reserve of the Third Army on the lower Piave river: 1st Group: IV, V, XII cyclist battalions 2nd Group: II, X, XI cyclist battalions 3rd Group: I, VII, VIII cyclist battalions 4th Group: III, VI, IX cyclist battalions In April and May 1918 the 1st and 2nd Group were assigned to the 1st, respectively the 7th Army to defend the Western, respectively the Eastern shore of Lake Garda from possible Austro-Hungarian amphibious landings. By June all four groups had returned to the 3rd Army and were assigned to the army's corps as mobile reserve (1st Group to XI Corps, 2nd Group to XXVIII Corps, 3rd Group as army reserve, 4th Group to XXIII Corps). On 24 June 1918 the 2nd and 4th group and the II, VI, IX, and X battalions were disbanded and with their troops the Cyclist Assault Reserve Battalion formed. This battalion was assigned to the Assault Army Corps (Corpo d'Armata d'Assalto), which consisted of Bersaglieri and Arditi troops. The surviving III and XI cyclist battalions were assigned to 1st, respectively the 2nd Assault Division of the same carmy corps. The two remaining groups, the 1st and 3rd, left the 3rd Army on 16 October 1918 and were assigned for the last offensive of the war to the 1st, respectively 4th Cavalry division. Autonomous Battalions During World War I the Bersaglieri regiments raised a number of battalions, which were not attached to a regiment and designated as "autonomous battalions". At the same time seven battalions of pre-war regiments, which were deployed to the Italian colonies, became autonomous and were replaced in their regiments by newly raised battalions. The 1st Bersaglieri Regiment was deployed to Italian Libya and its three battalions became autonomous in February 1916 when the regimental command returned to the mainland. Of the autonomous battalions raised during the war only the LII and LV battalions remaining autonomous and active for the entire duration of the conflict. During the war a number of battalions of existing regiments became autonomous either for geographic reasons (battalion deployed to the colonies) or organizational reasons (regimental command disbanded). The following table gives an overview of these battalions: Machine Gunner Companies At the outbreak of war each infantry and Bersaglieri battalion of the Italian Army fielded one machine gun section with two Maxim 1911 machine guns carried by horses. After the outbreak of the war this proved quickly to be inadequate