How about this great 1960s Austrian Cold War classic civil defense documentary, “Es geht um die Zeit” (It’s about Time), complete with a Hitchcockian opening.
It is only about 10 minutes but it includes a ton of great shots of the recently rebuilt Austrian Bundesheer (reformed in 1955) in field operations, complete with M1 style helmets, the country’s Steyr-built FN FALs (StG 58s), Steyr MG42/59s in 7.62 NATO, an American-supplied M7 Priest 105mm self-propelled howitzer, M20 3.5-inch Super Bazooka, and M2 105mm tube artillery moved by an IHC M5 13-ton high-speed tractor.
During the Great War, one of the most often forgotten major battlefields were those high in the Alps and Dolomites between Austro-Hungarian Tyrolean Kaiserjäger backed up by mobilized Standschützen militia and Italian Alpini, over control of the region that both claimed.
Italian helmet excavated on the Isonzo front, with the head of a Hungarian soldier’s 1896M pickaxe inside.
The pitched battles were by no means decisive, and it was only the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian war effort that allowed the Italians to occupy the region in October 1918, then later awarded to Rome under the terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain.
In a sort of reminder of this, but through a modern lens, three videos were just recently released.
The Alpini of the Taurinese Brigade recently sent 500 troopers through what is called the 220 Mila Passi (220 Thousand Steps) climbing eight peaks– all over 1300m in elevation– across 88 km.
In related news, the NATO Mountain Warfare Centre of Excellence in Slovenia, run by an Italian Alpini colonel on former Austro-Hungarian mountains, released an interesting sizzle reel highlighting their operations.
Not to be outdone, the Austrian Bundesheer at the same time released a video of a sergeant undergoing the country’s Heereshochgebirgsspezialisten (high mountain specialist) course in the Dolomites alongside fellow troopers from the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovenia– all of which fought in the Tyrol in 1918!
