Great Britain was anxious to deny Central Powers access to the Italian peninsula and consequent threat to Allied navies in the Mediterranean, and so offered substantial inducements to persuade Italy into alliance by the secret Pact of London of 26 April 1915. But the Italian Army had lost much artillery in a colonial adventure in 1911 – 1913 and declared neutrality, hoping to gain her territorial ambitions by diplomacy. In 1882 Germany had imposed on these two traditional enemies a tripartite mutual defence alliance and so it was expected that Italy would join the Central Powers at the outbreak of the First World War. Italy had only become a united kingdom in the mid-nineteenth century, and in 1914 Austro-Hungary still occupied the “Italia irredenta” (Unredeemed Italy) regions to the north and east of Venice, which had been lost in Napoleonic times. Why did Italy enter the war?Īt first Italy was neutral, but its ancient enmity with Austro-Hungary was never far from the surface. The decisive battles took place in the lowlands and foothills but the Italian Front will be remembered for the extreme fighting conditions in the high mountains. Although it led to a huge number of casualties – over two million altogether – it was effectively a stalemate, with Italy and Austro-Hungary facing each other across the north-eastern borders of Italy for three years. Geographically, the Italian Front was a continuation of the Western Front south of neutral Switzerland. All rights reserved.Austro-Hungarian troops on the Vršič Pass in modern Slovenia, October 1917 (Source: Wikipedia) These results suggest the opportunity of more extended spatial monitoring of Hg 0 fluxes particularly in the croplands covering most of the Isonzo River alluvial plain and where bare soils are frequently disturbed by agricultural practices and directly exposed to radiation.Ĭinnabar Flux chamber Gaseous Hg fluxes Hg mining Soil contamination Vegetation.Ĭopyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. Finally, vegetation cover effectively reduced Hg 0 releases in summer (∼9-68%) and autumn (∼41-78%), whereas the difference between fluxes from vegetated and bare soils was not evident during winter dormancy due to scarce soil shading. In summer and autumn significant correlations were observed between Hg 0 fluxes and soil Hg content (78-95% cinnabar), whereas this relationship was not observed in winter likely due to relatively low emissions found in morning measurements in all sites coupled with low temperatures. Overall, Hg 0 fluxes tracked the incident UV radiation during the sampling periods with daily averages significantly higher in summer (62.4 ± 14.5-800.2 ± 178.8 ng m -2 h -1) than autumn (15.2 ± 4.7-280.8 ± 75.6 ng m -2 h -1) and winter (16.9 ± 7.9-187.8 ± 62.7 ng m -2 h -1) due to higher irradiation and temperature, which favoured Hg reduction reactions. Moreover, topsoils were analysed for organic matter content and Hg total concentration and speciation. Measurements were performed in summer, autumn, and winter both on bare and grass-covered soil plots at regular time intervals during the diurnal period. In this work, Hg 0 fluxes at the soil-air interface were evaluated using a non-steady state flux chamber coupled with a real-time Hg 0 analyser at 6 sites within the Isonzo River plain. The alluvial plain of the Isonzo River (NE Italy) suffered widespread Hg contamination due to the re-distribution of Hg-enriched material discharged by historical cinnabar mining at the Idrija mine (Slovenia), but an assessment of Hg 0 releases from the soils of this area is still lacking. High amounts of mercury (Hg) can be released into the atmosphere from soil surfaces of legacy contaminated areas as gaseous elemental mercury (Hg 0).
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