Читать книгу The Karnischer Hohenweg. A 1-2 week trek on the Carnic Peace Trail: Austria and Italy онлайн

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The visible evidence of the war is everywhere. As well as trenches and protective earthworks, tunnels were hacked into the sides of mountains, sometimes extending from one side to the other. Command posts, cooking stations and latrines can be found, along with rotting floor and roofing materials. Coils of rusting barbed wire, still where they were positioned over a hundred years ago, are everywhere. Occasionally a brass button or a strip of shoe leather acts as a more intimate reminder, if needed, that men actually lived and fought on the mountaintops.

Less immediately apparent than the remains on the front line are what’s left of the transport infrastructure developed to supply it. At the beginning of the campaign, all the materials were carried up to the front line by pack ponies, dogs and men (often prisoners), so any zigzag trail working its way up the mountainside (sometimes all that’s left is the outline on the hillside) is likely to have been constructed for this purpose. Some of the routes are particularly elaborate and involved significant works of construction and engineering. Later in the campaign, the infrastructure became more sophisticated, and the technological advances involved, including cable cars, were used after the war to develop the skiing industry.