In summer of the same year, after the first battles of the Isonzo, the Front was still blocked at Mt. Calvario. This was why in November military leaders took the hard decision to bomb the city. “First, on November the 17
th , 280 mm howitzers thundered down upon the city. From the row of abandoned and silent houses, shaken by explosions, smoke and tongues of flame rose up to the sky to the crackling sound of fire.” After the Italians took Gorizia in August 1916, Austrian troops continued to incessantly bomb the city. At the end of 28 months of war the city was devastated: 680 houses were razed to the ground, 824 were partially destroyed and 1279 were damaged. Only a few buildings survived the war intact.
