Battaglie per la Trafojer (Battles for the Trafojer) - Magrin and Peretti

An important work on the historical events of the Valtellina mountains. It concerns an alpine-military episode that today would seem impossible, which took place in the summer of 1917 on the Ortles-Cevedale front, the highest of the whole Great War.
The Italian Alpini are dug in on the Cima di Trafoi (Trafojer Eiswand - 3559 m) and on the Baeckmann ridge that joins it to the summit of the Thurwieser (3648 m), a majestic and severe environment, coveted by mountaineers even today.
From this privileged observation post they keep watch, from behind, on all the movements of the troops of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Around 20 August 1917 the imperial soldiers pop out on the summit of the Trafojer, after going through a tunnel just under a kilometre and a half long, dug inside the very steep north face over many months of extremely hard work, dumping into the crevasses the ice hacked out with pickaxes, so as not to be noticed by the Italian Alpini.
For a few days they get themselves organised logistically and then, at around 5 a.m. on 27 August 1917, taking advantage of a day of blizzard, with 40 men and a machine gun they burst into the huts of the unsuspecting Alpini, taking about thirty of them prisoner.
From 28 to 31 August 1917 the Alpini, while carrying out parallel actions against the imperial troops, prepare the counter-attack, carrying up artillery, machine guns, ammunition, food and everything that might help a hundred or so soldiers to live - or rather survive - at those altitudes and in those conditions.
On 1 September 1917, at 8.00, the counter-attack operations begin ...
The book "Battaglie per la Trafojer", based on testimonies, accounts and diaries of the time and on photographs, some of them unpublished, tells the story of these incredible battles, fought in absurd conditions and in a very high-altitude environment, extremely demanding from a mountaineering point of view and of rare scenic beauty.
But above all it brings to our attention a very precious document, unpublished and long thought lost: a photographic and illustrated monograph, faithfully recording all the phases of the battles for the Trafojer and including maps, sketches and drawings.
Made up of 28 plates measuring 35 x 48 cm, it was produced at Capanna Milano (now Rifugio V Alpini, in Val Zebrù) by the Commander of the 1st Ski Company, Lt Guido Bertarelli of Milan, in the months following the battles, helped by all the men who had taken part in the actions.
The volume presents it in full.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY of GUIDO BERTARELLI

Guido Bertarelli was born in Milan in 1886. He graduated from the Bocconi in 1909 and when the First World War broke out he enlisted as a volunteer.
A strong mountaineer and one of the pioneers of skiing, he knew the Ortles-Cevedale group well.
He was posted right there, to lead and train the Alpini and the Volunteers in mountaineering, skiing and mountain movement techniques.
A man of few words, always calm, balanced, of great good sense, he had a vast culture which he never showed off, but which allowed him to give a fitting answer on any subject.
He was a leading figure in the Touring Club Italiano, in the Club Alpino Italiano and later in the Associazione Nazionale Alpini. The mountains always remained in his heart.
After the war, helped by his loyal friend Giuseppe Tuana, he devoted himself to recovering and rebuilding the mountain huts devastated by the war that had just ended, including those in upper Val Venosta, which in the meantime had passed to Italy.
In 1929 he rebuilt Capanna Milano in Val Zebrù at his own expense, dedicating it to the 5th Alpini and to the memory of all his fallen comrades.
Capanna Milano was his kingdom, and it was right there that, together with his Alpini who had fought the battles for the Trafojer, he compiled an impressive photographic and illustrated monograph on those very battles.
His aim was to leave a sign of remembrance and a warning to posterity.
The book "Battaglie per la Trafojer" presents Lieutenant Bertarelli's Album, in full, just as he compiled it.
In this way, his intention and his wishes have been respected.

Format 24x33.5 cm, 200 pages entirely in colour, about 200 period photographs, many of them unpublished, many present-day photos, some across a double page, detailed period maps.
Hardback edition with hardback slipcase, 66 euros.

Another book on mountain history is Il Mistero delle Tre Vette by Mesitis and Burattini.

For a place of historical memory in the Apennines see the Bunker and the Historical Museum of Monte Soratte.