Some of the land batteries had equally hard tasks. In the middle of last
November many batteries had to withstand continual attacks from the sea
by Austrian battleships of the Monarch type, escorted by destroyers,
which had been sent to the Venetian shore with the purpose of rendering
the Piave untenable. One naval battery of medium-calibre guns, commanded
successively by two brothers, fired ceaselessly, without resting, though
subjected to the fire of enemy artillery and machine guns, not only from
the front and side, but also from the Adriatic in the rear. During the
last days of the retreat, while the defense line of the Lagoons of
Venice was not yet consolidated, that battery was for a long time
isolated from every communication, without food, reinforcements, or
support, yet it did not cede one inch, it never slackened fire, and it
never asked for help. It was one of the heroic deeds of the Italian
defense between Cavazuccherina and the sea. In the afternoon of Nov. 16,
though attacked by the Austrian battleships Budapest and Wien, not only
did these same batteries protect the return of two Italian submarine
chasers which had gone out to attack the Austrian naval division, but
they effectively counterattacked the battleships and their twelve
destroyers until their return in the direction of Istria. The
battleships never attempted this attack again.