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The Alps acted as a geographical barrier to Italy, and the Alps for centuries were permeated with established smuggling routes, known as green line. After World War II, members of the Schutzstaffel that feared prosecution as war criminals , known in modern English only as SS , disappeared into a crowd of refugees . [ 151 ]
Troops under Generalissimo Alexander Suvorov crossing the Alps in 1799, by Vasily Surikov Napoleon passing the Great St Bernard Pass, by Edouard Castres. The French historian Fernand Braudel, in his famous volume on Mediterranean civilisation, describes the Alps as "an exceptional range of mountains from the point of view of resources, collective disciplines, the quality of its human ...
The Alps form part of a Cenozoic orogenic belt of mountain chains, called the Alpide belt, that stretches through southern Europe and Asia from the Atlantic all the way to the Himalayas. This belt of mountain chains was formed during the Alpine orogeny. A gap in these mountain chains in central Europe separates the Alps from the Carpathians to
While smaller groups within the Alps may be easily defined by the passes on either side, defining larger units can be problematic. A traditional divide exists between the Western Alps and the Eastern Alps, which uses the Splügen Pass (Italian: Passo dello Spluga) on the Swiss-Italian border, together with the Rhine to the north and Lake Como in the south as the defining features.
The Alpine biogeographic region of Europe includes the Alps in France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland and Monaco, the Apennines in Italy, the Pyrenees between Spain and France, the Scandes in Sweden, Finland and Norway and the Carpathians in Slovakia, Poland, Romania and Ukraine. [1]
The alphorn (German: Alphorn, Alpenhorn; French: cor des Alpes; Italian: corno alpino) is a traditional lip-reed wind instrument originating from the European Alps. It consists of a very long straight wooden natural horn, with a length of 3 to 4 metres (9.8 to 13 feet), a conical bore and a wooden cup-shaped mouthpiece.
The Swiss Alps extend over both the Western Alps and the Eastern Alps, encompassing an area sometimes called Central Alps. [2] While the northern ranges from the Bernese Alps to the Appenzell Alps are entirely in Switzerland, the southern ranges from the Mont Blanc massif to the Bernina massif are shared with other countries such as France ...
For centuries, the region has been known for transit trade. The most important trade route across the Alps, namely the Brenner Route, traverses the whole of Tyrol and is regarded as a connecting link between the Italian and German-speaking areas.