Over the weekend I went hiking with family and encountered an open air museum of the WWI on one of the hills where the Battles of Isonzo took place.
It’s been 107 years since the start of that war but the history is still here, reminding us that the powers on top couldn’t care less about the horror that the masses have to go through thanks to their decisions on the paper.
This area was a shelter of a Hungarian Battalion that was part of the Austro-Hungarian army sent here to combat Italian soldiers who tried to seize the territories that were promised to Italy by the Allies in the secret Treaty of London in the spring of 1915. The battles were going on for 29 months, till October 1917.
The altar in the cave is dedicated to Virgin Mary, with the enscription: “Blessed Virgin Mary, our Mother, may you protect us, your people.”
The soldiers of the Hungarian unit built an extensive system of trenches and caves inside the rock and used it as a shelter, a resting place for the wounded and they even built a chapel inside.
Total casualties of the 12 battles of Isonzo were some 300,000 on the Italian side and 200,000 on the Austro-Hungarian. The civilians in this region also suffered, either being drafted into Austro-Hungarian Army or resettled to refugee camps in Italy where they were treated as state enemies and many died of malnutrition.
The views from this plateau are stunning but the soldiers back then would surely prefer to stay home.