The war at high altitude
In the course of the First World War the western end of the italian-austrian front crossed the two dominating groups of mountains, Ortles-Cevedale and Adamello-Presanella. Therefore the two parts where forced to fight, for more than three and a half years, a typical alpine war, fought on rocks and glaciers at over 3000 meters of altitude, in very difficult weather conditions.
Living at those heights was itself a problem for the soldiers: winter lasted eight months without interruption, there were abundant snow falls from october to may and medium snow heights oscilated between 10 and 12 meters. The cold, an implacable daily enemy, varied in this period between -10° and -15° with night drops between -20° and -25° and lower. In this "white hell", italian and austrian soldiers, besides fighting each other, had to survive the extreme environmental conditions. Among such the implacable and deadly avalanches that, compared to the combat, caused more victims.
On the Adamello every action throughout the years, aimed mainly at unhinging, directly or not, the austrian caposaldo of Monticelli, so as to free the way through the Tonale Pass. The austrians had arranged for trenchs and dug numerous caverns along the front line that connected the Monticelli to the eastern Tonale altitudes. Furthermore they had also occupied the Paradiso Pass, Castellaccio Pass and Lagoscuro Pass that dominated the plateau of Ponte di Legno.

The main phases of the war: 1915
The local italian Comand, in order to balance in some way the tactical inferiority on the Tonale, planned an attack against the austrians at Presena, in the attempt to force them out from such area and regain control of Monticelli and the lower plain of Tonale. The attack, which took place June 9th, 1915, showed our strategists lack of preparation. An attack plan was improvised without agreeing with the artillery, whose support was erroneously thought useless. When the italian alpine soldiers presented themselves at the entrance of Maroccaro Pass, it the attempt to take over from the back the austrians position at Presena Basin and Paradiso Pass, they found a strong resistance from these troops, which not only held well to the striking front but, with the suppport of the artillery of fort Saccarana of Vermiglio, forced them to withdraw.
The italian losses were quite serious: 52 dead among which 4 officials, and 87 wounded among which 3 officials.
Until that moment, combats had been rather marginal and circumscribed towards Tonale, but July 15th, 1915 the austrians attacked unexpectedly through the hanging glacier of Mandrone towards Refuge Garibaldi, starting a new and umpredictable fight stage on the glacier.

1916
April 12th, 1916 Fumo Mount - Dosson of Genova - Crest Croce-Lobbia Alta rocky ridge was conquered. April 29th, 1916 began the second stage of our offensive that took alpine soldiers to strike the austrians better supplied line of resistance at the east side of the glacier. In some places targets were taken and consolidated, but at the center of the combat, where there were better defended positions, austrians defended themselves strenuously and drove off every attack. The battle soon became a tragic and useless slaughter for our camouflaged skiers units and for the two companies of the "Intelvi Valley" battalion that were sent to the assault in a green-gray uniform, on the immaculate whiteness of the glacier.

1917
1917 was a relatively quiet year on the Adamello's front, except for the period in which the operations carried out took the alpines soldiers to conquer Corno di Cavento (m. 3402), the important austrian advanced position that was a serious menace for our right side wing. From these positions, exactly a year after, austrian assault troops set off to reconquer Corno di Cavento, by means of digging a tunnel through the glacier and violently attacking the alpine company that defended the outpost on the summit and the big trench on the side of the glacier.

1918
1918 was a year of hard trials and bloody combats for the troops at the Adamello: in may a combined attack towards the Presena Basin and Monticelli comes to an end. This attack aimed to strengthen our positions at Tonale Pass. In this action, the most demanding and complex of all the "white war", several battalions, machine-gun and bomber companies, artillery batteries of every calibre, engineer units and services of every kind were engaged. After ruthless combats, success smiled at the italian troops, even though they hadn't totally forced out the austrians from the last areas of Monticelli.
November 1st, 1918, when we had already outlined our victory on Mount Grappa and on Piave, the alpine soldiers from the Adamello carried out the decisive assault against the still dreadful fortifications at Tonale, gaining way to the Mendola Pass in order to cut off the withdraw of the defeated army. After three and a half years of suffering war, silence and peace returned on the tormented rocks and glaciers.
These events remain memorable in the military history because alpine soldiers and their oponents, arranged for the first time into organic units of skiers and rock climbers, faced the unknown glacier, fighting at unprecedented heights and in frightful weather conditions.

In collaboration with the Adamello White War Museum at Temù).