White War

The White War (Guerra Bianca, Gebirgskrieg, Fehér Háború) is the name given to the fighting in the high-altitude Alpine sector of the Italian front during the First World War, principally in the Dolomites, the Ortles-Cevedale Alps and the Adamello-Presanella Alps. More than two-thirds of this conflict zone lies at an altitude above 2,000m, rising to 3905m at Mount Ortler. In 1917 New York World correspondent E. Alexander Powell wrote: “On no front, not on the sun-scorched plains of Mesopotamia, nor in the frozen Mazurian marshes, nor in the blood-soaked mud of Flanders, does the fighting man lead so arduous an existence as up here on the roof of the world.” At the outbreak of the war, the border between Italy and Austria-Hungary was as determined at the Treaty of Vienna (1866) at the conclusion of the Third Italian War of Independence. One section along this border, the Trentino, offered major advantages to Austria-Hungary. Extending southwards towards the River Po, it potentially allowed Austro-Hungarian forces to strike towards the lower Adige and Mincio, cutting off Veneto and Friuli-Venezia from the rest of Italy. Another section, much smaller, favoured Italy around the Kreuzberg Pass and the headwaters of the Drava. In practical terms however, the road and rail systems did not allow the Italian commander Luigi Cadorna to mass his forces here, so instead he concentrated on the Isonzo front further east, where he hoped to make a decisive breakthrough. From Bovec on the upper Isonzo to the Swiss border at the Stelvio Pass stretched around 400 km of border at an altitude above 2,000m. Halfway along this border, between the Trentino and the Kreuzberg, rose the Dolomites, that offered little strategic advantage to either side. Between Switzerland and Lake Garda the Ortler, and the Adamello-Presanella Alps controlled the Stelvio Pass and the Tonale Pass. From here the Austro-Hungarians could have broken through to threaten the industrial cities of Lombardy, while the Italians could have penetrated deep into the Tyrol.