After the War . Italian Alpine troops.
This disaster was only one of many. One was the Austrian encampment in barracks below the Gran Poz summit of Monte Marmolada, which was defended well from direct fire and out of mortar range above the timberline but at which more than 500 men were buried alive.
Just a few months later, on just one day (December 13th, a day which became known as "White Friday") 10,000 soldiers are said to have died in avalanches; the problem being so serious that both sides had detachments of soldiers assigned specifically to the avalanche rescue mission. Dangers of an Avalanche An avalanche is one of the most powerful events in nature.
On Dec. 13, 1916, a day that would become known as White Friday, 10,000 soldiers were killed by avalanches in the Dolomites. A fractured mass of snow may flow down a slope or become airborne. As a large avalanche speeds down a mountainside, it may compress the air below it, producing a powerful wind that can blow a house apart, breaking windows, splintering doors, and tearing off the roof. In the days following this avalanche, there were similar disasters. It seems that high and strong winds caused the disasters in 1916. Again, probably due to the high winds. The avalanches were so severe that an estimated 10,000 troops were killed by avalanche during December 1916. These 10,000 deaths by avalanche did not end the war. Now avalanches have been used in other wars and they have been very effective. Other avalanches the same day struck Italian and other Austrian positions, killing hundreds.
According to some reports both sides deliberately fired shells into the weakened snowpacks in an attempt to bury the other side.
Fighting continued into 1918, with a total of 12 battles fought in this frozen battlefield, most near the Isonzo River. White Friday occurred during the Italian Front of World War I when an avalanche struck an Austrian barracks on Mount Marmolada, killing 270 soldiers. White Friday/Alpine Front Line avalanches, Marmolada, Italy, December 1916 (10,000 deaths) In December of 1916, during the worst days of World War I, a series of avalanches in the Italian Alps killed around 10,000 Italian and Austrian soldiers fighting against each other. For many years, the avalanches of White Friday were reported to have killed around 10,000 men, but recent research published in 2016 by historians and meteorologists at the University of Bern in Switzerland has refuted this.