Parco Nazionale della Val Grande

The traces of the long trenches and military roads can be found along the trails leading to Val Grande National Park and more precisely to Cuzzago and to Mt. Proman (Premosello Chiovenda), and much higher on the slope leading from Folungo Pass (Aurano) to Mt. Zeda.
Between 1916 and 1918, the years of WWI, the fear of a hypothetical Austrian-German invasion across the neutral Switzerland led General Luigi Cadorna from Pallanza, Head of
Stato Maggiore dell'Esercito, to arrange a defense line along the southern border of Canton Ticino. Roads, trenches, communication trenches, tunnels, munition deposits, forts, and weapon pits were part of this great defensive structure which fortunately never became a battlefield.