This post is also available in:

The diary of Franc Uran, who lived on Vršič from 1909 to 1916, takes us live into the times when and, above all, how the road to Vršič was built.

(Planinski vestnik, XIII / 1957, s.151-163)

The road over Vršič has been written about several times before, both in the old Yugoslavia and now after the liberation, but these inventories were short and incomplete because the writers of these lines did not know the situation well.
I think, however, that it is necessary for the public to know the history of this very important road to the good even today.
Since I lived above the source of the Soča River for seven full years t. j. from 1909 to 1916 and was employed in the construction of this road from beginning to end, t. j. Until the arrival of that terrible avalanche on Vršič, which buried 110 Russians, I consider it almost my duty to describe this event, as I was present during this catastrophe.

In January 1909, I went to work for Ivan Zakotnik, the then master carpenter and mayor of Gornji Šiška.
Shortly after I joined Zakotnik, a cooper from Kamnik, Franc Cvek, came to Zakotnik and offered to buy the Velika Planina forest in Trenta.

Zakotnik decided to buy it, and at the end of March that year Zakotnik, Cvek and I went to Kranjska Gora, where we stayed with the innkeeper Pristavec.
He was the owner of the forest, but he had bought it from the municipality of Kranjska Gora.
At that time there was almost one metre of snow in Kranjska Gora.
We decided to go into the forest the next day, for which we had to prepare thoroughly, because we had been warned that there was a lot of snow on the “top”.
So we equipped ourselves with snowshoes and left Kranjska Gora early the next day.
We were led by Father Mrak, a municipal man who knew the situation well.

It was still OK to get to Kline, because the road was exported to there.
From Kline onwards, we had to use snowshoes, because we were grazing snow all over.
We couldn’t see anything on the trail.
Anyone who knew the old path, which was extremely steep, will admit to me that this walking with snowshoes on all the snow was extremely tiring.
We took turns to walk on the snow, so that it was not always the same first one.
The porter was a fat man and he was the most disgusted.

Finally, we arrived at Močilo, from where we could also see the then “Vosshiitta”, which was closed.
So we had to go on, and finally, with great difficulty, we reached the top of Jezerec, as the Kranjskogorci called it at the time, or Kranjski vrh, as the Trentars called it.

The forest we went to see started just below the peak on the left side of the present road and extended down by the Lema, where the nursery is today, towards Zadnje Prisojnik, to Razorske Korite and towards the top of Prisojnik, as long as there were spruce and larch trees.
We couldn’t see much of the forest, because the path into the forest was impossible and we were already pretty tired, so we only saw part of the forest at Leme; then we went further down into the valley.
Incidentally, we also saw the source of the Soča River, but it was covered by an avalanche and we had to walk to the source with a candle under the snow.
Then we continued to Logo in Trento, where we stopped at Čot (Zorž) next to Baumbachuta.

For me, it was a very tiring route, because I was not used to mountains at that time.
We slept at Čot, and the next day we continued our journey on foot to Bovec, because there was no means of transport.
From Bovec we took the mail wagon to Sv.
Lucija, where we spent the night again.
The next day we took the train to Jesenice.
During the journey, the barantia progressed so that we arrived in Boh.
We got off the train in Bela and went to the first inn there, where the bargain ended.
In the afternoon of the same day we drove to Ljubljana.

So the forest was bought and I was appointed to supervise the work in the forest.
We found loggers and carpenters.
As soon as we knew that the snow was gone, we went into the forest, and that was in May of that year.

I went with them.
As Vosshiitta was already open at that time, I stayed there temporarily.
In the meantime, the loggers had felled some spruce trees and made an emergency roof out of spruce bark. I should also mention the path from Kranjska Gora over Vršič, because we could not see it in winter because of the snow.

There was a poorly maintained forest path to Klino, where there was an emergency footbridge over the Pišenco.
From Klino onwards, it was actually just a track, which rose very steeply in some places.
At Žlebič (below the current Mihov’s home), there was a well where people used to rest.
From Žlebič onwards, the path was torn up in several places by torrents, and just below Močil it was covered with sand and stones from a landslide.
From Močil onwards towards the summit, the path was also covered by landslides.
It was easy for a pedestrian to reach the top, but impossible with a cart.
That’s why, in those days, food and drink had to be carried on their backs to Vosshiitta.

The other side, towards Trento, was even worse.
On the Kranj side, this or that forest landowner was still “hauling” some wood towards Klino, which made the road to Klino somewhat smoother.
On the Trenta side, however, the path was left to its own devices and therefore severely neglected, usable only for pedestrians.
It was a veritable goat track that wound along the side of the present road to Huda Pravna, past the Komac monument and on to Lemi, where the present nursery is.
From here on, the path is exactly as it was 45 years ago.
This was the passage from Kranjska Gora to Trento then, for pedestrians only, and certainly not for any vehicle.

The people of Trento said that a few years ago, before I came to Trento, the Austrian army had drills there and that at that time they brought some small guns across Vršič, which they also brought to Trento, but with great difficulty, and that several of them slipped under the road.
At that time, nobody could have imagined that a car road across Vršič was even feasible.

The first thing that had to be done was to make sure that a suitable road was built so that the provisions and tools needed in the forest could be brought into the forest, while at the same time the harvested and processed timber could be taken back out.
It was my job to take care of all that.
I hired workers in Kranjska Gora and Trenta.
We started work in Kranjska Gora and mainly cleaned, repaired and widened the road from Kranjska Gora to Klino to make it usable for vehicles in the summer.
At that time, there was only a footbridge over the Pišenec River in Kline, so we had to build a new bridge.
From Klino onwards towards the summit, I had to stick to the old forest path, because the landowners of the time would not allow any new route through their forests.
And a new road would have been too expensive.
This road was extremely steep in some places, and was often broken by torrents and avalanches.
The bridges over the torrents were broken.

All these obstacles were removed by force, the route was widened where possible, new bridges were built over the torrents, and the route was generally made suitable for drivers, all the way to the top of the pass.
Of course, at that time, no one had counted on the arrival of autumn and winter and the torrents and avalanches that would come with them.
Nevertheless, within a good two months, the path was drivable.
All this time I was staying in Voss’s hut, because our settlement was not yet ready.

In the meantime, we have found a place where our company headquarters will be located and where the necessary buildings for staff and worker accommodation, stables, etc., will be built.
Because of the danger of avalanches, it was necessary to ask the locals for advice, and the Trentars advised us that this should be done in a small cauldron under Hudo Ravna, where there is also a well of good, healthy water, which no longer exists today.
Here we first built a house made of whole logs (Blockhaus), covered with spruce bark; this was also the emergency accommodation for Zakotnik and me, and also an office.
The other part of the house was for the workers, the choppers and the carpenters.
At the same time, on a nearby hill, we started to build a beautiful mountain hut with four rooms, a kitchen, a cellar and an attic, which also had iron stoves and a cooker.
So at the end of June I moved from Vossova to our hut.

First year, t.
j.
1909, we cut only on the left slope of the current road to Prisojnik, while we worked on the road to the top, which was in a very bad state of repair.
We waited until winter, when the wood could be dragged over the snow.
However, as there was not much timber on this slope, but the main part of the forest was on the south side of Prisojnik, it was necessary to take care of the road into this part of the forest.
The only path to the last Prisojnik was the one to the Prisojnik window and to Prisojnik, which branched off to the right into the last Prisojnik a little below the window, and the path over the Robec.
Both of these paths were not suitable to be used for the export of timber from the Last Prisojnik.
I therefore routed a road from our settlement through Šupca and then on to the Last Prisojnik of the “Na Ležah” plain.
Na Ležah was the plain where we built the second settlement.
Making the road from our settlement below Hudo Ravna to Šupca and onwards to Na Leže was extremely difficult and dangerous because there are steep slopes in front of Šupca and the world without a solid foundation.
The same is true beyond Šupka.
Below Šupca, it would have been impossible to build a road, because it would have had to be cut into the bedrock, and that would have been too expensive.
We did not make a road further than Lez, because the army overtook us.

We continued to cut down the forest until 1914, when the army started.
In the summer we cut and hewed wood, and in the winter we transported it to the station in Kranjska Gora.
The choppers were usually from Bača near Podbrdo, the carpenters were from the Loška valley, and some of them were from Trentar.
We did not have any accidents at our plant until the army came.

We also got used to winter conditions and took precautions in time to protect ourselves from avalanches.

The avalanche below Močil was very dangerous, followed by the avalanche from Slemena, which took the usual direction below Vosshiitte, and the avalanche below Mojstrovka.
From Močil to the top, we usually planted long sticks in the snow in the winter so that the drivers could orientate themselves when coming down from Kranjska Gora late in the evening.
As soon as it looked as if avalanches were about to break out, we stopped every journey over the summit.
But when the avalanches went away, we made a path for the sledges over them and drove on.
And we never had an accident.

I spent all my free time climbing all the peaks around there: Mojstrovka, Prisojnik, Razor, Jalovec, etc.
I also visited Zlatorog na Logu several times, where I was with the innkeeper and then mayor of Cundro, Mr.
d.
Tondrom, were very good friends.
Today he lives in Maribor, where he had to move because his property in Logo was sold.
I always walked alone, but sometimes I took a worker with me who had a passion for the mountains.
Otherwise, I had many visits to my hut.
At that time, it was very rare for a Slovene to come across Vršič to Trento.
But there were often Czechs, among them two, one of whom was supposedly called Dvorsky, who were in the Julian Alps every year.
Most of them were Germans, mainly Carinthians, but there were also Reichswalders, most of them Bavarians.
Many of them stopped at our settlement, rested and asked for information.
Dr Kugy and Bois de Chesne also stopped here several times.

Many came to us for official purposes, including foresters from Bovec and Tolmin who indicated the wood for us. With them always came Andrej Komac (Mota), the son of guide Andrej Komac, who has a monument on Huda Ravna, where he froze to death a year before our arrival. I became friends with Andrej Komac and visited him several times at his home in Log. During the First World War, he disappeared without a trace. “Špik” – Tožbar from Sv. Marija also came several times, whom I visited at his home a few years ago. He did not recognize me anymore as he had lost his memory in old age. Among Slovenian tourists, I remember only Dr. Bogdan Žužek, who was once with his mother in our cottage.

In 1910 Prof. Ludwig, then President of the D.U.O.A.V., came to Zakotnik and agreed to extend the then Vosshiitta.
I was commissioned to draw up a plan and a budget, and indeed the opening of the enlarged Voss hut took place in 1911.
The eastern wing of the present Erjavec hut, where the bedrooms are, was built according to my plans at the time and unchanged.

Among the workers, many of whom were Trentarians, there were also a number of poachers.
I have had no way of knowing who was hunting since I started.
We knew that he had a rifle hidden somewhere near the settlement.
As dawn was breaking, a poached buck fell somewhere in Prisojnik.
Finally, we found out that it was Škafar and Vertelj Anton who were hunting.
As we sat around the fire in the bailey, they told us various adventures about these poachers: how Škafar had carried the chamois through Pi-isojnik’s window to escape the hunters, how the poachers had tied the game warden Košir from Kranjska Gora above the anthill with his head above the anthill, and how he had been saved by a shepherd by chance so that the ants didn’t devour him.
Škafar was said to have fished for trout in the Soca.
A hunter watched him with binoculars from the top of a hill.
Škafar went home with his quarry, and the hunter made a trail in the sand and went to Škafar’s home to prove the theft of the trout.
The hunter failed, however, because the footprint in the sand did not match the shoes, because Škafar had a pair of huge shoes that were not suitable for his feet.

Our settlement consisted of an administrative house on a hill, a building for workers, a kitchen, a smithy, a charcoal store and two stables. We had 6 to 8 horses, sometimes more. Šmon, a saddler from Črnuče, repaired the horse equipment. Once he asked me to go with him to Mojstrovka and to collect some mountain pine trees to take home. I led him from the top over the scree behind Sito, so that we could then go along the ridge to Mojstrovka and collect the mountain lilies there. My husband was very excited to get so high. But when we came out from behind Sito on the ridge, where there is a very nice view of the upper Trenta, Grintovec, Jalovec, etc., his head spun, he covered himself with his cape, sat down on the ground, and I couldn’t get him out of his seat any more. I took him by the hand and led him back to the scree, where he was relieved. I went to collect the mountain lilies for him. Apparently my husband still lives in Črnuče.

The winter of 1912 was extremely severe.
A lot of snow fell and we stopped all work over the winter, including sending the horses to Kranjska Gora.
Before Easter I came to our settlement to put a few things in order.
I was alone.
In the meantime it had started to snow and it was a terribly cold night and day, without a break.

I tried to snowshoe my way to get over the summit and into Kranjska Gora, but with the greatest effort I barely made it to Huda Ravna.
So I returned to the hut and gave in to fate.
I had enough food to last me, but it was monotonous.
Days passed and 14 days passed, and still there was no one from Trento to go to Kranjska Gora.
On those days Šilov Lojz brought me some milk and eggs, because in Trenta they knew that I was alone in the hut.
I was very happy to see him.
I still did not dare to go over the top because the snow was soft.
So I stayed alone for three whole weeks.
After three weeks, the first Trentars arrived and made their way over the summit, and we arrived together in Kranjska Gora.
At home they were convinced that I had been snowed in.
Nobody could reach me from Kranjska Gora either.
That was the time when the Titanic sank and when Dr Cerk was killed on the Stolu a little later.

When spring came, avalanches began to rule.
From all sides, from Prisojnik, Mojstrovka and Travnik, they made their way into the valley.
At that time it was thundering and roaring, especially at night, so that it was impossible to sleep.
Huge masses of snow sometimes poured into the valley.
A particularly big avalanche came every year from Travnik and rolled into the ravine below our settlement.
It never reached our settlement.

The most dangerous avalanche for our settlement was the one from Prisojnik.
That’s why we didn’t dare to cut any wood above our settlement, because every year this avalanche was held back by the forest.
The forest was under the protection of the forestry administration and we were only allowed to cut down certain areas, and even then not densely.

Our hut was built with a very strong ceiling over the cellar, so that we could hide there in case of danger.
This cellar still exists today, but the hut was carried away by an avalanche in 1917.

In those days, it was a real pleasure to walk from Močil over the summit and on towards Trenta.
In spring, all these slopes were a single rose bush.
On the Goriška side towards Huda Ravna, there were mountain flowers of all kinds.

I have always felt very comfortable among the Trentarians.
I liked them.
They were good, soft-hearted people who were pleasant to talk to and listen to their soft language.
Trentar was used to suffering and was happy with a little.
For a year and a day he ate only polenta and sometimes “chompa”.
He knew no bread.

Only if he went to Kranjska Gora did he buy it.
He drank Trentar “gajst”, t.
j.
He bought some plain spirit, which he diluted with water at the first well.
Every Trentar had such a bottle with him when he left home, and he offered a sip to everyone he met.
At that time, the Trentars went shopping in Bialystok.

They also drove their small livestock to the seminary in Bialystok.
They usually went there to see a doctor.
So he walked the whole way, first over Vršič and then over the Podkorensko saddle.

If Trentar went to Kranjska Gora, he said he was going over Kranjski vrh to Kranj = Kranjska Gora.
But no one said he was going over Vršič.
The Kranjska Gora people said they were going to “Jezerec”, because at that time there was a small lake right on the pass, which never dried up. Our road withdrew, and then the military road broke it up. Voss’s hut was called both by the Trentars and by the Kranjskogorci the Hut on Močil. Officially, it was then called Vršič Prelaz Mojstrovka. During the war, the military commandos also called Vršič “Mojstrovka-Pass”.

But when the First World War broke out in July 1914, we had to temporarily stop all work because the workers had to leave for the war.
In the autumn, we resumed work, but on a very reduced scale.
Despite the three-way tie, Austria did not trust Italy at that time and slowly began to prepare for war against it.
In the meantime, negotiations went ahead, but, as is well known, they failed.
So, in the autumn of 1914, the High Command began preparations in this section as well.

One of the most important issues for trips to the mountains in that era was the question of good shoes.
The first time we went over Vršič in the winter in the snow, I was wearing ordinary walking shoes, which of course got soaked immediately, and I suffered a lot on the way.
Later, when I came into contact with the hunters and foresters in Trento, I saw that they had excellent, strong, waterproof and brilliantly shod shoes.
Such boots were worn by the Bovec forester Črnigoj, Andrej Komac-Mota, Tožbar-Špik and others.
When I asked where such shoes, which are indispensable in Trento, were made, I was given the address of a shoemaker who made and supplied them.
This was Franz Plieseis, a shoemaker in the village of Goisern in Upper Austria.

I wrote to him immediately and got an immediate reply that he was ready to make my shoes and that I should send him the measurements as soon as possible.
At that time, such shoes cost 10 crowns, with a box of excellent grease.
I remained in contact with this cobbler until the First World War, and I was constantly ordering shoes from him for myself and for my acquaintances.
The shoes were always excellent and everyone was happy with them.

At that time, it was not possible to buy mountaineering shoes in Ljubljana or elsewhere.
It was only after mountaineering became more developed and the Goisern cobblers’ shoes became better known in the mountaineering world that similar shoes began to be made in Slovenia and were called “gojzerji”. The first and true mountaineering shoes came from the village of Goisern. The shoemaker Franz Plieseis died at an old age about five or six years ago in Goisern. He is, in fact, the inventor of the so-called ‘Goisers’.

In autumn, the military commandos sent 25 Russians to Kranjska Gora.
They were Siberians themselves, tall, dignified people, who were accommodated in the Pečar’s salon.
They were guarded by Austrian soldiers.
Every morning they left Kranjska Gora carrying one bar of iron each, which they then handed in at Mochil.
These iron bars were then used as wire barriers on Vršič.
This was the daily work of these Russians.
In the evening they usually sang various Russian songs, and the locals liked to come and listen to them and bring them treats.
At first, the Austrian guards did not defend this, but later on, any contact with Russians was strictly forbidden and also dangerous, because they immediately considered anyone to be a traitor to the Fatherland.

This was only the beginning, as the state of war between Austria and Italy had not yet begun.
That winter, there were no major war preparations on Vršič and in this section.
As soon as the month of May was approaching in the spring of 1915 and it was certain that Italy would take the opposite side, the

Preparations for the road over Vršič to Trento.
The women’s troupes arrived with engineers and they started to measure and route the road to Trento.
They hauled a lot of building materials to Kranjska Gora and more and more Russians came with these materials.
They built various barracks, warehouses, offices, etc. in Kranjska Gora.
There was, in fact, a huge amount of traffic.
The route to Trento was soon finished and was divided into 12 or 13 sections.
Each section was taken over by one engineer.
The engineers were mostly Czech Germans and a few Hungarians.
The commander at that time was still Major Rimi, also a Czech German, but not a bad man for the Russians.
The first section from Kranjska Gora (from Baba) to Erika was assigned to a Slovenian, Eng.
Beštr, who, however, was not particularly popular with his German colleagues, among whom were also a number of Jews, because of his Slovenian origin.

But when on 24.
On 24 May 1915, when Italy officially declared war on Austria, work on the road across Vršič was already in full swing.
At that time I was also called up for the war, but because of my position in the construction of this road I was temporarily exempted from military service.

The military administration occupied our settlement and our work in the forest was completely stopped.
The tremendous overhead in the forest almost ruined Zakotnik financially, and he was on the verge of collapse, because he was only eating the forest and not giving enough of himself.
But when he saw that the war administration had decided to build a road across Vršič, he had the good idea to cash in the timber from his forest.
He drove to Beljak, where Commando 6 was located.
Corps, General Rohr, to whom he suggested that he would be prepared to make a so-called avalanche protection roof over Vršič from his own timber (Lawinenschutzdacher), so as to ensure safe passage for the Austrian army over Vršič, even in winter when the snow fell.
The War Office approved Zakotnik’s proposal and the construction of these roofs over Vršič began.

The military route of the new road followed our road only as far as Erika, where it crossed Pišenco and then gently ascended with a few curves to Mihov’s home.
There it crossed our road, left it again and then only met again a few times until it reached Močil.
This route took a completely different direction and came back to our road at Močil, followed it for a while, then took a turn and rejoined the old road at the top of the pass.

On the Goriška side, our road, except for two curves, goes continuously to Huda Ravna, t.
j.
To the Komac monument, which they wanted to demolish at the time, but I went to Ing. Schutt intervened to keep the monument.
The route then goes along our road again to our village and then on to Šupka and then on to Lez.
From here on, the route is completely new, because from here on there was not even a track at that time.
In windings and in very bad terrain; it finally reaches the valley at the present bridge and from here on to the Loge in Trenta.
There was no tunnel then.
The Italians made one later.

The new road was built exclusively by Russian prisoners of war, around 12 000 of them.
They were housed in various barracks from Kranjska Gora to Trenta.
These barracks were very primitive and very cold in winter.
The food of the prisoners was very poor and insufficient.
At work they were divided into squads of 25 men, guarded by one Austrian soldier and one Russian interpreter, usually a Jew, who did nothing.
There were also many Germans from the Volga among the prisoners.
The prisoners were badly dressed.
As they had to work in good weather and bad, most of them had their uniforms torn.
The Austrian war administration did not give them any other clothes.
As a result, various diseases such as dysentery, dysentery, cholera and smallpox spread among them and many of them died.

The Russians were treated very badly.
Especially some engineers and officers behaved savagely towards the prisoners.
For the slightest offence, a prisoner was tied to a tree and in no time at all fainted.
Then they splashed cold water in his face to make him conscious again and left him hanging like that for two to three hours.
The wildest of the engineers was Eng. Kavalir, a Hungarian, who was building the section under Močil.
When he was drunk, he would come with a heavy stick between the Russians on the road and he would beat the Russians with this stick as far as he could, no matter where it fell.
Many of the Austrian guards also liked to beat the Russians.
Complaining was impossible.
When the guards brought captured Italians along the new road, the Russians always attacked them with picks and shovels, saying that it was the Italians’ fault that the army was still going on, because the army would have been over a long time ago if Italy had not helped
the Russians.
They barely fended off the Italians, so they didn’t kill them on the spot.

So, as soon as Zakotnik got the go-ahead from the military command to build the flood-proof roofs, he teamed up with Weissbacher, a master carpenter from Ljubljana, and the two of them immediately started preparations.
In particular, they got us to move back into our settlement, which had been occupied by the army up to that time.
Half of the rooms in our hut were given back to us, i.e.
j.
two rooms, and the soldiers kept the other half.
At that time, loggers, carpenters and drivers were mobilised all over Slovenia and even in Tyrol and Solna Graz to work on the road over Vršič.
These roofs were to be built from Močil over the summit and then a little further on from Tičar’s house.
The flood protection roofs were designed to be erected on 35 X 35 cm strong columns, to which strong rafters would be attached and then embedded in the ground above the road.
The rafters would then be topped by 6 cm thick slabs as a roof, over which the avalanche would then slide.
And everything was connected with strong iron couplings.
This was a good idea in theory, but practice and the landslide proved otherwise.
The construction of the columns and rafters started immediately.
At Leža, prisoners of war sawed the slabs by hand, with one prisoner on top and two prisoners holding and pulling the hand saw below.
In this way, up to two wagons of slabs were sawn daily at Lezha.

Work started at Močil.
In the meantime, I got another bowmobile with a circular saw and we started sawing slabs with the circular saw at our hut.
In the meantime, the road was being worked on with all haste.
It was not a solid road, because round spruce wood was being used for the various trusses, and it could not hold for long.
This became apparent later on.

At the same time, a cable car was built to take people from Kranjska Gora to Vršič, where the station was located.
The second station was in the ravine below our settlement, and the third station was at the footbridge as far as the valley before the source of the Soča River.
The cableway carried a weight of up to 60 kg and mainly transported food for the army, hay for the horses and various tools.
At Huda Ravna, the cableway went so low that the ground had to be dug up.
Here, various sacks of food were stolen several times by both the Russians and the Austrian soldiers.
The guards also stole or were caught by thieves.
Most of the thefts took place when the so-called “Liebesgaben” were sent to the front.
When the cable car was being built, I told them that it was not the right way to go because it would be taken by an avalanche, and they laughed at me, saying that it was not as dangerous as I thought.
Many officers and engineers even laughed at the avalanche protection roof project.

The roadworks were progressing at a rapid pace, so that 1.
On 1 October 1905, the later Emperor Kari was already driving his car along it.
He drove to the Soča River in Trento, where a military reception was held.
It was rumoured at the time that he had contracted cognac at lunch and had fallen into the Soca while drunk.
We had to hold the torch at Močil.

The main construction team was based in Kranjska Gora.
Then there were various intermediate commands, and Major Rimi built his villa above the Russian church.
There was a second command in Vosshutta and a third in Tičar’s home.
In Huda Ravna, he built himself a magnificent one-storey villa, Ing. Schutt.
I advised him against the place where he had started building, because it was dangerous for avalanches, but he did not believe me.
The villa was swept away by an avalanche that winter, but Schutt, fortunately, was still alive.
The foundation of this villa can still be clearly seen on Huda Ravna.
The last commando was then in our hut.
It was strictly ensured that no one rode uphill on a horse-drawn carriage, and special road traffic wardens were set up for this purpose.

As soon as the road was passable, the material, the cannons, started rolling down it.
Dr. There were various columns of troops on it all the time.
They were bringing back the wounded.
When the 24.
On 24 May, when the war with Italy started, there were no troops in the Soča Basin, except at Predilo.
There were only 4 men-at-arms in the rifle trenches near Bovec, among them was the sentry Pogačar.
They had their rifles placed in the trenches at certain distances.
The Italians were cautiously getting very close, but they did not dare to go any further, because these riflemen were going from rifle to rifle and firing all the way there in one day.
It was not until much later that the first Austrian units arrived and took up positions there.

November has arrived.
Meanwhile, the first columns for the flood protection roofs at Močil were being erected.
There was still no snow.
In December there was still no snow.
Officers, engineers and the team that knew me, they all made fools of me, Chesh, where are those avalanches.
Christmas 1915 came.
During the night on Stefanova some snow fell so that a little above Mochil a small avalanche hit from Slen which covered two Russians up to their waists.
Laughing, they pulled themselves out of the snow.
Everyone who saw it laughed at them, and even more at me.

Traffic therefore continued to flow uninterrupted across Vršič, because even in January 1916 there was still no snow.
The work on the avalanche protection roofs was also progressing well and the second winding towards the summit had already taken place.
A lot of material was swallowed up by these roofs.
Timber had to be brought in all the time, and everything seemed to be going well.
Everyone also believed that the structure would be able to cope with any pressure from the snow, because it was really extremely strong and also solidly constructed.
Meanwhile, at the top of the pass, where today the Italian caula is, work had begun on a monument to Archduke Eugene, who was the commander-in-chief of the front against Italy.
The road over Vršič was to be named after him, “Erzherzog Eugen- Strasse”.
The monument is supposed to be something huge, an eternal symbol of Austria’s greatness.
Over 200 Russian prisoners of war were employed in the construction of the frame for the monument alone.
I also told the builders of this monument that it would be taken away by an avalanche, but they replied that it would be made so strongly that it would defy any force of nature.

At the beginning of February, we were sunbathing shirtless on Huda Ravna.
Still no snow and I was targeted again.
I was almost ashamed, because I had never really experienced such a winter before.

At the end of February, it starts snowing.
Slowly at first, but then more and more, and finally it started to throw a lot, so we had to shovel it off the road.
The snow was dry as flour.
That was when some people started to believe that my promises were not for nothing.
The Russians also said that, although there was snow in Russia, they did not know the quantities.
I could not have imagined that disaster was so close.

8.
On 8 March 1916, after lunch, I was heading to the summit to see the work.
I walked from our hut to the summit at one o’clock.
It was a real thunderstorm.
When I reached Huda Ravna, I heard a single terrible scream from countless throats, which immediately died away.
I go slowly on, but soon the Russian prisoners come running towards me, their faces terrified: ‘Avalanche, avalanche’.
Some Austrian guards have also come running.
All of them who came running from the top were so frightened that we could not get anything clear out of them.
We couldn’t get anyone back either.
They all declared that they would rather be killed than go back.
The officers and engineers also lost their heads and did not know what to do, because all communication with Kranj Mountain and the commandos there was cut off at the drop of a hat.

All work has come to a standstill.
We knew nothing about what had happened on the other side of Vršič.
Nobody dared to go to the top.
That day it was absolutely impossible to prepare the Russian prisoners for any rescue action, and even the Austrian officers had no will or courage to go to the scene of the disaster.
We began to guess how many casualties there must have been.
It was not yet possible to find out exactly, because there were Russian prisoners of war from the other side also working on the pass.
However, we realised at that very moment that about a hundred Russian prisoners and a few Austrian guards were missing.
The officers from Titchar’s Home also came running to our side and declared that everything on the summit had been destroyed and that Titchar’s Home had been completely emptied.

The command for our sector was in the so-called Schuttbaraka on Huda Ravna, and the Russian prisoners’ camp was a little lower down in our settlement.
The next morning all the officers and engineers came from Schuttbaraka to our settlement.
They were all armed with revolvers, which was not usually the custom.
They demanded the appearance of all the Russian prisoners.
When the prisoners came forward, a deputation of three Russians came out of their ranks, who declared to the commander at the time that they would no longer go to work on Vršič because this work endangered their lives and they must not be used for such work by the Austrian military commandos.
Ing.
Schutt threatened them again that if they continued to resist, he would be forced to use his weapons.
The Deputation replied that all the prisoners were ready to be killed and would no longer go to work on Vršič.
They also refused the call for a rescue operation, saying that it would be useless because everything that was alive on the summit had been destroyed.
Only some of the prisoners were prepared to go to the top in case something could be salvaged.
Otherwise, the Austrians, with their engineers and officers, were even more afraid to go to the top than the Russians.

Nevertheless, a few of us got together and we threw it on Vršič.
When we got there, we found a terrible devastation.
Where the frame of the Eugene Monument had been the previous day, almost 20 metres high, there was nothing left to see, only here and there a broken beam or plank lying in the snow.
There was a lot of snow, it was packed.
As it was still snowing and the whole summit was in fog, there was still no way of knowing where and how the avalanche had come from.

The avalanche was dry.
I assumed that a boulder must have formed on the ridges of Mojstrovka, falling on the avalanche area and triggering the newly fallen snow.
Therefore, there was still a risk of new avalanches, and all the more so because there was no view of the peaks to judge where the danger was coming from.

We did not see any human bodies.
We went to Tičar’s home.
The avalanche stopped at this hut.
There was more than three metres of snow in front of the door, which was covered with snow.
We started digging to get into the hut.
Soon we had dug out two Russians, both of whom were already dead.
It seemed that they had been killed by the down.
Although at the time when Tičar’s home was being built, care was taken in finding and defining the site so that the hut would be safe from avalanches, there was little to prevent it from being carried away by this avalanche, because it was so violent that it tilted the hut by about 15°.
Even today, you can still see that the walls of the hut are not vertical.
This is particularly noticeable in the entrance door, which is at right angles.

We took the two dead Russians with us and buried them on Huda Ravna.
However, when on this occasion, at the funeral of these Russians, the other prisoners realised that a rescue operation on Vršič was all that was needed, they then decided to start the excavation.
Not all of them went, but the next day quite a number of them went to Vršič and they started digging, because it had stopped snowing.
The snow was hard and the work was very difficult.
They dug out about 15 prisoners and one guard.
They were all terribly disfigured.
The tramway had torn off the heads, arms and legs of some of them.
It was out of the question that there were any living creatures under the snow.
Shortly after work, on the same day, the avalanche came again in the same place.
This made any work of digging impossible and the prisoners no longer had the courage either.

Avalanches also buried the two cable car stations at the top and in the ravine below our settlement.
The disaster was therefore complete.
All traffic over Vršič was stopped.
We had no idea what was happening on the other side of Vršič.
So we waited for about 14 days for orders.
It stopped snowing and beautiful sunny days came.
However, as something had to be done, the commandant asked me if I would dare to go across Vršič to Kranjska Gora to the commandant’s office, where I would take a report on the disaster and receive further instructions there as to the fate of the construction personnel and prisoners on our side.
Since they could not prepare anyone else for the journey, I went.

So I went to Kranjska Gora and the same day brought back orders that all Russian prisoners were to be taken down to Sv.
Marija and to be put up in barracks there.
As for the technical team, they were to go to the Soca River in Trenta and await further orders there.
Also Eng.
Gregor and I were ordered to go to Soca, where we arrived the same day.
I was accommodated in the Flajs inn, where I was still well acquainted with the innkeeper from earlier times.

We waited in Soca for a few days, and then we were ordered to leave with Eng.
Greger to take a lorry to Srednji Log pod Mangrtom the same evening, when it was dark, where we would take the elec.
mine railway to Rabelj.
Bovec was then partly in Italian and partly in Austrian hands.
The road through Kal and Koritnica past Bovec, at the crossroads, was passable, but impossible in the daytime, because the Italian artillery always had the road under fire.
Even at night, the Italians repeatedly scared the road.
It was impossible to get across the Predil by truck at that time.
That is why the mine railway served well, because the traffic over Vršič was cut off.

They really loaded us on the truck and we drove towards Kal and Koritnica.
But as soon as we got there, the Austrian artillery started teasing the Italians.
Our lorry accidentally came under artillery fire.
In the confusion, the driver swerved into a ditch, where we got stuck.
We quickly jumped out of the truck with our luggage.
Fortunately, another truck came up behind us, loaded us and drove us on to Srednji Log.

The electric railway was already waiting there and we drove on to Rabelj.
The shaft there is about 230 metres deep.
The crane pulled us to the top and we were in Rablje at about one o’clock at night, which was all in darkness because of the Italian shelling.

First we went to a bakery where we got fresh bread.
There was nobody on the road.
Everything was closed.
Finally, we saw a glimmer of light near a house.
When we got there, we saw that there was a military guard in front of the house, who saluted us when we entered, thinking that we belonged there.
We came into a rather large room, beautifully lit, with a long table down the middle, which was filled with all sorts of food and drink.
But there was not a soul anywhere.
We had our fair share of all the delicacies and finally we had a drink.
Then we lay down and fell asleep.
We never gave anybody a bill for this service.

The truck then took us to the station in Trbiž, and from there we took the train to Kranjska Gora, where we reported to the command.
In Kranjska Gora, we learned that the avalanche had also caused a lot of destruction on that side, but there is no precise information yet, because nobody had been to Vršič after the disaster.
In the meantime, however, it has been ascertained that the total number of dead prisoners is 110, in addition to 6 or 7 guards.
These were the official figures at the time, but they were reported in confidence to the higher commands, and the civilians were kept in the dark.

The command in Kranjska Gora had emptied all the buildings up to Vršič and there was no one left in the buildings and barracks.
The Russians were so panicked that the commandos were almost beginning to realise that they would not be able to do much to help them.
The soldiers and their officers were no less frightened.
Everyone wanted to get away, even to the front, just to get away from those damned avalanches.

So we all waited in Kranjska Gora for further orders.
On 3.
On April 3, I received an order from Lieutenant-Colonel Riml (by then already advancing) to go with 25 prisoners to Voss’s hut and to start digging up the road so that traffic could be restored as soon as possible.
So I went with the prisoners to Mochil, where I wanted to accommodate them in the barracks that were still intact there.
Now there were no more prisoners, they had all disappeared like camphor.
I look around to see where they have gone and I see a hole in the snow.
I look down and see only the soles of the prisoners’ feet.
The prisoners were huddled in the implantation holes of the military oven, which was still intact and completely covered with snow.
The oven was full of baked bread, which the prisoners had smelled.
I left them to pick at it as they pleased, and they seemed satisfied.
‘Hljeb harasho’, they said, even though it was already more than three weeks old.

Then, in the following days, more prisoners and officers and engineers came after me and we started digging up the road.
I was appointed by the commandos as a weather prophet because of the avalanches.
I was also assigned a lieutenant who was originally from Tyrol and, as such, he said, knew the mountain and snow conditions well.
We walked together and looked at the avalanche fields and peaks there.
The Lieutenant thought that the most dangerous were the snow drifts on Mojstrovka, which were enormous.
So my assumption that an avalanche had been triggered towards Tičar’s home turned out to be wrong, because the boulders were still hanging on Mojstrovka, and I told the lieutenant so.
He said that he would soon get it cleared up so that we could be safe.
Indeed, two days later we had two 75 mm guns and the lieutenant started firing at the snow drifts on Mojstrovka, first with grenades, but as nothing hit, he started firing shrapnel, but even with these there was no success.
He sent more than 50 shots towards Mojstrovka, but no success.
It was then that I began to doubt that a bang or a scream could trigger an avalanche in the mountains.
When he saw that his efforts were fruitless, he stopped firing.
Meanwhile, the work went on with the snow-blowing.
I pointed out to the lieutenant that the main avalanche (the Grundlavine), which usually came down from the Slemeno every year, had not yet arrived.
He replied that it was not dangerous and that we could not worry, but I expressed my doubts.
We were all staying in Voss’s hut.
Amongst the other officers was a lieutenant, a Czech German, who was literally going mad at night because he was afraid of avalanches and disturbed the sleep of all of us who were in the hut.

At that time, on the saddle of Vršič, there was a stable with 7 noble horses, which were the property of officers from the Tičar House and Vosshiitta.
We were ordered to take these horses to Močilo and from there to Kranjska Gora.
We tried every possible way, but it was no use, because the horses were in danger of breaking their legs as the snow was falling.
Nothing sensible could get into anyone’s head.
There was still a servant to look after the horses.
There was no avalanche there either.

However, a corporal who had dealt with horses in his life became aware of our problems in Kranjska Gora and offered to rescue the horses.
He came to Voss’s hut and took some prisoners and tent skirts with him.
At the top, he knocked each horse to the ground, tied all four legs together and wrapped them in a tent skirt.
Then he pushed it like a toboggan through the snow towards Mochil, where we caught the horse, untied its legs and thus rescued all 7 horses.

All the signs were that the road would indeed be unblocked and put back into traffic.
But once again, an avalanche has turned everything upside down.
One night, when we had all gone to bed, at half past twelve, there was a terrible rumbling and drumming above Voss’s hut.
The officers in their rooms started shouting and came running half-dressed into the dining room, asking what was the matter, because the ground was shaking and the hut was shaking too.
A major avalanche was coming down from the ridge.
It roared and thundered for a while, and then everything fell silent.
Nothing happened to the hut.

The next morning we saw the effect of this avalanche.
Huge masses of snow had piled up almost to the top of the hill where Vosshutte stood.
There was no sign of the avalanche protection roofs.
Everything had been swept away into the ravine below Voss’s hut and then onwards into the Dry Pishenka.
Those strong wooden pillars, which had been joined together with iron, were broken like matchsticks, torn out of the ground.
It looked as if everything was made of paper.

We reported the matter to the command in Kranjska Gora.
The whole technical team, including the Russians, was completely demoralised, so the command saw that it was best to move.
We stayed in Kranjska Gora for a while.
Then we were taken to South Tyrol to the front there.

This is the history of the road over Vršič, which should actually be called the “Russian Road” because it was built by Russians.
It required much suffering and many human sacrifices from Russian prisoners.
The figures have never been known because the commandos kept them strictly secret, but I reckon, according to my own judgment, that at least 10 000 Russians gave their lives on the Vršič road.

As the 40th anniversary of this suffering has passed, it is right that its memory should be properly revived.

Because of the huge amount of wood used for the road and the fact that it was cut wherever it was, the avalanches were even more ferocious the following year.
The avalanche took “Schuttbarake” and its villa, it also took Zakotnik’s settlement.

The following year, the army commando fought the avalanches by making a road across Vršič on the left side of the current road, but that didn’t work either.

As half of the road was given to Italy and half to Yugoslavia after the First World War, the road lost a lot of its importance because it was not passable.
However, the Italians did an excellent job of repairing and consolidating their part of the road, while the Yugoslav part was completely neglected.

The current Yugoslavia has started to take care of this part of the road, which is to be welcomed.

After the First World War, I walked across Vršič for the first time in 1920, to the source of the Shoca River.
An Italian man let me over the saddle for a handful of cigarettes.
After that, I came to Trento several more times, where people knew me well.
I usually came via Predil, to Bovec and then to Trento.
Now I go to Trento via Vršič every year, even twice, because it is the most beautiful part of Slovenia for me.
I still love to chat with the people of Trento.