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| View on Castello San Salvatore from the trenches |
With the Centenary
approaching, old trenches and fortifications systems are slowly surfacing from
the abandoned nature. We owe the rediscovery and the promotion of this physical
legacy of the Great War to some important actors. Indeed everywhere, especially
in Europe, interesting archaeological projects explore the territories and try
to uncover forgotten traces of the First World War, to detect possible trenches
within the vegetation and to restore them. Some of these projects – for example
that of the village of La Boisselle, in the Somme region – have already
attracted the attention of the international community and encouraged the
cooperation between archaeologists, historians and many other volunteers. But
many other maybe smaller, but not less important initiatives are rising around
and we’d like today to present one of them.
The
Association ArcheoSusegana was founded in 2013 and gathers
a group of volunteers with the aim to combine historical research and
archaeological restoration of sites (some dating back to the prehistory) and
old ruins in the territories of the Collalto, an
ancient Italian noble family. The group is based in fact in Susegana,
where the Collalto had one of their family castles, the San Salvatore Castle, which was heavily damaged
during the Great War by the Italian artillery. The small village of Susegana lies
in fact near the river Piave and thus on the Austrian-Hungarian side of the
front after the rout of Caporetto. No surprise so if also in these territories
forgotten traces of the Great War have surfaced and thanks to the work of
ArcheoSusegana we can now visit them.
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| Walking along the trenches |
Architect Michele
Potocnik, who supervises the archeological works, told us during an interview
how the members of the Association ArcheoSusegana unearthed new trenches
on Colle della Tombola, a little hill near the Collalto
Castle and about 3 kilometers from the river
Piave. On the top of the hill there was a small Austro-Hungarian war village,
today traces of about twenty sites can be
recognized in this small area. On the northern side of the hill, barracks and
storage where probably built as outpost
connected to the fortifications on the underlying Ruio valley. On the southern
side trenches were dug to connect antiaircraft, artillery and/or observation
post. After the restoration works, which combine successfully preservation and
rediscovery targets avoiding to restore the ditches in their original depth, we
can now walk along the trenches and enter the fortified post. Standing here one could easily observe the Piave
and, just behind, the Montello, where the Italian Army was disposed. Today
trees screen the vision line, but it is not hard to image what the sentries
could see and hear during the final part of the Great War, from autumn 1917 to
the end of the conflict.
The works are still in progress both in uncovering
the war traces and in opening passages in the wood to enable visitors to gaze
upon the former targets – San Salvatore Castle, the river Piave and the
Montello. But ArcheoSusegana has already
made safe some sections of the trenches and often organizes guided tours for schools and
groups. If you want to visit them, contact the Association using the link
above. And for all those interested, yet unable at the moment to travel to
Susegana, we suggest to watch the video below and
get at least an idea of this interesting and praiseworthy archaeological project.
