Battle of Hill 383
The Battle of Hill 383 was a military engagement between the armies of Austria-Hungary and Italy on the Italian front of World War I, lasting from June 1915 to May 1917. The battle took place on a hill later called Mount Prižnica, located across the river Soča from the town of Plave in Austria-Hungary. The Italian and Austro-Hungarian armies clashed for two years in an attempt to occupy it. The fighting was continuing for the next two years, until Mount Prižnica was taken by Italians during the Tenth Battle of the Isonzo.
Background
After 23 May 1915, when Austro-Hungarian empire declared war on Italy, Italian High Command led by general Luigi Cadorna planned the first offensive actions on the hard mountain terrain on the Austro-Hungarian-Italian border. As one of the targets they chose Austrian-held Poggio Montanari hill on the border south Austria. This hill, termed Hill 383, was meant as a first step towards taking the nearby Mount Kuk, then Gorizia and the Banjšice Plateau. To the Italians, Hill 383 was a key objective to take in the beginning of the war.To impress the Italian king Victor Emmanuel III, Cadorna invited the monarch for a visit on the front, where he could present him a spectacular Italian victory. During an inspection of the front lines by the king, General Cadorna decided to offer him the spectacle of the conquest of Hill 383, so he prepared an observatory set up on Mount Korada at altitude of 800 meters. Forces chosen for attack were also from 2nd Army Corps commanded by General Gustavo Reisoli. The defenses were commanded by Major General Guido Novak von Arienti.
Battle
On the evening of June 9, 1915, two battalions of the Ravenna Brigade of the 3rd Division crossed the Isonzo river on a pontoon bridge, establishing a bridgehead on the eastern bank, and began the climb up the hill. The wooded terrain was defended by a single company of 200 Austrian riflemen from the 1st Mountain Brigade of the 18th Infantry Division. The Italian assault was quickly crushed by accurate rifle and machine gun fire, and the assault was postponed until the next day.On June 10, the Italian artillery began a heavy bombardment of the enemy area; at 9:30 pm, after sunset, the entire Ravenna Brigade of the 3rd Division, composed of 6000 men, assaulted the Austro-Hungarian defenders of Hill 383. The defenders managed to repel the assault up the now-bare hillside. The Austro-Hungarian lines were then reinforced with a battalion from the 22nd Regiment of Croat and Serb soldiers from Dalmatia.
On June 12, the Italians tried to attack again with six battalions to challenge the Austro-Hungarian resistance; the soldiers reached the slopes of the mountain undisturbed and while they were crossing the first line of wire fences, they were surprised on open ground by machine guns and were forced to a hasty retreat towards the river. Having reached the banks of the Isonzo, the Italian soldiers were surprised by a fire support of the Austro-Hungarian armored train brought from Gorizia, which targeted them with its cannons and machine guns; under this crossfire the Italian units left over a thousand dead on the ground.
On June 16, after another highly costly assault, the Italians captured the summit, with soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the 43rd Division raising the Italian flag over the battlefield. Early on the morning of the 17th, after the Italian soldiers had celebrated and went to sleep, the Austro-Hungarian forces counter-attacked, re-taking the hill.
On June 17 he had 6 regiments of veterans of the "Ravenna" and "Forlì" brigades and of the "La Spezia" special corps brigade transferred beyond the Isonzo, watched by Cadorna, Victor Emmanuel and the other members of Italian General Staff. Cadorna declared to the king, then Italians will take this height at any cost. The following assault on a completely exposed and uphill terrain against the Austrian machine gun nests caused thousands of Italian soldiers found death in relentless actions.
After 4 of the 6 regiments having completely lost in the clash, Cadorna decided to interrupt the assault and contented himself with digging his most advanced line about 300 meters from the Austrian lines. In a few days, officially on 23 June 1915, the First Battle of the Isonzo started, as the first main military acton on the Italian World War I theatre. Battle also de facto opened the so-called White War warfare, where Austro-Hungarians and Italians were fighting in a steep and high-altutude terrain of the Alps and the Dolomites.