White War

The White War
	Part of Italian front (World War I)
	; Clockwise from above: Austrian barracks in East Tyrol; Alpine with mule painting by Achille Beltrame from 1916; Austrian infantrymen waiting for the ration in the sector of Dreisprachenspitze; difficult transport of an Italian artillery piece at high altitude
Date	May 24, 1915 – November 4, 1918
Location	Southern Rhaetian Alps, Dolomites
Result	Italian victory • Austian defeat and subsequent end of World War I
Belligerents
Kingdom of Italy	Austria-Hungary; Germany
Commanders and leaders
Luigi Cadorna (Chief of staff); Roberto Brusati (1st Army); Luigi Nava →; Mario Nicolis di Robilant (4th Army)	Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf (Chief of staff); Viktor Dankl von Krasnik (Defence of Tyrol); Konrad Krafft von Dellmensingen (Alpenkorps); Ludwig Können-Horák (91st Division)
Strength
Two armies for about 100–120,000 men	April 1915: about 32,400 Austro-Hungarians defending the Tyrol + 13 battalions of the German Alpenkorps arrived on May 26, 1915
Casualties and losses
	c. 150,000–180,000 overall deaths, only one third of which caused by combat

The White War (Italian: Guerra Bianca, German: Gebirgskrieg, Hungarian: Fehér Háború)^[2]^[3] is the name given to the fighting in the high-altitude Alpine sector of the Italian front during the First World War, principally in the Dolomites, the Ortles-Cevedale Alps and the Adamello-Presanella Alps. More than two-thirds of this conflict zone lies at an altitude above 2,000m, rising to 3905m at Mount Ortler.^[4]^[5] In 1917 New York World correspondent E. Alexander Powell wrote: “On no front, not on the sun-scorched plains of Mesopotamia, nor in the frozen Mazurian marshes, nor in the blood-soaked mud of Flanders, does the fighting man lead so arduous an existence as up here on the roof of the world.”^[6]

^ Heinz von Lichem, Der einsame Krieg, p. 240
^ "Museo della Guerra Bianca in Adamello". museoguerrabianca.it. Museo della Guerra Bianca in Adamello. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
^ Heinz Lichem von Löwenbourg (1980). Gebirgskrieg 1915–1918. Athesia. ISBN 978-88-7014-175-7. Retrieved 1 October 2015. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |agency= ignored (help)
^ Gravino, Michele (18 October 2014). "A Century Later, Relics Emerge From a War Frozen in Time". nationalgeographic.com. National Geographic. Archived from the original on August 12, 2019. Retrieved 19 September 2020.
^ Dunlap, David (20 September 2017). "The Awful Beauty of the 'White War'". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 September 2020.
^ Mockenhaupt, Brian. "The Most Treacherous Battle of World War I Took Place in the Italian Mountains". smithsonianmag.com. Smithsonian Museum. Retrieved 19 September 2020.

[1] Heinz von Lichem, Der einsame Krieg, p. 240

[2] "Museo della Guerra Bianca in Adamello". museoguerrabianca.it. Museo della Guerra Bianca in Adamello. Retrieved 13 September 2020.

[3] Heinz Lichem von Löwenbourg (1980). Gebirgskrieg 1915–1918. Athesia. ISBN 978-88-7014-175-7. Retrieved 1 October 2015. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |agency= ignored (help)

[Natgeo-4] Gravino, Michele (18 October 2014). "A Century Later, Relics Emerge From a War Frozen in Time". nationalgeographic.com. National Geographic. Archived from the original on August 12, 2019. Retrieved 19 September 2020.

[NYT-5] Dunlap, David (20 September 2017). "The Awful Beauty of the 'White War'". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 September 2020.

[SMT-6] Mockenhaupt, Brian. "The Most Treacherous Battle of World War I Took Place in the Italian Mountains". smithsonianmag.com. Smithsonian Museum. Retrieved 19 September 2020.

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