![]() Working in brutal conditions, Italians and Austro-Hungarians alike leveled peaks, opened roads, dug tunnels, built cableways, laid telephone lines, and transported tons of material to lofty heights-for combat, but also for the everyday needs of the thousands of soldiers who were living year-round at altitudes where only shepherds, wild herb hunters, and mountain climbers had ever ventured. Perhaps most remarkable, though, was the White War, a series of impossible-and ultimately futile-blitzes, incursions, athletic feats, and engineering coups. Troops fought and died all along the frontier, from Trentino to the Adriatic, for the next three years. Its aim, stoked by a rising nationalist fervor, was to annex several regions-particularly those inhabited by Italians-held by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now, a century later, the warming world is revealing the buried past, as relics and corpses are melting free of their icy tombs. Never before had battles been waged on such towering peaks or in such frigid conditions. Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops clashed at altitudes up to 12,000 feet (3,600 meters) with temperatures as low as -22☏ (-30☌) in the Guerra Bianca, or White War, named for its wintry theater. The first cold war was fought during the First World War. from the May 28, 1916, diary of C.D., a soldier from Italy's Trentino region We wait for peace, but the bad weather, the high altitudes. It is storming and snow covers the highest peaks.
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