Monument to Italian soliders who fought in WW1
Why is Monte Fior significant?
Monte Fior was one the last plateau’s conquered by the advancing Austrian Hungarian army set on reaching Venice. When they finally reached the top they could see Venice almost as if they could touch it, despite the city still being 50 kilometers away. On our hike through the old trenches and battle field we could not see Venice from the top, but we learned how when the weather conditions are perfect it looks like you can almost touch Venice.
What being at Monte Fior was like:
Being at Monte Fior where World Was 1 was fought more than a hundred years ago is surreal. It is hard to imagine that such a beautiful place used to be a war zone, where people were fighting for their lives. The grass and trees are all so green and the wind blows the grass in such a peaceful way. There are even cows nearby using the forsaken battlefield as a pasture. I think that these changes show how nature has taken back the land, and from a place of destruction and death nature has brought life and rejuvenation. The Monte Fior battlefield is a perfect example of how nature will always find a way to preserver and will always be in the world. The trench that were built on Monte Fior were built in the rock and ground that nature provided and now after the war nature is taking back what humans borrowed.
This concept that nature is always there and despite destruction can be seen in the photo above. Where the trenches that solider dug in World War 1, now have plants growing in them and nature is taking them back. The trenches were also dug into the ground and rock, and look very similar to how water erodes canyons. Earlier in our trip we saw this phenomenon in the Bletterbach gorge where for thousands of years water has been eroding rocks and revealing the history that is stored there. Now at Monte Fior the opposite is happening where nature instead of revealing history, is now hiding history.
The photo above shows the beautiful landscape of Monte Fior that was once a battlefield. The craters are still there but are covered with grass and are easily mistaken for sink holes. If I had just wondered upon this battlefield while hiking and do not know that world war one happened around Monte Fior. I would have had no idea that the craters or trenchs were craters or trenches. I would have mistaken them for sink holes and a dried up river. I do not know if this is good or not. This is because nature is healing and allowing the destruction to settle but by allowing nature to take back the battlefield are humans forgetting the history that happened there?
One way that Italian citizens tried not to forget the war was during the Fascist era of Mossolini, when monuments were put up on Monte Fior and a grave yard was created there. [The cover photo is one of the monuments that was put up] Though these ways of memorializing those who fought had other intentions than to respect the dead they were atleast able to leave the dead where they sacrificed their lives and were courageous. In the photo graph above is the headstone for the graveyard. After the Fascist era though people came and took the remains of the soldiers and brought them to an ossuary for a mass grave site. This act I do not think respected the people who fought because now they do not get the recognition of an individual burial or burial of where they stood their ground. They instead are now just a solider in a mass grave, uprooted from their place of rest on the mountain. I think that they better solution to respect the soldiers would have been to make a monument for the soldiers on top of the mountain that people could take a pilgrimage to and pay respect. This way people could truly understand the challenge of hiking up the mountain, just like the soldier who fought.