"The Most Treacherous Battle of World War I Took Place" Topic

… in the Italian Mountains

"Just after dawn we slipped into the forest and hiked a steep trail to a limestone wall. A curious ladder of U-shaped steel rungs was fixed to the rock. To reach the battlefield we would trek several miles along this via ferrata, or iron road, pathways of cables and ladders that traverse some of the most stunning and otherwise inaccessible territory in the mountains of northern Italy. We scaled the 50 feet of steel rungs, stopping every ten feet or so to clip our safety tethers to metal cables that run alongside.

A half-hour in, our faces slick with sweat, we rested on an outcropping that overlooked a valley carpeted with thick stands of pine and fir. Sheep bleated in a meadow, and a shepherd called to them. We could see the Pasubio Ossuary, a stone tower that holds the remains of 5,000 Italian and Austrian soldiers who fought in these mountains in World War I. The previous night we had slept near the ossuary, along a country road where cowbells clanged softly and lightning bugs blinked in the darkness like muzzle flashes…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I cannot imagine waging war of any sort amid such precipitous alpine terrain. It just boggles my mind.

B

Me too!…

Amicalement
Armand