CARNIC PORTERS

On June 28, 1914, World War I broke out in Sarajevo but Italy only entered the conflict a year later. Our army found itself mainly engaged in the Eastern Alps and the battles were concentrated in the Dolomites and near the karstic plateau. Carnia had a big role in Italy's military plans. Given the strategic importance of the Carnic front, it was absolutely unthinkable to deprive it of soldiers who defended it to assign them to the task of transporting food and ammunition. It therefore became necessary and inevitable to appeal to the civilians of the surrounding valleys for help. The news spread quickly, and in a short time other women from the surrounding villages joined the Timau volunteers. Their task was to supply the soldiers on the front every day using panniers (hence the name Carnian carriers): wooden baskets, wicker and ropes. Although they were never classified in a real regiment, the Command provided them with a red bracelet marked with the identification number of the department they depended on and a booklet in which the goods placed in the pannier were noted. The goods commonly transported by these women were wood or hay, but the baskets were also filled with everything the soldiers could need: medicines, clothes, but also ammunition, weapons, grenades, wooden planks, sand and stones to build roads for the military.

Once they reached their destination, the bearers emptied their pack baskets and delivered the goods to the soldiers, stopping for a few hours to rest and to report the latest news from the valley. On the way back, the baskets could be filled again with the soldiers' linen and clothing, which the carriers took care of washing and taking back to the front on the next journey. Often, however, the bearers were also in charge of carrying the wounded downstream on stretchers, or the bodies of the fallen, which the women themselves took charge of burying in the Timau cemetery.

Since 1992 in the square of Timau ( Municipality of Paluzza ) is located a monument dedicated to the Carnic porters. This memorial commemorates Maria Plozner Mentil, a bearer killed by an Austrian sniper on February 15, 1916.