Hi everyone. I recreated the battlefield map in Google Earth Pro.

I already made a post about this before, but I noticed a few mistakes. I think this version of the map should now be more or less clearer and better.

The images show the battlefield as it appears in the game. I hope you like it. I have also included the sources below, which are in German and Italian.

The images are numbered. But I didn't wrote it onto the pictures. So you have to imagine it.

Image 00: Placeholder

Image 01: The general situation

It's not the best picture (sorry), you have to look close because the vallies are always marked with white lines.

The big question is probably why anyone would fight at more than 3,000 metres above sea level. Why did the Austrians and Italians haul tons of material up onto the Marmolada?

At the beginning of the war in 1915, neither side was particularly interested in occupying the Marmolada glacier. Both sides essentially considered it too impractical to establish permanent positions up there in the ice. This changed in early 1916, when the Austrians began occupying the glacier.

Holding the Marmolada gave the Austrians an excellent view of Italian movements and allowed them to occasionally shell Italian positions further east. Even more importantly, it allowed them to gather information and direct artillery fire from guns positioned down in the valleys much more effectively.

The Italians were understandably worried that this could threaten the flank of their positions around Col di Lana. They therefore began occupying the Serauta positions in April 1916. More on this in Image 02.

The Italians initially concentrated much of their effort on Col di Lana, whose summit was blown up on 17 April 1916, with the broader aim of advancing towards Val Badia and eventually reaching the Pustertal to the north. In theory, Innsbruck would no longer have been impossibly far away from there. However, the Austrian occupation of the Marmolada now threatened the western flank of the Italian forces which were situated at Col di Lana.

This raises the question: what were the Austrians trying to achieve?

In the image, you can see three yellow pins running from Pordoijoch via Passo di Falzarego to Sasso di Sesto/Toblinger Knoten, the location of the first battle in the game. Broadly speaking, the Austrians were trying to prevent the Italians from breaking through into the Pustertal to the north, while also maintaining control towards Bozen in the west.

The occupation of the Marmolada became part of this wider defensive situation. The Austrians had withdrawn from parts of the original border because many of their divisions were still tied down in Galicia and defending the entire border line would have overstretched their limited forces.

It is probably easiest to look at the front lines themselves. But, put simply, the Italians wanted to push the front further towards the Pustertal and ultimately towards the Brennerpass, which would have opened an important route deeper into Austria. Italian pre-war planning even considered the possibility of occupying Innsbruck, although this turned out to be a massive overestimation of what the Italian Army could realistically achieve. However, the main attack concentrated always in the east. So these plans were more fantasies then anything else.

Images 02–04: The battlefield

As already mentioned, the Italians occupied the Serauta positions. I am not entirely sure about the exact role and location of Forcella Serauta in this phase of the fighting.

They pushed further forward and occupied Quota 3065. In the game, this is the position with that annoying tunnel which is extremely difficult to capture before the fighting continues towards Forcella V, or the Fesura position.

From there, the Italians attempted to capture Quota 3153 in 1917. Eventually, a group of Alpinisti managed to reach the position by climbing up the south face and successfully captured the summit. The fighting there must have been extremely brutal.

The original plan was apparently to attack the Austrians in the Spitzenkaverne, since fire from that position threatened the Italian positions below around Passo Ombretta. However, this attack never took place.

The Austrian positions on the Marmolada were connected by caves and tunnels to the Eisstadt. The Eisstadt was located slightly west of Sasso delle Dodici and was itself connected by cableway to the main supply base at Gran Poz, which at the time lay outside the glacier. The entire Eisstadt strechted over a complex cavern system of 8 kilometers.

From there, the Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Spalte provided access towards the higher positions and the Spitzenkaverne, which appears to have been one of the most important Austrian positions in this sector. The Austrians had dug themselves into the rock there and had an excellent view over the southern side of the mountain.

Following the Italian defeat at Caporetto and the subsequent retreat towards the Piave, the entire situation on the Marmolada became obsolete. The Italians evacuated the mountain on 4 November 1917, abandoning even the hard-fought position at Quota 3153.

This differs from the game, where the fighting continues all the way to the foot of the Austrian fortifications. Once the Italians had withdrawn, there was no longer any reason for the Austrians to maintain their positions on the Marmolada either, and they also left the area.

Only after the end of the war did the entire massif become part of Italy.

The Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Spalte was probably only an actual natural crevasse as far as the first bend shown on the map. Beyond that point, the route most likely consisted of passages and tunnels beneath the glacier.

I would really appreciate any suggestions for improvements, especially regarding the exact locations of some of the positions.

I have not yet figured out how to make the Google Earth map publicly accessible, so for now the screenshots will have to do.

If you notice any major mistakes or have additional information, feel free to contact me via private message.

Otherwise — Haltetst die Schädl unten.

If you like it, I plan to map out all the maps. Next is probably the war at Sasso di Sesto.