Avalanches, the sudden and often massive release of mountainside snow, are amongst the greatest destructive forces in nature. The hunters, smugglers and climbing guides of the European Alps have known and avoided this deadly phenomenon by staying out of the mountains in winter. The natives live where "the white death" is least found. For centuries villages have been constructed below natural barriers of trees and rock outcroppings. Covered roads (and later railroads) were built, all to protect them from this snowy wrath. During the Great War the menfolk of the Austrian and Italian Alps found themselves in the worst of predicaments, at war in the most dangerous of places, the wintry snowbound Alps. These highlanders turned soldier would die in their tens of thousands from what they knew, avalanche and cold, as well as suffering the most common fate of millions of men in these four terrible years, machine gun and artillery fire. The concepts, tactical and logistically, of alpine warfare were all new and unexpected. Specialized regiments of mountain troops had been developed by all nations of the Alps, but few had been tested in alpine combat. Victory demands the high ground, and in these endless mountain ranges the high ground is a mighty consideration
When the weather was fine, no position was safe from the enemy's view. Due to the complex geography of the area there was always an enemy position which was higher or which dominated the access path or looked to the rear of the opponents position.
-Francesco Davini
Mountains, at any time of year, are dangerous -- lightning, high wind, rock fall, extreme cold, crevasse and cliff. In war, the dangers take a quantum leap. Movement, medical evacuation and resupply up steep slopes, often where even mules cannot go, involves enormous exertion of energy. Observation in the mountains is almost unlimited…. or can instantly become zero, for days. Any built-up stone barricade can become a fatal trap. Bullet, grenade or artillery casualties increase with ricochet and splintering rock; there is no soft Flanders loam to absorb the concussion and fragments. Thirst must be considered as well;: water is locked up most of the year in winter ice or lost in super-permeable soil and impassable summer torrents. But it was the avalanche alone, however, that would account for a third of the total combatants killed in the higher, western half of the Alpine front. On this Hochgebirgsfront another third would die of cold related injuries, again reminding men of nature's cruel impartial power. [1] The other third would die in actual combat, mostly in summer operations.
