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On the Sette Comuni Plateau, where the Austrians were advancing against Asiago, they began operations against the Italian positions on Monte Cengio and Campo Niulo. On June 1, 1916, however, the Austro-Hungarians in the Arsiero region captured Monte Barro and gained a firm footing on the south bank of the Posina torrent.
Things were no better in the Sette Communi on the right, but west of Pasubio the Italians stopped the Austrian advance in the pass of Buole on 30 May. On the same day, however, they had to evacuate Arsiero and Asiago, south of the Sette Communi. But by now Cadorna had got his reinforcements, and on 3 June he announced that the Austrian offensive was checked.
They probably saw the Venetian plain through gaps in the hills, but they were still separated from it even at Arsiero by what are mountains to an English eye, mountains as high as Snowdon.
The Italian posts were then in Austrian territory; they held on the left wing and the right, but they were driven by the sheer weight of men and guns in the centre; they lost guns and prisoners because of the difficulty of mountain retreats to which I have alluded, and the Austrians pouring through reached not indeed the plain of Venetia, but to the upland valleys immediately above it, to Asiago and Arsiero.
Besides accomplishing their advance in the Val Sugana, the Austrians continued the reduction of the forts protecting Arsiero, well across the Italian frontier on the way toward Vicenza. Arsiero is the terminus of a railway leading down into the Vicenza plain and the city of Vicenza.
Thus on May 27, 1916, the Austrians not only captured a fortification at Coronolo, west of Arsiero, and also a barricade in the Assa Valley, southwest of Monte Interrotto, but also carried their offensive further toward the west until it included the northern end of Lake Garda. Again on May 28, 1916, the Italians had to give way.
As the month of May drew to its end, the Austrian advance spread steadily. By May 23, 1916, the Austrians had occupied north of the Sugana Valley the ridge from Salubio to Borgo. On the frontier ridge south of the valley the Italians were driven from Pompeii Mountain. Further south the Italians successfully defended the heights east of the Val d'Assa and the fortified district Asiago and Arsiero.
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