I was just wondering if any one could fill in the missing pieces about activity in Italy during 1916. While on a recent trip to Ravenna there are several churches which referenced damage done to the buildings by Austrian hand grenades during the First World War, specifically in 1916.
Ravenna is well south of Venice and I was not aware that the Austrian army advanced so far, is it true? Since the city is near the water I thought maybe there might have been a naval "siege", but all the tour books specifically reference hand grendades. Can anyone fill in the details???

Ravenna suffered Austrian air raids on at least two occasions in 1916 - 12.02.16 and 03.05.16.

Perhaps 'hand grenade' is a poor translation of 'bomb'?

Not sure of the spelling, but the Italian for hand grenade is "Bomba Mano". Lit. this means "hand bomb".

Maybe the Austrians dropped their bombs from planes by hand in 1916, and some non military specialist has done the translation?

Fascinating.

The Austrians may even have dropped hand grenades, though I suspect by 1916 the suggestion of bombs dropped by hand is more accurate.

Not Great War but the town of Ravenna was about to be reduced to rubble by a the full artillery of a Corps in 1945 when Popski of Popski's Private Army arrived to tell them his men had liberated it along with an armoured car recce unit!! 27th Lancers I think. Ravenna has some beatiful Roman art and other ancient treasures which would have been lost.

Aye
Malcolm

Thanks for the explanations. Based on the other translation errors in the book my assumption is that Italian hand bomb was translated literally as grenade. This makes more sense, and answers one of the questions that has been on my mind.
Andy

WARNING SEVERE THREAD HIJACKING! There are a lot of towns in Kentucky with names borrowed from Europe, since almost all settlers came from Britain some are not surprising, Somerset Glasgow London, Manchester but why Versailles & Paris? Why Warsaw & Cadiz? And why in the world Ravenna? I guarantee it was not because there was someone from there or who had visited there.

Here are some facts of Italian origin about Ravenna, freshly translated from an Italian colleague :
Feb 12th, 1916, first Austrian air raid on Ravenna with biplanes. In Ravenna itself, 15 people were killed; the hospital and the church "Sant'Apollinare" were hit.
Starting May 4th, for a period of 14 days, a couple of towns were bombed again, amongst them Ravenna. In this period 1 a/c was lost, 4 people were killed.

Source: www.cronologia.it/storia/a1916d.htm