Fort Lisser was a military fortress built to defend the Italian border against the Austro-Hungarian Empire (along the border line that today lies between the province of Vicenza and Trentino), at an altitude of 1,633 meters, on the summit of the mountain of the same name. The fort is located in the municipality of Enego, in the province of Vicenza.
History
The fort was built between the end of 1911 and 1914 under the direction of Engineering Major Antonio Dal Fabbro. The structure was part of the Brenta-Cismon Barrier and was intended to block access to eastern Valsugana in case of enemy attack. However, due to its distance from the front line, like Fort Cima Lan and Fort Leone, it was partially disarmed at the beginning of the conflict.
In May 1916, during the Spring Offensive, it was partially rearmed with batteries positioned outside the main structure. On June 2, 1916, the fort’s batteries—two turrets were still armed—opened fire on the Imperial troops, the 27th Infantry Regiment and the 2nd Regiment from Bosnia-Herzegovina, who were attacking the Melette area. However, the shots were too short and, as eyewitness Emilio Lussu wrote in his memoir A Year on the Plateau, hit their own lines.
Lussu wrote: “All our artillery had fallen into enemy hands: we had none left, not even a single piece, on the entire Plateau. Only from Fort Lisser, an old fort dismantled since 1915, two 149 mm guns kept firing—and always on our own men. A few days later, that fort was nicknamed by our war correspondents the ‘Lion of the Plateau.’”
The fort was damaged a few days later, on June 8, 1916, at 12:20 p.m., when it was hit by several 305 mm shells. One of them struck the battery block from the side but did not explode. With the end of the offensive and the Austro-Hungarian retreat to more rearward positions, the fort again found itself far from the front lines.
On November 13, 1917, during the Second Battle of the Melette—triggered by events following the breakthrough on the Isonzo front—the fort was occupied by the 3rd Battalion of the Austro-Hungarian 81st Infantry Regiment without encountering any resistance, as the Italians had abandoned it just hours earlier. It remained in imperial hands and was used as an ammunition and supply depot until the end of the war.
After the war, the fort was removed from the military estate and sold to private owners. In the 1990s, it was purchased by the Municipality of Enego, which restored it.
