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Remembered Today:

A few photos of the Italian Front in Slovenia


Simon Jones

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I've posted some photos of a my trip to the battlefields around Caporetto (Kobarid) on my blog and thought I would share a few.

slovenia-p1000723.jpg

The Battlefield museum on the Kolovrat mountain range. These positions were outflanked and surrounded by the rapid advance of Rommel and the Württemberg Mountain Battalion on the opening day of the Battle of Caporetto.

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celo-mt-svinjak-bovec-valley-p1000976.jp

Austro-Hungarian gun positions on the slopes of Mount Svinjak at Čelo, overlooking the Italian positions in the Bovec valley where the gas attack opened the Battle of Caporetto on 24 October 1917.

More here.


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Drežnica and the Soča (Isonzo) valley.

More here.

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Thanks Simon. I've just finished reading Mark Thompson's The White War, where in his final chapter he talks of the beauty of the region, so commonly remarked upon by soldiers on both sides, and particularly striking to those deployed to the Adriatic from Flanders. Your images very ably demonstrate exactly what he was talking about - what stunning views. DJM

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Thanks DJM, I also enjoyed Mark Thompson's The White War.

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Simon, these are jaw-droppingly good photographs. I suspect that even I couldn't take a bad one of those landscapes. Thank you for posting them.

Pete.

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Thanks Pete, Yes it is the landscape not my photos! I'm looking forward to going back this year.

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Thanks Pete, Yes it is the landscape not my photos! I'm looking forward to going back this year.

Au contraire mon ami. These are very nicely composed. With scenery like that I would be hard pressed to get a bizarrely sloping horizon which is one of my usual failings. I can well imagine that you would look forward to returning.

Pete.

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Thanks Simon. I love them.

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  • 2 months later...

Excellent photographs Simon! Thank you for sharing. The shot of the trench, is that original in situ or a reconstruction?

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The trenches are restorations of the originals which were bored out of the rock.

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Thank you Simon, quite amazing!

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  • 5 months later...

Hi Simon. This year I visited Kolovrat as well as fortresses Kluze & Hermann, Kobarid museum & historical walk, Javorca church, Ravelnik & Mengore Hill before heading off for Bohinj/Bled etc. The Slovenian documentation is superb, but many of the sites are looking a bit neglected.

Having caught the Italian front bug I have also visited Rovereto (Cima Capi, Nagia Grom, town sites such as il Campane dei Caduti, & Monte Corno Battisti) as well as sites in the high Dolomites from Drei Zinnen, Monte Piana & the Lagazuoi, it is case of where next ? Perhaps the Val di Sole in 2016. Others have noted the lack of a good English language guide book to this front - most are focused on the British campaigns - your photos would grace such a book - but doing the research for these visits is not a bad winter occupation.

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  • 4 months later...

Guys;

Was in Slovenija many times before I studied WW I seriously, and I probably drove thru Kobarid 10 times before I knew it was Caparetto, which I knew from Hemmingway. For many years I thought that my father had fought at the Battle of Caparetto, his flame company was there (2. Komp., Garde=Reserve= Flammenwerfer=Regiment), but he must have heard the stories he told me from his mates, as his papers show that he was back in the hospital in France from an old wound from Verdun.

Loved Slovenija. Bohinj/Bled lovely. Climbed Triglav twice.

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  • 3 years later...

 

Planning a trip to Slovenia this year and glad I found this.... not least to learn that Kobarid (which I found in guide books) is Caporetto!!!!

 

Looks like stunning scenery from your photos.

 

Now I just need to read up on that front.

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