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The troops attacked en masse, and at the same time attacks were made from the Adige to the Val Sugana. Four onslaughts were made on Zugna Torta. Our machine guns cut down the blue masses of men; the wire entanglements were heaped with dead. The bombardment had destroyed all the first-line trenches. The infantry then hurled itself against the advance posts of the Val Terragnolo.
The Italians had never been able to push forward their lines on either side of this salient. Biaena blocked the way on the west, and the advance east of Vallarsa was held up by the formidable group of fortifications on the Folgaria Plateau. When the Austrians attacked Zugna Torta, under cover of a converging artillery fire, the position quickly became untenable.
When he decides that it is prepared for washing, the mass is transported to an immense washing machine, which is propelled by water, where the base substances are all washed from the amalgam, and then the amalgam is resolved into its original elements of silver and quicksilver by fire, as already explained, with the loss of about seventy-five to one hundred pounds of mercury upon each torta.
Zugna Torta, the ridge running down upon Rovereto, between Val Lagarina and Vallarsa, was a dangerously exposed salient. The western slopes were commanded by the fire of the Austrian artillery positions at Biaena, north of More, on the western side of Val Lagarina, and the rest of the position lay open to Ghello and Fenocchio, east of Rovereto.
The ores from the Rosario shaft of the Hakal mine of Pachuca are here stamped and ground, and then thrown into a furnace, after having been mixed with lime, which in fire increases the heat; while upon the open torta we shall see that lime is used to cool the mass. This is cast out at the bottom of the furnace.
The enemy infantry here attacking were annihilated and the enemy dead filled the valleys, but fresh troops swarmed up from all parts. "Night fell on the first day's slaughter." The following day, May 16, 1916, the Austrians attacked again the Italian positions on the northern slopes of the Zugna Torta in the Lagarina Valley in five assaults.
In the same way is poured out the semi-liquid paste. This is called a torta, and contains about 45,000 lbs. The mules are then turned upon the bed, and for a single day it is mixed most thoroughly together by tramping and by turning it over by the shovel. On the second day 750 lbs. of quicksilver are added to the torta, and then the tramping is resumed.
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