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From my lofty perch 8,900 feet above sea level in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, the view is spectacular. Towering peaks frame an idyllic Alpine valley, with deep-green pine forests and golden foothills.
It’s hard to believe that just 90 or so years ago, during World War I, these mountains were wracked by violence: explosions blew off summits and shrapnel pierced tree trunks. Even now, the ground is littered with bits of barbed wire and other debris from the conflict.
Thanks to a network of fixed climbing routes installed during the war, this breathtaking vista and history-rich area is accessible to anyone, not just experienced climbers. The routes, rigged with cables and ropes, were developed by troops as supply lines, to haul gear up the mountains. After the war, mountaineers appropriated them, creating what’s known as the Via Ferrata, or “Iron Way.”
My climbing partner, Joe Wilcox, and I chose September, the end of the climbing season, to explore the routes. We based ourselves in Cortina d’Ampezzo, a ski village with cobbled streets, small inns and chic shops—and the setting for the 1956 Winter Olympics and the 1963 movie The Pink Panther.
The gear list for climbing the Via Ferrata is short: a waist harness, helmet and Y-shaped rig of short ropes. The tops of the rig end in carabiners—metal rings with spring-hinged sides that open and close—which clip onto a permanent metal cable bolted to the mountain. The cable is the climber’s lifeline. The carabiner-free end ties to the harness.
Electrical storms kept us from climbing the first day, so we took a cable car up a nearby peak, 9,061-foot Lagazuoi. When Italy declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire in May 1915, this border area of South Tyrol was under Austro-Hungarian rule. To more easily defend the region, Austrian troops moved from valley towns like Cortina to a line of fortifications on Lagazuoi and other peaks, forming the “Dolomite front.” Both sides built supply lines up the mountains.
On the night of October 18, 1915, Italian soldiers scaled Lagazoui’s east flank to a ledge midway up the mountain. Under the ledge, the soldiers were protected from Austrian guns above and able to fire on Austrian trenches below. The Austrians tried dangling soldiers from the top of the mountain armed with grenades to toss on the Italians encamped on the ledge, with little success. With both sides stymied by not being able to directly reach the other, the war went underground.
From the summit of Lagazuoi, Joe and I walked east to a tunnel complex inside the mountain dug by Italian soldiers during the war. Both the Austrians and the Italians tunneled, to create bunkers, lookout positions and mine shafts under enemy bunkers, which would be filled with dynamite and detonated. Five major explosions rocked Lagazuoi from 1915 to 1917, turning its south face into an angled jumble of scree, wood scraps, rusted barbed wire and the occasional human bone.
A beautifully crafted, stirring piece of writing.
Posted by Danny Glasner on September 2,2008 | 12:09PM
My grand-father fought during these days in the Dolimiti, on the Italian side, and I can still remember the stories, and enjoy the photographs. Then in my years when in summer we went in the same Dolomiti, campings and around the mountain trails I could find traces of their battles. How many memories !
Posted by Fiorenza Albert-Howard on September 4,2008 | 02:44PM
Nice digging! What a fascinating front line, reminds me of India and Pakistan in Kashmir today. I wonder why Italian's chiseled up and Austrians dug down?
Posted by Justin Nobel on September 4,2008 | 05:14PM
Beautifully written, delivers a great sense of place and history.
Posted by Diane Rooney on September 5,2008 | 08:48AM
Thank you for this fine description of a forgotten element in a forgotten war. I am pass President of The Great War Society (www.worldwar1.com/tgws/) in which we specialize in all aspects of a war which is still influencing our current times. I climbed the Dolomites when I was in Italy in the early 60's which at that time had little interest in WWI. Since then, my facination with the war led me to our Society. The Italian front is the least known of the conflict and your description illustrates the incredible odds in fighting not only with a human enemy but a more powerful one, nature. Thanks for the information.
Posted by Sqlvatore Compagno on September 5,2008 | 10:03AM
I was fascinated by this story. My father was a young soldier in the Italian army at the time of this struggle, but he seldom spoke to me about WW I. There is a lot I don't know about this period of his life, but I do know he was badly wounded and spent a year and a half in captivity before escaping. My mother confided to me that "Pop" often would awaken at night in the early years of their marriage screaming at some horror that haunted him. I'm sure the tunnels of Lagazuoi had their share of horrors as well.
Posted by John Del Cecato on September 5,2008 | 03:12PM
my father was part of the 1 world war,in artillery outfit,my uncle giorgio varchetta was aboard a( mas) boat under commander luigi rizzo when they sunk the battleship st,st efano im the bermuda port,i was in world war2 with the 88 mechanizes cavllry recon troop 88 div, based in the spessa castle near cormons.in a visit to italy 1978 we rivisitedthe castle and the national military italian redipuglia museum where my uncle giorgio and commsnder rizzo posed for a picture after the sinking of the battleship st stefano.i was born in brooklyn and returned to it ,lived there to 1961 and moved to seaford were i reside now.your story was very interesting and reminded me of some memories. gennaro grimaldi
Posted by gennaro grimaldi on September 6,2008 | 07:02AM
it was quite interesting reading
Posted by bill on September 8,2008 | 09:47PM
Amazing pictures! Interesting history. Thanks.
Posted by Ruth on September 23,2008 | 04:56PM
Living into this present age, I recall the stories my father told me about his time in the WWI during his duties as a soldier in the Italian Army. He fought in the battles of the Carsso, the Piave, and the Tagliamento, and other skirmishes with the Austro-Hungarian and German Armies during the many months that these armies occupied the homeland of northeast Italy. The battle of the Piave was on a par with that of the battle of Verdun. That war too was a massive war and it's all too easy to forget about those who fought and died and the accomplishments of those who participated in WWI. My memory can conjure up just a few of the episode my father once told to me but given some time I may recall a few more. I followed in my father's footsteps by joining in the forces of WWII with the U.S. Navy. Norge J. Santin
Posted by Norge J. santin on September 28,2008 | 12:06PM