Plöcken Pass ( German : Plöckenpass , Italian : Passo di Monte Croce Carnico ) is a high mountain pass in the Carnic Alps mountain range at the border between the Austrian state of Carinthia and the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy . It links the market town of Kötschach-Mauthen in the Carinthian Gail Valley with the Paluzza municipality in the Carnia region of Friuli .
4-531: A few miles to the west along the ridge is Mt. Coglians , with 2,780 m (9,121 ft) the highest peak of the Carnic and Gailtal Alps . Before reaching the upper Gail Valley, the pass road also crosses the lower Gailbergsattel at 981 m (3,219 ft) in the north. The Italian name derives from Latin Monte Crucis ("mountain of the cross"), a denotation of the pass in mediæval times. The valley of
8-768: The Gail River had been a settlement area since the Neolithic era, and a bridle path probably existed already in the Bronze Age . Roman forces under General Tiberius rebuilt the path as a road after the incorporation of the Noricum province in 15 BC, in order to reach the newly conquered lands north of the Carnic Alps from Italy . The well constructed road was in use throughout the Middle Ages as part of
12-754: The Plöcken Pass to occupy the Upper Carinthian lands around Villach , which had been ceded to the French Empire as part of the Illyrian Provinces . In World War I the pass became a theater of the Italian Campaign of 1915–1918, when Italian Alpini troops tried to push northwards into Carinthia, though to no avail. As both sides soon concentrated on attrition warfare , numerous bunkers and tunnels were constructed,
16-517: The trade route between Aquileia and Salzburg , also after the Carnia region in the south was conquered by the Republic of Venice in 1420. The former mansio at Timau ( Tischelwang , today part of Paluzza ) south of the pass was resettled by miners from Carinthia, up to today it is a German-speaking enclave on Italian territory. Upon the 1809 Treaty of Schönbrunn , Napoleonic troops crossed
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