12TH BATTLE OF ISONZO FREE

“Think of how many soldiers walked the same steps we’re walking and had to be carried out,” Joshua said. What this had once been strained the imagination: the road crowded with men and animals and wagons, the air rank with filth and death, the din of explosions and gunfire. Two young chamois scampered onto a boulder and watched us. Our path joined the main road, and we hiked through a bucolic scene, blue skies and grassy fields, quiet save for the sheep and the birds. Both Joshua and I had fought in Iraq, but we had never known war like this. We had all served in the military, Chris as a Navy corpsman attached to the Marine Corps, and Joshua and I with the Army infantry. By mid-morning the fog and low clouds had cleared, and before us lay the battlefield, its slopes scored with trenches and stone shelters, the summits laced with tunnels where men lived like moles. “Just to pump a bunch of men up a hill to get slaughtered.”įor the next two hours our trail alternated between heady climbing on rock faces and mellow hiking along the mountain ridge. “A beautiful piece of engineering, but what a wasteful need,” said Chris Simmons, the third member of our group. Just below us a narrow road skirted the mountainside, the Italians’ Road of 52 Tunnels, a four-mile donkey path, a third of which runs inside the mountains, built by 600 workers over ten months in 1917. Had they reached the Venetian plain, they could have marched on Venice and encircled much of the Italian Army, breaking what had been a bloody yearlong stalemate.

In the spring of 1916, the Austrians swept down through these mountains.

“We’re in one of the most beautiful places in the world,” he said, “and one of the most horrible.” Joshua Brandon gazed at the surrounding peaks and took a swig of water.

The previous night we had slept near the ossuary, along a country road where cowbells clanged softly and lightning bugs blinked in the darkness like muzzle flashes. We could see the Pasubio Ossuary, a stone tower that holds the remains of 5,000 Italian and Austrian soldiers who fought in these mountains in World War I. Sheep bleated in a meadow, and a shepherd called to them. We scaled the 50 feet of steel rungs, stopping every ten feet or so to clip our safety tethers to metal cables that run alongside.Ī half-hour in, our faces slick with sweat, we rested on an outcropping that overlooked a valley carpeted with thick stands of pine and fir. To reach the battlefield we would trek several miles along this via ferrata, or iron road, pathways of cables and ladders that traverse some of the most stunning and otherwise inaccessible territory in the mountains of northern Italy. A curious ladder of U-shaped steel rungs was fixed to the rock. On December 7 at 9pm CET founder and creative director Jos (BlackMill Games) & producer Thomas will hold an AMA (ask me anything)! You can submit your question in our Discord in the ama channel.Just after dawn we slipped into the forest and hiked a steep trail to a limestone wall. Would you like to have some intel before you join Caporetto’s battlefield? In our latest devblog, we discussed and shared images of this new map! Never hurts to take (another) look and prepare yourself for battle! To celebrate this release, Isonzo will be on sale with a 20% discount on Steam, however you can also find Isonzo on Epic, PlayStation & Xbox. The Royal Units Pack holds over 40+ items, introducing the distinctive uniforms of 2 major states within the 'Deutsches Reich': Bavaria and Württemberg, along with other items such as headgear, facial hair, pipes and more! The German Empire will be playable on the Caporetto map (and more in the future), have their own weaponry and cosmetic pack! Join the infamous 12th Battle of the Isonzo in our game, now with the German Empire as a playable faction.

12TH BATTLE OF ISONZO FREE

The free Caporetto Expansion for Isonzo is now live!

12th battle of isonzo