Title:AMID SNOW AND ICE ON MOUNT TONALE [Main Title]
Film Number:IWM 459
Other titles:
Summary: Italian official film of the Italian Front just before their final offensive of June-July 1918.
Description: (Reel 1) Food, fodder and equipment are unloaded at a railhead freightyard, and put into motorised and horse-drawn vehicles for the trip up to Mount Tonale and the River Piave valley. The convoys move along the mountain road through small villages to the snowline, where Alpini are resting and a siege gun, probably a Mortier de 220mm TR Mle 1916, is firing. An aerial cableway takes the load up above the snowline. From Austrian positions captured on 25th May it is possible to see up into the peaks and down into the Camonica valley to the village of Ponte di Legno. (Reel 2) Alpini carry dismantled Maxim machine guns and mountain guns up to their positions where they reassemble and fire them. A senior officer (General Cadorna ?) and his staff cross a rope bridge over a crevasse to their command post. A light railway track, taking flatcars pulled by mules, has been built over the snow, in some cases tunnelling through it. Other transport includes dog sledges and skis. Giant mortars, of the conventional 'stovepipe' shape but 2-3 metres long, bombard the Austrian positions, with the Mortier de 220mm (?) joining in. Alpini in position wearing snow suits, on Mount Presena and "hill 2921" where they have captured Austrian mountain guns, rifles and stores. Austrian prisoners come down from the mountain under escort, are fed and marched down again to the collecting station.
