THE TWO WORLD WARS
Our facility is located in a strategic position to easily reach the main sites of the of the two World Wars.
It is therefore also perfect for people travelling to visit such places, such as groups, including students.
Discover the history of the Great War in Friuli! Explore the places and stories that have marked our region during this historical period, on a journey through memory and culture.
In
our municipality, San Giorgio di Nogaro, there was the most important field
hospital, called Universitità Castrense.
At the
outbreak of the war, San Giorgio di Nogaro was a strategic location in the
lower Friulian plain. The Italian Army recognized the importance of its
geographical position. In fact, it was an obligatory stop for goods entering
and leaving Italy, also thanks to the railway station along the Trieste-Venice
line. Thanks to these characteristics, in 1915 the municipality became a
military storage center for grain, ammunition, military vehicles and clothing,
and dormitories for soldiers and command and control offices were built here.
The town became a war logistics center, also in terms of health services with
the birth of the Field Medical School. Thus, at the end of 1915, the Supreme
Command suggested the construction of a military Medical School on the Friulian
front, to make up for the huge losses (almost 170,000 soldiers) of the royal
army, caused by enemy attacks and the lack of doctors in the war zone.
On the
Karst plateau, Italians and Austro-Hungarians fought twelve battles between
1915 and 1917 in which hundreds of thousands of men lost their lives in the
trenches dug into the bare Karst rock, between the peaks of the Julian Alps and
the Carnic Alps and during the retreat following the defeat of Caporetto.
All these
events can be rediscovered today thanks to the open-air museums and itineraries
of the Great War, exciting walks in the midst of natural landscapes. where you
can relive the life of the soldiers, you can walk along the trenches, admire
the military constructions and visit the battle sites, shrines, ossuaries and
war cemeteries of this gigantic conflict.
Leopoldo
Pavan, a civilian motorist who worked for the Guardia di Finanza Brigade of
Marano Lagunare, received the first volley of rifle fire from the Austrians at
1:30 p.m. on May 23, 1915, effectively opening the hostilities of the Great
War.
The first cannon shot of the First World War was
fired by the destroyer Zefiro, commanded by Arturo Ciano, on the night of May
23, 1915 at 11:15 p.m.: it entered Porto Buso and fired a series of cannon
shots against the Austrian border barracks, taking forty-seven prisoners and
one victim.
