Forte Mero

It stands at 1,838 metres on the northern side of the Val di Sole, above the Tonale road, between forte Saccarana and forte Presanella. In the Tonale barrier it was the connecting work: two kilometres below lies forte Strino, which the Presanella covered with its cannon but which had blind spots towards the pass, and the Mero served to defend it from an infantry attack. For this reason it was armed only with machine guns.

It was a medium-sized work in compressed concrete and iron girders, designed by the engineering lieutenant Hugo Hartmann and costing half a million crowns, completed shortly before the war. It withstood field guns but not howitzers and mortars of the same calibre.

The sources do not agree on its end: one says that the Italian artillery hit it and brought it down in 1916, and that what remained served as a field hospital for the Tonale line; another says that it was the Italian army that blew it up after 1920. In recent years it has been the subject of restoration work.