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In the upper Cordevole zone Italian troops, after successful mining operations, attacked Austrian positions on the Col di Lana and occupied the western ridge of Monte Ancora. The Austrian detachment occupying the trenches was mostly killed. The Italians took as prisoners 164 Kaiserjägers, including nine officers. This successful operation of the Italians was of exceptional importance.
On the Trentino front the activity of the artillery increased again on February 12, 1917, especially in the Tonale Pass, on the western slopes of Monte Zugna, in the Lagarina Valley, in the upper Travignola, and in the Cordevole Valley. In the Arsa Valley and on the upper Coalba Torrent, on the right bank of the Brenta, Austrian raids were repulsed.
In 1771, according to Wessely, the mountain-peak Piz, near Alleghe in the province of Belluno, slipped into the bed of the Cordevole, a tributary of the Piave, destroying in its fall three hamlets and sixty lives. Wessely records several other more or less similar occurrences in the Austrian Alps.
Detachments of Italian infantry on March 2, 1917, successfully raided Austrian trenches at different points, destroyed defensive works, and captured ammunition and other war material. Austrian patrols made several similar raids. On March 4, 1917, artillery activity increased noticeably on the Trentino front from the Travignola Valley to the upper Cordevole.
The Austrians shelled Caprile, in Cordevole Valley, and Cortina d'Ampezzo. On September 12, 1916, Italian Alpine troops, north of Falzarego gained possession of a position which not only commanded Travenanzes Pass, but also interrupted communications between the Travenanzes Valley and the Lagazuoi district.
In the Monte Forno zone, on the Asiago Plateau, an Austrian detachment during the night of March 15, 1917, made a surprise irruption into one of the Italian trenches, but was promptly repulsed by a counterattack. In the upper Cordevole Valley small patrol engagements occurred on the slopes of Monte Sief.
These were continued on April 23, 1917, in the Sugana Valley, where extensive movements of troops behind the Austrian lines were reported. In the upper Cordevole Valley an Austrian detachment, which attempted to penetrate one of the Italian positions in the Campo zone, was counterattacked and dispersed, abandoning some arms and munitions.
Minor encounters of infantry occurred at Serravalle, Val Lagarina, on the slopes of Monte Sief, in the upper Cordevole, near the lower Studena, at Ponteblana Fella, and on the heights of Hill 126 on the borders of the Carso Plateau. Artillery and mine-throwing engagements on the Carso Plateau and in the Wippach Valley went on day and night.
The Piz, which fell into the Cordevole, rested on a steeply inclined stratum of limestone, with a thin layer of calcareous marl intervening, which, by long exposure to frost and the infiltration of water, had lost its original consistence, and become a loose and slippery mass instead of a cohesive and tenacious bed. Protection against Avalanches.
The advance was pushed to a point where there was no possibility of the Austrians coming through, and there the Italian forces rested. Well up, toward the north, in the Dolomites there followed considerable fighting, in the Cordevole Valley particularly, for the Col di Lona, the loftiest of the mountain tops in that region.
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