There were over a dozen fronts on which the First World War was fought, on or near five continents
It was fought in deserts, in mud, in snow, on land, at sea, and in the air.
And it was fought in the mountains.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great war on the road special episode about mountain
warfare in the first world war.
Fighting in cold climates like the arctic or high mountains was not a new concept when
the war broke out.
In 1590, 600 Finns on skis defeated a Muscovite invasion, and in 1747 the first official ski-corps
was established in Norway.
However, the first real mountain troops we would define as modern did not appear before
the end of the 19th century when practical climbing gear and new climbing techniques
were developed.
This was because of a newfound European interest in mountaineering.
The heights were romanticized and inspired poets and artists alike, and it was a new
frontier for humankind to conquer, and a great achievement to master the highest peaks.
All over the world, people began climbing mountains, the Alps, the Rocky Mountains,
the Andes, even the mighty Himalayas were climbed for sport, and mountains even began
to figure in military planning.
War in 1866 had drawn a new border between Austria what would soon be Italy through the
peaks and valleys of the Eastern Alps and the Western Dolomites.
Alpine altitudes varied on an average of about 3,000 feet- 915m- above sea level, but could
reach three times that.
However, they were not as much of a continuous barrier as, say, the Pyrenees, since the Alps
consisted of numerous ranges of varying heights, divided by deep cliffs and valleys.
This is why you get somewhat fragmented tales of Alpine actions in the World War, as operations
and skirmishes were fought by small detachments over different mountains and passes.
Italy was the first nation to officially introduce a corps of mountain infantry, the Alpini.
In 1872, a militia was raised from among the local Alpine population to defend the northern
frontier of the newly founded nation.
These locals had grown up there, and were experts in hiking and climbing in the treacherous
climate.
They were physically fit enough and brave enough for the steep ledges and were natural
light infantry, trained in skiing, with climbing tackle, in sharpshooting, and in surviving
the cold.
Though surprisingly, they saw action in the deserts of the Italo-Abyssinian War and the
Boxer Rebellion, this war was their real proving ground.
Italy fielded over 78 Alpini battalions and over 3,000 km of trenches were blown into
the mountains on the Italian side of the front alone.
Over half a million soldiers were quartered in tiny huts on the mountainsides.
They needed excellent rations, since over 4,000 calories a day were required to live
and work in the harsh climate.
Winter could come early- in 1916 it came already in September and October with temperatures
down to nearly -30 degrees and 4 m of snow.
Mules and men pulled or pushed ammunition and artillery up the steep slopes, and countless
groups of Italian women worked daily to make winter garments for the men.
Caps, flannel cloaks, scarves, and gloves were desperately needed by the men, who spent
the days wrapped in furs with their faces greased with fat to protect them from the
icy winds.
A group could be cut off for weeks or even months by the elements or combat, and the
Alpini endured what would surely have killed less experienced troops.
There was also a certain mysticism among them.
Historians speak of the Alpini sharing old faiths and tales from their ancestors.
These were tales of vampires, fairies, and hobgoblins living in the mountains, but there
was also a deep Catholic faith.
This was very important to the men, as evidenced by the chapels and crosses all over the Alps,
and the soldiers believed the saints protected them from danger.
The surroundings and the seclusion also gave many a fatalistic outlook, and they volunteered
for the most dangerous of missions.
The Austrian defenders were equally at home in the mountains.
Their mountain troops, the Alpen- and Kaiserjäger, had the same skill set as the Alpini, and
were trained in the Lilienfeld ski techniques that originated in Norway and Greenland.
They also used experienced climbers and mountaineers from the Transylvanian Alps, the Carpathians,
and the Sudetenland as trainers, so nearly every Jäger battalion had a ski detachment.
Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Austrian army Chief of Staff, had written down in preparation
for his “Punishment Expedition”: “The most inaccessible regions of the Vosges mountains
in France, the most difficult and irregular valleys and ranges of the Carpathians, and
the labyrinth of the Balkan mountains were less of a barrier compared to these great,
rocky mountains, steep valleys, precipices, and chasms.
The Trentino.”
The Austrians did have a more cautious approach since they were usually on defense.
They engineered caverns and dugouts into the mountains, using the environment to their
advantage, since digging a normal trench was pretty much impossible.
They were also outnumbered, so they tried to fight the war from a distance as much as
possible, using mountain guns, machine gun emplacements, and siege mortars from plateaus
far away.
“...tactically speaking in a war where there was some movement a succession of mountains
were nothing to hold as a line because it was too easy to turn them.
You should have possible mobility and a mountain is not very mobile... if the flank were turned,
the best men would be left on the highest mountains.
I did not believe in a war in the mountains... you pinched off one mountain and they pinched
off another, but when something started, everyone had to get down off the mountains.”
Ernest Hemingway, “A Farewell to Arms”.
And it’s true that battle in the mountains was as harsh as the climate.
The stones were as sharp as knives, cutting even the strongest boots to pieces.
Ropes were cut, and high winds could blow soldiers off the mountain to their deaths.
Glaciers were prepared with explosives, and that would bury the enemy in avalanches or
rock falls.
“White Friday” was December 13, 1916, when an entire Austrian barrack on Mount Marmolada
was buried.
270 soldiers were killed there, but just that month, an estimated 9 to 10,000 soldiers were
buried and killed by avalanches on the front.
Italian sappers used gelatin tubes to destroy barbed wire, Austrian Jäger countered with
hand grenades and superior mountain artillery.
Exploding mortar shells caused razor sharp stone splinters to fly, devastating to eyes
and faces, and once you reached enemy positions, there was only one available tactic, rushing
the enemy.
If the Italians forced the Austrians off a mountain top, the Austrians called in their
artillery, bombing what was left of the position and the Italian survivors.
And so it went on.
Sappers and miners dug ever deeper into the rock, using dynamite to forever change the
faces of the mountains.
Actually you can see the Col Di Lana right behind us.
The peak of the mountain was undermined by Italian sappers and on three different occasions,
the summit was blasted off by huge explosions.
The heavy fighting gave it the name “Col di Sangue” - Blood Mountain.
Ammunition and supplies were brought up through tunnels dug with enormous drilling engines,
and dugouts were built with hammers and electric drills.
A lone sharpshooter could do massive damage to an exposed and slowly climbing enemy unit
and control whole valleys:
"The Schreckenstein not only barred the approaches to the head of the Travenanze valley from
the south; it also gave Tyrolean sharpshooters an opportunity to keep the terrain as far
as the Dolomite road under accurate fire."
The Austrian marksmen scoped versions of the standard Mannlicher M.1895 straight-pull rifles,
but also scoped versions of what was known as the "Mexican" - an export Mauser rifle
produced by Steyr in Austria for the Mexican army, but since they hadn't been shipped,
the order was cancelled, and the already produced "Mexicans" were adopted by the Austro-Hungarian
Army.
The Italians gave theirs the Carcano M91, often with French scopes.
These men were known as Cecchino, derived from the slang term for Austrian Emperor Franz
Josef, “Cecco Beppe”.
Mountain warfare was a truly brutal part of modern war, and the men who fought and died
were amazingly resilient and brave men.
We cover all of the battles and even some of the small skirmishes of the war in the
mountains of the Italian front in our regular episodes, today was just a brief look at some
of the harshest conditions in this harshest of wars.
If you want to know more about sharpshooters and snipers on the Western Front during World
War 1, you can watch our special episode right here.
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