd, 1915 to May 15th, 1916, the damages and shells landed on the fort’s grounds are:

• 30.5cm: 1710
• 28cm: 3135
• 21cm: 1200
• Hits on concrete ceilings: 1872
• Impacts on Steel armor: 55
• Hits on domes that didn’t puncture: 28
• Pre-armor of turret No.II punctured 3 times
• Pre-armor of turret No.III hit twice
• The concrete ceiling was punctured 16 times

The average shells per area of concrete is 60%. By May 15th, the guns had been removed and placed in field positions.

Austro-Hungarian soldiers survey the damage after an Italian barrage.

Infantry attacks

• May 30th, 1915:  Italian Alpini battalion “Basson” attacked, this was repulsed.
• August 24th, 1915: weak attacks by infantry brigade “Ivrea”

Distribution of guns to field positions

As it turned out, the fort could withstand the 28cm shell but not the 972lb 30.5cm shell. So on August 24th, 1915 the guns were removed to safer field positions. Turret No.II was removed and placed behind Verle at Malga Cima di Verle. The second usable gun, turret No.I, was removed and added near turret No.II at Malga Cima di Verle. (This is the so-called “Half-Battery Malga Cima di Verle”.) By September 1915, the guns were emplaced and ready to fire. In Oct. the damaged turrets No.III and IV were disassembled as spare parts. The trench caponier’s 2 6cm guns were useless where they were, so they were moved to the infantry barracks at Basson, about ¾ mile away. They were in place and ready to fire by the end of September 1915. The hidden 8cm battery, which had become unusable because of a damaged barrel, was moved to Infantry Base No.50 near the Vezzena Opservation Post. After a replacement barrel arrived in Dec. 1915, the gun was also usable. Only the machine guns and 1 of the 8cm guns remained at Fort Verle. Although the fort was still occupied, its crews were greatly reduced.

Structural reinforcement

After the shelling stopped on July 25th, the armored domes were repaired and made operational. In addition to this, the time between shelling and at night was used to patch up shell holes using fast-drying concrete. The fort was also reinforced by gravel filled baskets called Gabion, up to 3.3ft thick. The extra spaces in the gun fountains were filled with concrete, in hopes that it would reinforce the weak pre-armor. Since the necessary structural reinforcement of the ceilings couldn’t be carried out outdoors, for the Italians would see it, they were carried out indoors. New posterns were also made, because the old ones had been shot up during the shelling, connecting the basement of the casemate block with the fixed observation turret in the battery block. A 500ft long postern was planned from the road to the fort and was started from both sides, but was never finished. There was also a plan to equip the guns at Costa Alta with the uninstalled M14 guns from the Valmorbia works, although this too was abandoned because it was too difficult.

Fort Verle’s final task

At the beginning of the Battle of Asiago, Turret No.I was reinstalled along with 2 new 9cm mortars. One of the mortars was located in the gun fountain of turret No.IV. This brought the total weapons in Verle to 1 10cm gun, 2 9cm mortars, and 1 hidden 8cm gun, all of which fired on the Italian positions during the Battle of Asiago.

As the battle raged to the south, extensive repairs were made to bring the fort back to operational levels. This consisted of the fixing of the armored towers of turret Nos.I, II, and III, and the construction of a fake concrete dome over tower No.IV. The fort was occupied by Italian infantry just before the end of the war.

Personnel losses

13 people died in the fort, it is not stated how many of the seriously wounded died after being removed.

Fort Verle’s ammo consumption

• 10cm: 12,927
• 8cm: 6,541

Post-war to today

A once massive and powerful fort is only visited by cows and the occasional intrepid tourist.

The fort had been severely damaged during World War I, and was more severely damaged when the Italians salvaged it for steel in their war against Ethiopia. Due to the explosions needed to extract the steel, the fort is in extreme disrepair and ruin, with entering Fort Verle prohibited.

Appearances in popular literature

The writer Fritz Weber, the same one that stayed back with the defenders, was stationed at Fort Verle, and described it in his book Grenades and Avalanches 17 years later. Fort Verle was also mentioned by writer and filmmaker Luis Trenker, in his autobiography Sperrefort Rocca Alta, partially about his time stationed at Verle.