Those snowHeads who have visited the Dolomites will probably be aware of the ferocious WW1 fighting in the mountains between Austria and Italy e.g at Lagazuoi. The film director and alpinist Luis Trenker who was born in Sankt Ulrich (Ortisei) in the Grödental (Val Gardena) served in the Austrian army in the mountain war and in part based on his wartime experiences and the book he wrote of the same name he directed and starred in a 1931 film called Berge in Flammen (Mountains in Flames). Trenker leads an Austrian battalion that is desperately holding an isolated, inaccessible mountaintop against Italian attackers from below. When Italian troops dig a tunnel under the mountain to dynamite the emplacement from below, Trenker sets off on a daredevil ski exploit across the snowy terrain in an attempt to determine when the explosion is set to take place. Suspense mounts as audiences await the fate of the doomed battalion that rushes to evacuate its position before it is obliterated. The entire film can be viewed on YouTube (although only in German, there was I believe an English language version made or with English subtitles but I've not been able to find it). For people who don't want to watch the whole film there are some interesting skiing sequences at 00:42 and 1:12 into the film:
One of the early scenes in the film is set in 1915 when Florian (played by Luis Trinker) informs his comrades that Italy has entered the war. One of the soldiers shouts hooray as he thinks Italy is joining on Austria's side, only to be corrected by Florian that Italy is joining the war on the other side. The soldier's mistake isn't perhaps so surprising as it may seem to us now, since at the start of the war Italy had been a member of the so-called Triple Alliance alongside Germany and Austria-Hungary since 1882. When World War I broke out in the summer of 1914, Italy declared itself neutral in the conflict. Over the course of the months that followed, Italy and its leaders weighed their options; wooed by both sides, they carefully considered how to gain the greatest benefit from participation in the war. The decision to join the fray on the side of the Allies was based largely on the assurances Italy received in the Treaty of London, signed in April 1915. By its terms, Italy would receive the fulfillment of its national dream: control over territory on its border with Austria-Hungary stretching from Trentino through the South Tyrol to Trieste.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Thanks Alastair, must watch that. Italy of all the main Allies achieved most of their war aims. They finally got Trieste and they got the Sud Tirol but they didn’t get Dalmatia. Apparently the Italians regard the conflict from their own perspective, as the final war of Italian Unification.
To this day I believe the Sud Tirol and the Dolomites still benefit from taxation and devolution advantages which have helped them develop their modern skiing facilities and no doubt lots of other infrastructure.
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