History of the Alps

The valleys of the Alps have been inhabited since prehistoric times. Alpine culture centers around transhumance.

Early history

The Wildkirchli caves in the Appenzell Alps show traces of Neanderthal habitation. During the last glacial maximum, the entire Alps were covered in ice. However, recent research into Mitochondrial DNA has indicated that MtDNA Haplogroup K arose along the southeastern slopes of the Alps around 12-15,000 years ago.

Traces of transhumance appear in the neolithic. In the Bronze Age, the Alps formed the boundary of the Urnfield and Terramare cultures.

The earliest historical accounts date to the Roman period, mostly due to Greco-Roman ethnography, with some epigraphic evidence due to the Raetians and the Lepontic Gauls. A few details have come down to us of the conquest of many of the Alpine tribes by Augustus, as well as Hannibal's battles across the Alps.

The successive emigration and occupation of the Alpine region by the Alemanni from the 6th to the 8th centuries are, too, known only in outline. For "mainstream" history, the Frankish and later the Habsburg empire, the Alps had strategic importance as an obstacle, not as a landscape, and the Alpine passes have consequently had great significance militarily.

It is not until the final breakup of the Carolingian Empire in the 10th and 11th centuries that it becomes possible to trace out the local history of different parts of the Alps, notably with the High Medieval Walser migrations.

The Western Alps

In the case of the Western Alps (minus the bit from the chain of Mont Blanc to the Simplon Pass, which followed the fortunes of the Valais), a prolonged struggle for control took place between the feudal lords of Savoy, the Dauphine and Provence. In 1349 the Dauphiné fell to France, while in 1388 the county of Nice passed from Provence to the house of Savoy, which also then held Piedmont as well as other lands on the Italian side of the Alps. The struggle henceforth was limited to France and the house of Savoy, but little by little France succeeded in pushing back the house of Savoy across the Alps, forcing it to become a purely Italian power.

One turning-point in the rivalry was the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), by which France ceded to Savoy the Alpine districts of Exilles, Bardonneche (Bardonecchia), Oulx, U.enestrelles, and Châtean Dauphin, while Savoy handed over to France the valley of Barcelonnette, situated on the western slope of the Alps and forming part of the county of Nice. The final act in this long-continued struggle took place in 1860, when France obtained by cession the rest of the county of Nice and also Savoy, thus remaining sole ruler on the western slope of the Alps.

The Central Alps

In the Central Alps the chief event, on the northern side of the chain, is the gradual formation from 1291 to 1516 of the Swiss Confederacy, at least so far as regards the mountain Cantons, and with especial reference to the independent confederations of the Grisons and the Valais, which only became full members of the Confederation in 1803 and 1815 respectively. The attraction of the south was too strong for both the Forest Cantons and the Grisons, so that both tried to secure, and actually did secure, various bits of the Milanese.

In the 15th century, the Forest Cantons won the Val Leventina as well as Bellinzona and the Val Blenio (though the Ossola Valley was held for a time only). Blenio was added to the Val Bregaglia (which had been given to the bishop of Coire in 960 by the emperor Otto I), along with the valleys of Mesocco and of Poschiavo.

In 1512, the Swiss Confederation as a whole won the valleys of Locarno with Lugano, which, combined with the 15th century conquests by the Forest Cantons, were formed in 1803 into the new Canton of Ticino or Tessin.

On the other hand, the Grisons won in 1512 the Valtellina, along with Bormio and Chiavenna, but in 1797 these regions were finally lost to it as well as to the Swiss Confederation, though the Grisons retained the valleys of Mesocco, Bregaglia and Poschiavo, while in 1762 it had bought the upper bit of the valley of Münster that lies on the southern slope of the Alps.

The Valle Camonica, on Italian side of the Alps, is one of the longest valley (about 90 km). Here develpt from the neolithic the ancient civilization of the Camunni, who left about 350.000 petroglyphs.

The Eastern Alps

The political history of the Eastern Alps can be considered almost totally in terms of the advance or retreat of the house of Habsburg. The Habsburgers' original home was in the lower valley of the Aar, at Habsburg castle. They lost that district to the Swiss in 1415, as they had previously lost various other sections of what is now Switzerland. But they built an impressive empire in the Eastern Alps, where they defeated numerous minor dynasties. They won the duchy of Austria with Styria in 1282, Carinthia and Carniola in 1335, Tirol in 1363, and the Vorarlberg in bits from 1375 to 1523, not to speak of minor "rectifications" of frontiers on the northern slope of the Alps. But on the other slope their progress was slower, and finally less successful.

It is true that they won Primiero quite early (1373), as well as (1517) the Ampezzo Valley and several towns to the south of Trento. In 1797 they obtained Venetia proper, in 1803 the secularized bishoprics of Trento and Brixen-Bressanone (as well as that of Salzburg, more to the north), besides the Valtellina region, and in 1815 the Bergamasque valleys, while the Milanese had belonged to them since 1535. But in 1859 they lost to the house of Savoy both the Milanese and the Bergamasca, and in 1866 Venetia proper also, so that the Trentino was then their chief possession on the southern slope of the Alps. The gain of the Milanese in 1859 by the future king of Italy (1861) meant that Italy then won the valley of Livigno (between the Upper Engadine and Bormio), which is the only important bit it holds on the non-Italian slope of the Alps, besides the county of Tenda (obtained in 1575, and not lost in 1860), with the heads of certain glens in the Maritime Alps, reserved in 1860 for reasons connected with hunting. Following World War I and the demise of Austria-Hungary, there were important territorial changes in the Eastern Alps.

Languages

The Alps are at the crossroads of the French, Italian, German and South Slavic linguistic areals. They also act as a linguistic refugium, preserving archaic dialects such as Romansh, Walser German or Romance Lombardic. Extinct languages known to have been spoken in the Alpine region include Rhaetic, Lepontic, Ligurian and Langobardic.

As a result of the complicated history of the Alpine region, the native language and the national feelings of the inhabitants do not always correspond to the current international borders. The Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region, which was annexed by Italy after World War I, has a large German-speaking minority in the northern province of Bolzano-Bozen; moreover, there are some French-speaking districts in the Italian Aosta Valley. In Switzerland, there are French-, German- and Italian-speaking regions, as well as some spots (in the Grisons) where the old Romance dialect of Romansh survives. In Austria, there is a great Slovenian-speaking population in the South-Eastern Alps, while the German-speaking population in Slovenia was expelled after World War II. In France, there are some Italian-speaking district in the Alpes Maritimes, especially in the cities of Tenda, Mentone and Nice.

Settlements

The highest permanently inhabited village in the Alps is Trepalle, 7250 feet (With "Passo d'Eira" at 2210 metres, between Livigno and Bormio, in Italy). In Switzerland is Juf, 6998 feet (2133 m, Grisons); while in the French Alps, L'Ecot, 6713 feet (2046 m, Savoy), and St Veran, 6726 feet (2050 m, Dauphine), are rivals; and the Tirolese Alps of Ober Gurgl, 6322 feet (1927 m), and Fend, 6211 feet (1893 m, both in the Oetzthal).

Culture

ee also

*Alps
*Transhumance in the Alps
*History of the Grisons
*Exploration of the High Alps