Battle of the three peaks

Where once the world powers clashed and the thunder of artillery made the mountains tremble, today mountaineers peacefully climb the war trails of yesteryear through the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Dolomites. Here, travel writer and photographer Norbert Eisele-Hein shows us the horror of the past and the beauty of today.

Over 100 years ago – on 28 July, 1914 – the Austrian Danube Monarchy declared war on Serbia. Alliance commitments and territorial interests sowed the evil seeds for what was then the most comprehensive war in human history – World War I. More than 10 million people fell victim to the clash between the great powers.

Via ferrata to the Paternkofel above the sparkling Bödenseen lakes.

In the secret Treaty of London, the Entente (Russia, England, and France) granted Italy Trentino and South Tyrol on 26 April, 1915. The former allies of the Triple Alliance (German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Italy) revoked their neutrality and also went to war against their neighbour Austria on 23 May, 1915. The new front ran 600 kilometres through the high mountains. As a result, the Dolomites War raged from the northern shore of Lake Garda up into the eternal ice of the Ortler mountain, and from the border with Switzerland to the Austrian-Slovenian border region. The South Tyrolean mountaineering village of Sexten was thus at the front overnight.

A bitter trench warfare broke out around the world-famous Drei Zinnen (German for Three Peaks), a trio of iconic dolomite peaks, also known as the Tre Cime di Lavaredo in Italian. Ladder routes and tunnels leading to the surrounding peaks of the Croda Rossa, the Paternkofel, and the Toblinger Knoten were intended to provide strategic advantages for the warring troops of Austria-Hungary and Italy. Today, these via ferratas – protected climbing routes – are used peacefully. But barbed wire, gun emplacements, and violently drilled rocks give an idea of what the soldiers of yesteryear had to endure.

Anderter Alpe open-air museum below the Rotwand.

Past to present

…and then they finally attacked his honour. First and foremost, Hauptmann (Captain) von Wellean – inexperienced in mountain warfare and lacking in-depth knowledge of the terrain. “He probably doesn’t dare to lead the Paternkofel operation,” von Wellean said to Sepp Innerkofler in front of the assembled troops. In order not to appear a fool in front of his comrades, Innerkofler went against his own convictions and agreed.

A hiker descends from the Paternkofel.

Innerkofler was already a legendary mountain guide during his lifetime. As early as 1890, he climbed the north face of the Kleine Zinne to considerable alpine fame. His reputation as a soldier was equally outstanding. The Flying Patrol he commanded repeatedly appeared on various front lines in the Hochpustertal Dolomites. The hand-picked mountaineers completed an incredible amount of altitude. By rushing from peak to peak, they deceived the enemy into believing they had significantly larger troops. The Paternkofel in particular was of immense strategic importance to the warring parties. Whoever controlled it also controlled the Bödenknoten and the Paternsattel, and had visibility beyond the Büllelejoch.

Sepp Innerkofler was well aware of this. As early as May 1915, he demanded that the summit be permanently occupied. But the Austrians were too weak in numbers. Hauptmann (Captain) Jaschke had him inspect the summit from 24-27 May. But then a bad weather front prevented the difficult ascent from the north. The Italian Alpini – the Italian Army’s specialist mountain infantry – were already lying in wait. In the driving snow, they took advantage of the easy ascent via the Patern Saddle, which they occupied, and reached the summit without a fight. The order from above for the risky recapture was hotly debated. Jaschke rejected it outright as too dangerous. This is probably why he was relieved of his battalion command. His successor as commander of the IX March Battalion, Landesschützenregiment III, was von Wellean.

Airy climb from Paterkofel to Büllele Joch hut.

“Sepp Innerkofler knew full well that the recapture of the Paternkofel on 4 July, 1915, was tantamount to a suicide mission. With the words ‘It’s enough if the mother has to mourn one of us,’ he forbade his son from participating,” recalls Hugo Reider. He is one of the most profound experts on this sad chapter and, together with Peter Kübler, wrote the highly readable book Kampf um die Drei Zinnen or Battle for the Three Peaks. Hugo, who was carried up the Paternkofel in a backpack by his father as a baby and has documented the events ever since, continues; “To this day, it remains unclear whether Innerkofler was killed by the Alpini or by his own machine gun, which fired at the summit structure from the opposite Sextner Stein.”

Today, a tour of the Paternkofel is considered one of the classic via ferratas in the Dolomites. The starting point is the Dreizinnenhütte, where a grenade on the banister, a series of historic black-and-white photographs, and a memorial stone with a bronze plaque still commemorate Sepp Innerkofler.

View from the summit of the Sextner Stein to the Three Peaks.

The path soon leads into a tunnel that the Italians dug for over a year and only managed to complete in October 1917. It is dark, low, and musty inside. Your helmet often scrapes against rocky ledges. However, the side tunnels offer spectacular views of the Three Peaks. What madness, to pierce the Dolomites like worms through an apple. It’s unimaginable what the soldiers had to endure physically and mentally in these tunnels. Their equipment was terrible – Goretex and fluffy synthetic sleeping bags did not exist back then – and as soon as they poked their noses out, the enemy targeted them. After about 20 minutes, my vertebrae loudly return to their original position thanks to a nice stretch and the first glimpse of freedom with open pupils is a single explosion of light.

The second view is a paradisiacal revelation as the Bödenseen lakes in front of me shimmer like alpine emeralds. Only the barbed wire entanglement on a nearby crag reminds us of the madness of war. Airy wire ropes and steel clamps lead boldly uphill without major difficulties. The narrow Gamsscharte ridge opens up the south side and the branch to the Büllelejoch Hut. The remaining ascent over wide ledges and crags to the summit, where Sepp Innerkofler lost his life, is easy. Finally at the top, the complete range of prominent Hochpustertal Dolomite peaks rises up around us – led by the Zwölferkogel, the Schusterplatte, and, of course, the Three Peaks.

Spaghetti is pre-cooked at the Drei Zinnen Hut early in the morning in preparation for the rush of hikers.

The Feldkurat-Hosp via ferrata to the 2,617-metre-high Toblinger Knoten also starts at the Dreizinnenhütte; fit mountaineers can complete both climbs in one day. This peak, too, was considered a key position in the Austrian defence. In the spring of 1916, the highly decorated Feldkurat Hosp had the northern chimneys of the rock monolith secured with dozens of larch ladders and a continuous wire rope.

After 60 years of disrepair, a construction crew from the Dolomitenfreunde e.V. association, led by Peter Kübler, needed a full seven days in 1978 to install the 17 iron ladders and a new safety rope on the mountain. The new ladder climb, which strains your biceps and absolutely requires gloves, is an aerial treat with a stunning 360-degree panorama of the summit. Today, people that reach the summit like to raise their hands aloft to embrace the whole world. The soldiers of yesteryear ducked behind the protective stone walls or disappeared into the caverns, where the warring parties were only 300 metres apart from each other.

Even when climbing the Rotwand, south of Sesto, the Grande Guerra, the First World War, follows you at every turn. The route leads past numerous remains of major military bases. Old telephone poles rise into the sky as silent witnesses to the past. The summit area at almost 3,000 metres, once also called the Polar or Vinatzerturm, was literally perforated to create a complex system of caverns. The horrors of war come even closer at the open-air museum of the Bellum Aquilarum (Latin for war of the eagle) association on the Anderter Alpe. From the Rotwandwiesenhütte, the excellently signposted trail leads to partially restored trenches, barracks, and exposed machine gun emplacements below the Sentinellascharte. Panels with historical photographs show how the war was technically implemented, for example, how heavy mountain cannons were transported across snowy slopes using pulleys.

“But they also provide painfully realistic evidence of what people had to endure,” says Dr. Sigrid Wisthaler, a historian from Sexten. Every Wednesday at 10am, she leads tours over the Anderter Alpe. She enriches the already depressing facts with the vividly described diary entries of her great-grandfather – which became the subject of her dissertation. “After reading them, it became clear to me why, in the end, more soldiers died from cold, hunger, avalanches, or falls than from bullets and grenades,” she adds.

This historic hike can be perfectly combined with a climb of the Rotwand. Trail No. 124 leads directly to the Rotwandköpfe or to the Sentinella Forcella and the Alpini Trail, other important battlefields of the First World War.

The via ferratas in the Alta Pusteria Valley are hard to beat in terms of scenic beauty. They provide insight into a dark chapter of our history and serve as a reminder of our responsibility…to remember the many dead and to preserve peace, which should never be taken for granted anywhere.

Gun from the First World War on Monte Piana.

If you would like to learn more about the topic, we recommend a visit to the First World War Museum on the 2,325-metre-high Monte Piana, (www.montepiana.com), a visit to the Nasswand military cemetery near Toblach and the exhibition Unforgettable – the First World War in the Sexten Dolomites at the Bellum Aquilarum association museum in Sexten (www.bellumaquilarum.it). Every Wednesday, meeting point 9.30am, at the mountain station of the Rotwand cable car, a guided tour starts through the Anderer Alpe openair museum and every Thursday, meeting point 9.00am, same place, towards the tunnel system on the Elferscharte (Alpinisteig).