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An Austrian attack at Gabria, northwest of Tolmino, had a like result, the Austrians suffering appreciable losses. On April 29, 1917, an Austrian detachment entered one of the advanced Italian positions at Tonale Pass in the Camonica Valley. Notwithstanding a violent barrage fire from the Austrian batteries, Italian reenforcements at once reoccupied the position.
But the latter had fortified it so well that all attempts of their opponents to dislodge them failed. Considerable further fighting also occurred during the second half of April, 1916, and the first half of May, 1916, in the Adamello zone, adjoining the Camonica Valley, especially in the region of the Tonale Pass. The same was true of the Tofana sector on the upper Boite.
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.
The chasseur sped lamentingly back, and Weisspriess, taking a guide from the skirting hamlet above Edolo, quitted the Val Camonica, climbed the Tonale, and reached Vermiglio in the branch valley of that name, scientifically observing the features of the country as he went. As usual, Weisspriess was pushed to assert his haughtiness, backed by the shadow of his sword.
Their hunger appeased, many sat in the sun, naked to the waist ridding themselves of vermin or lay in exhausted stupor. The stench was as revolting as the picture. "Such was the panorama all the way from Tonale Pass east, to Fucina, Male, Cles, Bolzano and south to Trent and Rovereto and along the Piave to the sea.
"For more than a month I have heard the monotonous, familiar, easily distinguished, never-to-be-forgotten sound of preparation of the tramp of the feet of thousands of men and mules; of the rumble of the wheels of countless moving vans, guns and wagons going back and forth in apparent utter confusion from Tonale and Aprica passes down the valley from Edelo to new assignments, necessary in the organization of the attacking army of nearly a million men.
"The front line extends from Stelvio Pass in the Ortler Alps along the then Italian-Austrian boundary to Tonale Pass to Lake Garda, thence a little south of Altissimo, Asiago, to Mt. Grappa, Corduna and along the Piave to the sea.
"After the battle the same noises and apparent confusion of the advance was repeated; of soldiers moving north by way of Tonale Pass to the front; now far in enemy country beyond the cities of Male, Cles and Bolzano to Innsbruck; of prisoners, Austrian, Hungarian and German, taken south to labor in the fields of the plain of Lombardy, or even to the Riviera to work in the quarries and upon the roads on the foothills of the Apennines, overlooking the blue Mediterranean.
An Austrian dispatch forwarded at that time from Trent tells of the violent fighting which was in progress in the zone of Monte Adamello and the Tonale Pass and gives a description of the capture by the Austrians of an unarmed mountain in this region. The preparatory bombardment was begun at three o'clock in the afternoon, the Italian guns making only a desultory reply.
One of these was a series of engagements in the Ledro Valley, southwest of Riva and west of Lake Garda. There the Italians on April 11, 1916, by systematic offensive actions, pushed their occupation of the heights north of Rio Tonale, between Concei Valley and Lake Garda.
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