Our journey goes on! The point is that we don’t know – again – where we are. Yesterday, my friend Mauro suggested that the road may be the Enego one, which means that the column accessed the Asiago plateau from East. Let’s hope that today’s photograph will help us to identify the stages of this journey. I suppose the village we can see in the background is the first one seen by our soldier on the plateau.
This picture gives you an idea of the journey of our German soldiers to the Italian front. Logically, we should in some valley leading to the Altopiano of Asiago, in the north-west of this region. Indeed the convoys came from the region of Trento. Maybe some of my Italian readers will help me to understand where this photograph was shot?
A hint may help us to identify the location: on the roof of the buildings, there is a date: 1906, probably the construction date.
Another testimony of the journey of a Bavarian soldier to the Italian front in 1916. We’ve seen yesterday and the day before the spectacular mountain roads of this region. They were indeed very challenging ones and there were several accidents. Today’s photograph shows one of these: this truck went on fire. Did it have engine problems? We’ll probably never know. Soldiers are throwing sand with their shovel to extinguish the fire. Note the face of the man with a dark great coat and the dirty face: he seems to be shocked; he might be the driver. In the background, we can see another truck of the column and the preoccupied faces of its crew. They had been lucky until now; would they arrive safe and sound to their destination?
Another view of a mountain road during the journey of a German soldier on the Italian front in 1916… Thanks to the legend, we know that this place is the valley of Mattarello, a little town which is located some kms south of Trento. This means that the column, from Trento, didn’t take the Fresina Road (see previous post) at the N-E of Trento, but the southern road, which leads to the Asiago Plateau too. Did this soldier come back and forth from the front to the supply depot and took different roads? We’ll probably never know. Did you notice that the truck which follows the photographer is the VI 2190 one spotted yesterday?
Fifth stage of our journey: the trucks have left the station of Lavis (Tyrol), a little town located some kms north of Trento. The column is on the Fersinastrasse, the Fersina road, which leads to the Valsugana Valley and the Asiago Altipiano from North. Such mountains road were built by engineers corps and allowed the transport of huge quantities of men and supplies during the war. The truck has a ID number: VI 2190. Keep it in mind, because we’ll see again this truck in other photographs!
This scene was photographed probably a few minutes/hours after the one shown yesterday: the light poles are indeed identical and the profile of the mountains is the same. We’re still in Lavis (Tyrol), in June 1916. The German trucks have been disembarked from the train, and are now ready to receive their load. Lots of bags are brought by Austrian soldiers, while the German crews are preparing their trucks for the journey.
Here’s a detail of the previous picture: the weight of the bags doesn’t seem to high, as the bearer on the left wears it on his shoulders only. These bags may contain mais, as indicated by the writing on the bag of the middle, even if I am not 100% sure of my interpretation.
The third stage of the journey of our German soldier (if you’ve missed the first posts about this journey, you can have a look here and there) … The column stops in Lavis (Tyrol) and the vehicles are disembarked from the train, and then checked by their crews, as you can notice on the right side of the picture. I am a bit puzzled by the vehicle on the left of the image: it looks like a kind of bus. Did it belong to the unit?
