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On the left wing, overcoming stubborn resistance, Italian troops scaled the crest of Monte Cosmagnon, whose northerly ridges they shelled to drive out the enemy hidden among the rocks. On the Sette Comuni Plateau they kept in close contact with Austrian positions. Conflicts in the densely wooded and rocky ground were carried on chiefly by hand grenades.
"The fighting all took place on the rolling surface of the Cosmagnon Alps closed in by the barrage fire on both sides under the dazzling sky, but with the world below completely shut off by Monte Pasubio's crown of clouds. Shrapnel and shell disappeared in the ocean of clouds."
Between the Adige and the Brenta the Italians continued their offensive vigorously on July 1, 1916. In the Vallarsa infantry began an attack on the lines strongly held by the Austrians between Zugna Torta and Foppiano. Italian artillery shelled Fort Pozzacchio. On Monte Pasubio the Austrians were offering stubborn resistance from their fortified positions between Monte Spil and Monte Cosmagnon.
The Italians occupied the Valmorbia line, in the Vallarsa, the southern slopes of Monte Spil, and began an offensive to the northwest of Pasubio, in the Cosmagnon region. Farther east on the line of the Posina Valley, the Italians took Monte Maggio, the town of Griso, northwest of Monte Maggio; positions in the Zara Valley and Monte Scatolari and Sogliblanchi.
A special correspondent of the London "Times" describes the fighting around Monte Pasubio in the Trentino, which has already been mentioned in the preceding pages, as follows: "When the tide of the Austrian invasion rolled back at the end of June, 1916, its margin became fixed on the crest of the Pasubio, an enormous and irregular group of mountains, of which the Italians remained in possession of the highest peak, but all the northern summits and the top of the whole central ridge called the Cosmagnon Alps remained to the enemy.
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