BATTLEFIELD

During WWI, a Jewish officer and writer Kornel Abel used the following words to describe the karst battlefield: "The karst plateau! Two words and four syllables. A term which every philistine and draft dodger already knows. Due to its everyday use, this word has lost its horrific meaning, as if people have simply grown accustomed to it. Only those, who are stuck between Monte San Michele del Carso and the Duino Cliffs, exposed to the harsh rocks and barren land; only those, who are defending their threatened homeland by using only their own bodies to block the enemy from conquering Ljubljana and Trieste, only they know that these four syllables give the right title to the heartbreakingly brave song of humanity.

A sea of rocks, several kilometres long, extends from the edge of the plateau and deep into the hinterland. As if the ground had armour. The stones resemble mussel farms. The rocks display white cracks, created during the explosions of grenades. In the impoverished oases of karst valleys, the ground is completely rutted, like in vineyards. The grassy hillsides are scraped and sunken. Every tree trunk in the battered forest is wounded with shrapnel. Deep ruts run throughout the forest."

The karst landscape, as described in this excerpt, can still be seen today, especially in the Gorizia karst area (which was a natural defence for the Austrians until 9 August 1916) or in the area around Mt Grmada (which resisted all attacks of the Italian Army). For those who are interested in history, numerous walking paths, some crossing the Italian-Slovenian border, run along these historical places and present the history of the Isonzo Front, one of the bloodiest battlefields of WWI.