We were on holiday in Slovenia recently, just across from the Italian border. This was an important area particularly during WW1, but also throughout history, so there's loads of ruined forts, batteries and trenches. By far the best installation we found was this Fort Hensel in Italy.
The main part that you'll read about online is the rather ruined 19th century fort on top of the hill, but we were much more interested in the 1930s tunnels and emplacements added underneath.
History from thewalkofpeace.com:
On a rocky hill on the east side of the village Malborghetto/Naborjet/Malborgeth, the Austrians began building a fort in 1808 which, however, had not been completed by the arrival of the Napoleonic troops in May 1809. It was captured and burned by the French on 17 May, and most of the Austrian defenders were killed, including Captain Friedrich Hensel. Only a few managed to escape. The French continued their march from Malborghetto towards Carinthia, while part of them headed towards the fort below Predel, where Captain Johann Hermann von Hermannsdorf was still holding back French troops that were advancing towards Carinthia along the Soča Valley.
Because the border with the Kingdom of Italy was very close and because of increasing tensions, the Austrians built a new Hensel Fort In Malborghetto in 1866 and modernized it in 1881‒1884. This fort was of strategic importance to the Austrians, as it not only defended the passage to Carinthia, but also protected the railway in Tarvisio/Trbiž/Tarvis, which proved to be very important during World War I.
At the outbreak of World War I, the Hensel Fort, which was part of the Carinthian Forts, was already out-of-date. Knowing that the Italians would shell it from the Val Dogna area, the Austrians removed, one by one, their guns from the fort. The first explosion took place on 12 June 1915, when a construction shed with 800 shells was hit by the Italians. The fort proper was not damaged at the time, but there was a huge explosion and a forest fire which the Austrians had to fight for several hours. The shelling intensified. In the first eight days, the Austrians counted up 1,000 explosions of Italian shells. By mid-August 1915, more than 4,500 shells had been fired at the fort, about 200 of which had hit the facility. On 26 March 1916, the Austrians removed the last gun from the fort.
In the 1930s, the Italians caved the Alpine Wall forts into the rock under the ruins of the fort. After World War II, they were modernized for the purposes of NATO and finally abandoned at the end of the 20th century.
As soon as we'd parked the car, we found the lower emplacements at the bottom of the hill. As far as we could tell, the fort had 3 levels of emplacements, with the entrance on the middle level. Note the shutters covering the embrasure - more on those soon!
After a long trek up the hill, we came across the 2nd level of emplacements. The shutters are in much better condition here, and you can see that they're made to look like the surrounding rock. Not something I've seen on a fort before, although I'm sure this can't be the only example! Inside each emplacement was a hand-crank with a wire going to the shutters.
Round the corner was the original 19th century fort - it's quite a ruin so wasn't of that much interest to us, but I'm sure others would enjoy it! It's similar construction to other forts in the area like Fort Hermann, and does have a small section of its own unlined tunnels.
Anyway, backtracking a bit to the cliff behind the fort and we found the entrance to the underground complex! The entryway was an unlined tunnel
Leading through to a central area with one very large room and various smaller rooms, many of them labelled in Italian with things like "infirmary" and "command post"
There was a little bit of electrical gear left round here, but the complex is mostly rather stripped
From this central area, passages and staircases lead off to the various emplacements. In the end, we only checked out the emplacements on the central level, as we knew how far down the lowest level was, and the staircase to the highest level was looking a bit rickety. Most of the stairs were just this
And then looking out through one of the emplacements. The central level had 2 of them, if I remember rightly.
Moving back to the central area and then directly away from the entrance, a staircase led up to another unlined area, with a small cave and then another entrance to the complex (no photos of this unfortunately!).
All in all, a nice afternoon out on holiday, definitely worth a visit if you're in the area!
The main part that you'll read about online is the rather ruined 19th century fort on top of the hill, but we were much more interested in the 1930s tunnels and emplacements added underneath.
History from thewalkofpeace.com:
On a rocky hill on the east side of the village Malborghetto/Naborjet/Malborgeth, the Austrians began building a fort in 1808 which, however, had not been completed by the arrival of the Napoleonic troops in May 1809. It was captured and burned by the French on 17 May, and most of the Austrian defenders were killed, including Captain Friedrich Hensel. Only a few managed to escape. The French continued their march from Malborghetto towards Carinthia, while part of them headed towards the fort below Predel, where Captain Johann Hermann von Hermannsdorf was still holding back French troops that were advancing towards Carinthia along the Soča Valley.
Because the border with the Kingdom of Italy was very close and because of increasing tensions, the Austrians built a new Hensel Fort In Malborghetto in 1866 and modernized it in 1881‒1884. This fort was of strategic importance to the Austrians, as it not only defended the passage to Carinthia, but also protected the railway in Tarvisio/Trbiž/Tarvis, which proved to be very important during World War I.
At the outbreak of World War I, the Hensel Fort, which was part of the Carinthian Forts, was already out-of-date. Knowing that the Italians would shell it from the Val Dogna area, the Austrians removed, one by one, their guns from the fort. The first explosion took place on 12 June 1915, when a construction shed with 800 shells was hit by the Italians. The fort proper was not damaged at the time, but there was a huge explosion and a forest fire which the Austrians had to fight for several hours. The shelling intensified. In the first eight days, the Austrians counted up 1,000 explosions of Italian shells. By mid-August 1915, more than 4,500 shells had been fired at the fort, about 200 of which had hit the facility. On 26 March 1916, the Austrians removed the last gun from the fort.
In the 1930s, the Italians caved the Alpine Wall forts into the rock under the ruins of the fort. After World War II, they were modernized for the purposes of NATO and finally abandoned at the end of the 20th century.
As soon as we'd parked the car, we found the lower emplacements at the bottom of the hill. As far as we could tell, the fort had 3 levels of emplacements, with the entrance on the middle level. Note the shutters covering the embrasure - more on those soon!
After a long trek up the hill, we came across the 2nd level of emplacements. The shutters are in much better condition here, and you can see that they're made to look like the surrounding rock. Not something I've seen on a fort before, although I'm sure this can't be the only example! Inside each emplacement was a hand-crank with a wire going to the shutters.
Round the corner was the original 19th century fort - it's quite a ruin so wasn't of that much interest to us, but I'm sure others would enjoy it! It's similar construction to other forts in the area like Fort Hermann, and does have a small section of its own unlined tunnels.
Anyway, backtracking a bit to the cliff behind the fort and we found the entrance to the underground complex! The entryway was an unlined tunnel
Leading through to a central area with one very large room and various smaller rooms, many of them labelled in Italian with things like "infirmary" and "command post"
There was a little bit of electrical gear left round here, but the complex is mostly rather stripped
From this central area, passages and staircases lead off to the various emplacements. In the end, we only checked out the emplacements on the central level, as we knew how far down the lowest level was, and the staircase to the highest level was looking a bit rickety. Most of the stairs were just this
And then looking out through one of the emplacements. The central level had 2 of them, if I remember rightly.
Moving back to the central area and then directly away from the entrance, a staircase led up to another unlined area, with a small cave and then another entrance to the complex (no photos of this unfortunately!).
All in all, a nice afternoon out on holiday, definitely worth a visit if you're in the area!
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