Alto Garda WWI Trenches and Photos in New Historical Book
The signs of the Great War are still numerous on the mountains of Alto Garda. Remnants of trenches, fortifications, and barracks, built by the Italian army from 1915 to 1918, dot the Hinterland of Limone and Tremosine, where the front line with Austria ran.
These traces and the dramatic events they represent are the focus of the new book by the limonese historian Domenico Fava titled «The Great War on the Front Between Garda and Ledro – Photographs and Writings of Lieutenant Giuseppe Cipelli», over 200 pages, published by Sommolago thanks to the contributions of the Municipalities of Tremosine, Limone, and Molina di Ledro, the Mountain Community, the High Garda Library System, the Garda Community, and the Limone ANA.
The motivation to chronicle the history of Garda during the First World War (which until now, at least concerning the Brescia area, has been little written about despite rich archival documentation) arose from a fortunate coincidence.
In 1998, while visiting an exhibition in Bezzecca, Fava came across two wartime images on Monte Carone, on the border between Limone and Molina di Ledro.
After contacting the author’s son, Fava found himself in possession of hundreds of letters, postcards, and photographs sent to families by Lieutenant Cipelli of Fiorenzuola d’Adda (Pc), born in 1890, one of the many officers who fought in the mountains of Alto Garda.
Cipelli, a frontline soldier in the Machine Gun Section of the Italian Infantry, is a valuable witness of the conflict.
«During the day – he writes in a letter – generally only the artillery works, but at night, what an inferno! Lightning, cannonades, whistling of shells of all calibers crossing above our heads; huge bombs, mines, machine gun fire — all illuminated intermittently by headlights and rockets».
Cipelli recounts to his brother Attilio: «We work to build trenches, shelters, barracks, etc… Everyone is a bit of an engineer. You should see the fortified shacks we make».
These military defensive works, after building them, Cipelli photographs them as a hobby. He even adapted a corner of a barrack into a photographic studio.
His shots vividly bring to life the drama of the wartime event, showing the tragedy without exaggeration, without death (though we sense it), highlighting moments of life, rest, and fatigue.
They are photos of lives lived at the front, of sacrifices and fights, but also of boredom and leisure: soldiers who one day drag enormous cannons up snow-covered peaks, and the next play like children on a sled.
Structure and contents of the book
The book is divided into three sections: the reconstruction of the wartime years in Limone and Tremosine, the photographs and writings of Lieutenant Cipelli, and the photographic album.
The work concludes with the chapter «Never Forget», featuring short biographies of more than 70 soldiers from Limone, over 200 from Tremosine, and perhaps 90 from Ledro, who fell on other fronts.