Battle of the Col Basson

Between 24 and 25 August, after an intense bombardment lasting 10 days by the Italian artillery, the infantry attack was unleashed on Col Basson. This advanced position located between the Verle and the Luserna was defended by three lines of barbed wire and with troops belonging to the 180th Austro-Hungarian Infantry Brigade, including various formations of Standschützen and the Upper Austrian Volunteer Battalion.^[1][2]

The royal army deployed, from the Vezzena pass towards the north, the Ivrea Infantry Brigade, the Val Brenta Alpini Battalion and the 63rd Bassano company, the 1st Field Artillery Group of the 41st, the Oneglia Mountain Artillery Group, the 16th Company Genius Sappers. The Treviso Infantry Brigade, a battalion of the Royal Guardia di Finanza, the 2nd Field Artillery Group and the 15th Sappers Engineers Company were deployed in the Basson-Costalta sector.

The Italian attack, conducted by the 115th regiment of the Treviso brigade commanded by lieutenant colonel Luigi Federico Marchetti, who died in the action,.^[3] it failed completely due to the lack of adequate means to overcome the fences, because the Austro-Hungarian positions, even if severely tested by the bombings of the previous days, were still efficient and directed their deadly fire on the entangled infantrymen in the networks.

Furthermore, during the attack, the Italian army used asphyxiating gas for the first time. The use of this new weapon was done in a clumsy manner, so much so that for about two hours, the Italian artillery fired on its own troops who had managed to occupy some Austrian trenches.^[4] At 6.00 in the morning of 25 August the Italians had penetrated, albeit with serious losses, into the front part of the Basson outpost, but an Austrian counterattack, led by Colonel Otto Ellison von Nidlef, allowed the Austrians to regain lost positions. For this action Ellison was decorated with the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa^[5]

The remaining Italian troops, given the impossibility of falling back to the initial positions of Monte Costesin due to the barrage from the Verle and Luserna forts and the Costalta batteries which would have mowed them down, surrendered in large numbers. Among these was Colonel Mario Riveri, who was left injured on the ground.