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Related: About this forumGlobal Warming Is Thawing Out the Frozen Corpses of a Forgotten WWI Battle
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/global-warming-is-thawed-out-the-frozen-corpses-of-a-forgotten-wwi-battleIn what is quite possibly the most bizarre result of global warming yet, a melting glacier in the Northern-Italian Alps is slowly revealing the corpses of soldiers who died in the First World War. After nearly a century, the frozen bodies appear to be perfectly mummified from the ice. With the remains also comes the story of the highest battle in historyThe White War.
The year is May 1915. The newly unified Italy decides to join the Allied Forces in the First World War, which by then is 10 months underway. Italy, eager to expand its borders, decides to wage war against Austria in an effort to annex the mountain areas of Trentino and Southern Tirol. The conflict results in what is now known as The White War: a cold, four-year-long standoff between Italian mountain troops, named the Alpini, and their Austrian opponents, the Kaiserschützen. The battle was fought at high altitude, with special weapons and infrastructure like ice-trenches and cable transports. Often the sides would use mortar fire to try and incur avalanchesthe white deathon each others camps, claiming thousands of lives.
Now, thanks largely to decades of global warming, the Presena glacier running through the battleground is slowly melting away. And with that melting the remains of the White War are slowly emerging. Remarkably well-kept artifacts have been streaming down with the melting water of the glacier since the early 90s: A love letter dated from 1918, to a certain Maria that was never sent. An ode to an old friend, scribbled down in a diary. A love note picturing a sleeping woman, signed, in Czech, Your Abandoned Wife.
Now, after almost a century, the bodies are following suit. Because of the cold, the remains often surface completely intact, still wrapped in their original uniforms. Last September, two Austrians emerged from the ice, aged 17 and 18, both blue-eyed and blondewith bullet holes in both of their skulls.
The year is May 1915. The newly unified Italy decides to join the Allied Forces in the First World War, which by then is 10 months underway. Italy, eager to expand its borders, decides to wage war against Austria in an effort to annex the mountain areas of Trentino and Southern Tirol. The conflict results in what is now known as The White War: a cold, four-year-long standoff between Italian mountain troops, named the Alpini, and their Austrian opponents, the Kaiserschützen. The battle was fought at high altitude, with special weapons and infrastructure like ice-trenches and cable transports. Often the sides would use mortar fire to try and incur avalanchesthe white deathon each others camps, claiming thousands of lives.
Now, thanks largely to decades of global warming, the Presena glacier running through the battleground is slowly melting away. And with that melting the remains of the White War are slowly emerging. Remarkably well-kept artifacts have been streaming down with the melting water of the glacier since the early 90s: A love letter dated from 1918, to a certain Maria that was never sent. An ode to an old friend, scribbled down in a diary. A love note picturing a sleeping woman, signed, in Czech, Your Abandoned Wife.
Now, after almost a century, the bodies are following suit. Because of the cold, the remains often surface completely intact, still wrapped in their original uniforms. Last September, two Austrians emerged from the ice, aged 17 and 18, both blue-eyed and blondewith bullet holes in both of their skulls.
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Global Warming Is Thawing Out the Frozen Corpses of a Forgotten WWI Battle (Original Post)
NickB79
Jan 2014
OP
Kaleva
(36,307 posts)1. Interesting! Thanks for posting.
secondvariety
(1,245 posts)2. Fascinating story.
dorkzilla
(5,141 posts)3. That really is fascinating...
Thank you SO MUCH for posting this!
As a side note, the comments
there is always some idiot who has to comment about how global warming is a hoax. And there they are, in all their ignorant glory.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)4. nothing amazing, fascinating. Maybe interesting
Last edited Fri Jan 17, 2014, 08:55 PM - Edit history (2)
and by the way, a century later we're still at war with each other with more lethality involved for the soldiers and civilians caught up in our cruel insanity of war that is played out daily against 'enemies' everywhere by just about every major and some minor countries on this little ball of spinning dirt. SAD!!!!!!
Kablooie
(18,634 posts)5. Couldn't this release some 1918 flu virus?