Monumento del soldato asburgico

At Tarvisio Boscoverde, a bronze rifleman stands on a stone pedestal erected in 1909. The monument commemorates Habsburg campaigns against Napoleon’s forces in the region between 1797 and 1814.

Why it matters

The monument was erected in 1909, during Austro-Hungarian rule, to mark the centenary of the Habsburg campaign against Napoleon’s troops. It commemorates conflicts from 1797 to 1814, including the fighting for the Malborghetto and Predil positions during the 1809 campaign.

What to notice

The bronze infantryman is about five metres tall and stands on a stone pedestal about six metres high. The pedestal records the campaigns against the French between 1797 and 1814. The monument presents the Habsburg soldier of the Napoleonic era through the commemorative outlook of 1909. It stands in the Boscoverde area near the Slizza gorge.

Context and history

The monument followed a design competition announced in January 1909 and won by the sculptor J. Kassin, from the Carinthian side of the border. It was erected for the centenary of the Habsburg army’s campaign against Napoleon’s troops. The valley had been a theatre of war in 1797, 1809 and 1813–1814. In 1809, after Friuli had been joined to Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy under the 1805 Treaty of Pressburg, Austrian troops briefly invaded the region in the early months of 1809 and the Val Canale again became a war zone. The Austrians held the strategic positions of Malborghetto under Captain Hensel and Predil under Captain Hermann; when the French attacked in May 1809, it took three days of fighting for the infantry and artillery of Eugène de Beauharnais — Napoleon's stepson and Viceroy of Italy — to overcome the fort of Malborghetto, an episode recorded in one of the army bulletins of the campaign. After 1918 the territory passed to the Kingdom of Italy, and the monument became a record of the area’s former Habsburg rule.