“Historians delight in trove of lost artefacts, yet have 'huge concern' about the impact of climate change on the Alps’ 4,000 glaciers“
By Nick Squire, on Italy-Switzerland border
The Telegraph
8 November 2021
“On a wind-blasted rocky ridge high up at 9,500ft (2,900 metres) on the Italian-Swiss border, amid fields of snow and ice, a hole about the size of a suitcase leads into a darkened chamber.
Military historian Giovanni Cadioli wriggles in backwards, his head torch revealing an extraordinary scene that has literally been frozen in time.
It is a First World War bunker constructed from timber, scattered with the possessions of its past inhabitants – rusted tins of food, bullet casings and metal cooking implements.
It was once used by a platoon of Austro-Hungarian soldiers who repulsed suicidal assaults launched by Italian forces, but in the decades since was surrounded by a glacier.
The ice preserved everything – even scraps of paper, shreds of clothing and the hay that the soldiers used for bedding.
But a century on, the glacier that once entombed the bunker, located on the slopes of Monte Scorluzzo in the Stelvio National Park, high in the Italian Alps, has largely melted as a result of global warming.”
Read entire story here.
(If the paywall stops you, let me know and I’ll be glad to cut & paste for you)
