Valle Cravariola
| Valle Cravariola | ||
|---|---|---|
| location | Montecrestese , Piedmont , Italy | |
| Waters | Rio Colobiasca | |
| Mountains |
Pizzo del Forno (2695 m) Pizzo dei Croselli (2709 m) Pizzo Quadro (2793 m) |
|
| Geographical location | 46 ° 15 '59 " N , 8 ° 25' 31" E | |
|
||
| height | 1399 to 2793 m above sea level M. | |
| length | 5 km | |
| use | Alpine farming | |
| particularities | Border conflict between Italy and Switzerland until 1874. | |
The Valle Cravariola (until 1875 also Alpe di Craverola and until 1967 also Valle Cravairola ) is a secluded Italian valley. There are several Alps there .
The valley represents the upper end of the Swiss valley Valle di Campo , but politically belongs to Italy. The Alps are located near the Swiss town of Campo and are difficult to reach from Italy.
The valley was the subject of a border conflict between Italy and Switzerland for centuries . In 1874 the valley was awarded to Italy by an arbitration award by the American George Perkins Marsh . This so-called Cravairola decision is the first successful example of an international arbitration award.
location
The Valle Cravariola has an area of about 18 km² and is part of the Italian municipality of Montecrestese . Orographically , the valley belongs to the Swiss Valle di Campo: The Rio Colobiasca flows via Rovana into the Maggia in the canton of Ticino .
In the valley basin of the Valle Cravariola there are the Alpe Colobiasca, Cuorte Nuova, Alpe Groppo, Alpe Stufa, Corte Lama, Corte rossa and Alpe Bosa . Many of the alpine huts are falling apart.
The Alps are only about 3 km away from the Swiss Campo . The distance to the settlement center of Montecrestese is about 10 km and the path leads over the 2256 m high Passo della Forcoloa . The route to Prèmia in Italy is shorter , but you have to cross the 2499 m high Passo della Fria or the 2516 m high Passo del Groppo .
The Passo della Fria is now about 120 meters below the top of the tunnel. The tunnel, passable for pedestrians and cattle, is 300 m long.
Border conflict
Starting position
The Alps of the Valle Cravariola were bumped from late June to early or mid-September. Despite the difficulties, the products of the alpine farming were transported over the high passes to the Italian markets. However, felled wood was rafted over the Rovana and Maggia, i.e. over Swiss territory, to Lake Maggiore and thus reached the markets.
The conflict over the Valle Cravariola goes back to the late Middle Ages . The conflicting parties changed over the centuries. In the Middle Ages, the conflicting parties were the villages of Crodo and Campo. Since 1512, the year the Maggia Valley was conquered by the Confederates , the parties to the conflict were the Duchy of Milan and the Confederation . Since 1797, the Cisalpine Republic and its successor states have been parties to the conflict on the Italian side, and the newly formed Canton of Ticino since 1803 on the Swiss side. In 1861 the Kingdom of Italy became a negotiating partner. Because of the destruction of the river bed of the Rovana caused by rafting and the associated severe erosion, rafting was banned as early as 1859.
Basically, the Swiss side, in their claims through the centuries, invoked the watershed as a natural boundary creator. Italy, on the other hand, relied on the centuries-old, documented, private Italian property in the Alps.
The Swiss federal state, founded in 1848, had border conflicts with several neighboring countries in the 19th century. In 1862 Switzerland lost under pressure from Napoleon III. the seven square kilometer Vallée des Dappes to France and in 1868 Switzerland won the 18 km² Novellaberg from Austria . The conflict with Italy over the rear part of the Valle di Campo, the Valle Cravariola, remained open.
In 1868 Louis-Henri Delarageaz from Vaud undertook an ascent of the Valle Cravariola, coming from Crodo to Campo. Delarageaz was national councilor , artillery commander with the rank of divisional officer and land surveyor , among other things in the context of the surveys for the Dufour map . In the same year Delarageaz was also the Federal Council delegate for the border negotiations at Poschiavo between Italy and Switzerland.
Choice of the referee
Even if there was a real border conflict in the case of the Valle Cravariola, Italy and Switzerland had hardly any problems with each other, as Marsh later noted in writing:
" The two States have happily few, if any, conflicting or even rival interests. On the contrary, there is a solidarity of interest between them. "
“Fortunately, the two states have few, if any, conflict-prone or competitive interests. On the contrary, there is a spirit of solidarity between the two. "
It was then also possible that an Italian-Swiss commission decided in 1873 to have the border conflict settled by an arbitration tribunal. At the beginning of July 1874, George Perkins Marsh was asked by Italy and Switzerland as an arbitrator about the territorial affiliation of the Valle Cravariola. Marsh was the US envoy to the Kingdom of Italy since 1861.
Marsh was 73 years old at the time, was overweight and regularly suffered from rheumatism . On the other hand, as an American, Marsh was classified as neutral by both sides, was a long-time, experienced diplomat and expert on legal history . He was linguistically fluent and spoke Italian and French fluently. In 1864 he wrote the environmental protection classic Man and Nature , which favored him because of the ecological aspects of the Cravariola cause.
Marsh was also an avid alpinist, and so he accepted the assignment with great motivation.
perpetration
On September 7, 1874, Marsh, the representatives of the two countries and other commissioners met in Milan. The whole group of eight to ten people traveled to Crodo on September 8th.
On September 9th at five in the morning the group left Crodo (534 m above sea level), reached the Scatta dei Croselli pass (2463 m above sea level) on the watershed after seven hours on foot and on mules . Marsh described the descent into the Valla Cravariola as arduous (Marsh quote: among the worst [paths] I have ever traveled ). Crossing the disputed territory over a width of four kilometers took many hours, so that the group did not arrive in Campo, Switzerland until 7 p.m., after a total of 14 hours.
On September 12th, the inspectors were back in Milan. Marsh traveled home to Florence to evaluate the inspection and draft the written award.
evaluation
As a result of the inspection, the Italian representatives, without waiting for Marsh's report, came up with an offer to cede the Valle Cravaiola and accept the watershed as a border if Switzerland were to buy the Alps from the Italian owners. The Swiss representatives rejected this proposal, since it had been determined as early as 1873 when the decision to appeal to an arbitration tribunal that private land ownership should have no influence on the state allocation of the territory.
Because of this impasse, Marsh traveled back to Milan on September 16, 1874. In his luggage was extensive historical contract material that was previously unknown - at least to the conflicting parties. In the following week he integrated the contract material so that the report was ready on September 23, 1874. The commission was dissolved and Marsh left Milan to go home.
Arguments in favor of Switzerland
Marsh noted in his report that the management of the valley from Switzerland would be advantageous as the valley was much more accessible from this side. With targeted forest management, the encroachment, which at that time, as one could easily see during the inspection, was already well advanced, could have been stopped.
The use of wood in the Valle Cravariola required that the water of the valley was dammed and the dams were later opened so that the dammed water carried the felled trunks through the Swiss Valle di Campo and through the Maggia Valley. This uncoordinated rafting with the help of dammed water caused damage, especially in the municipality of Campo. This rafting technique even seemed to affect Lake Maggiore and its shipping.
Due to the very limited access, Italy was hardly able to organize the use of wood and water management efficiently. In addition, Italy was ascribed little motivation to protect the lower reaches of the Talbach.
After all, on the basis of a convention passed on the Borromean Islands in 1650, the Swiss authorities had the right to prohibit rafting in order to protect their own river beds or to confiscate the wood if the rafting continued.
From a legal point of view, the Swiss representatives considered the Valle Cravariola to be part of the Valle Maggia, and the latter became subject to the Confederation through the conquest of the Thirteen Old Places in 1513 and the Treaty of 1516.
Arguments in favor of Italy
The Italian representatives listed four treaties from the period from 1367 to 1497, all from the time before the conquest by the Confederates. All pointed out that the Valle Cravariola was owned and under the jurisdiction of Crodo and not that of the Valle Maggia. Various treaties and reports around 1550 dealt with the exact setting of the boundary stones, which implies that it was not about the watershed as a border.
Marsh interpreted further treaties from the following century and a half differently, sometimes in favor of Italy, sometimes in favor of Switzerland. In 1641 the Schaffhauser Vogt raised the first formal federal claim to sovereignty over the Valle Cravariola over the Maggia Valley, when the valley had been owned by Italian citizens for centuries.
Apart from these historical reasons, there was also a forward-looking reason for Marsh: If the valley had been placed under administration to Switzerland and if the private Italian ownership had continued due to a lack of compensation options, this would lead to endless resentments, disagreements and disputes, according to Marsh the peace and unity of the two countries would ultimately be even more detrimental than the current unfortunate situation .
Incidentally, in Marsh's opinion, the watershed was not universally valid as a reason for drawing a boundary. The Valle Onsernone was also divided in the same way about ten kilometers further south, without this being regarded as a border conflict.
Arbitration award
Marsh finalized his award on September 23, 1874 in Milan.
Had it been possible to compensate the owners of the Alps through money or land exchange, Marsh would have decided to assign the Valle Cravariola to Switzerland, based on the principle of pragmatism and the maximum benefit for both countries. Under the given circumstances, however, and taking into account the centuries-old ownership structure up to the first official federal sovereignty claim in 1641, Marsh decided to assign the Valle Cravariola to the Kingdom of Italy.
aftermath
The dissemination of the award suffered from poor, incomplete translations into Italian and French, so that in 2004 an attempt was made in modern research to restore the original text based on Marsh's manuscript.
Marsh's award was not the first award on a territorial issue. But it is considered the first successful arbitration award of its kind.
Marsh himself got his hands on a draft article for a Swiss newspaper in May 1875. He was so angry with the poor translation and the grotesque perversions that he insisted that the article ultimately not be published. The arbitration award has not achieved the same level of awareness in Swiss historical awareness as, for example, the Dappental question or the demarcation in the upper Valle Onsernone.
The erosion of the Rovana remained an issue even after the award. For example, the Church of Campo slipped sideways by 26.80 m between 1892 and 1979 and fell by 6.20 m in the process. Since 1999, a 1810 meter long drainage tunnel has discharged up to 300 cubic meters of water per second, so that the erosion below the Cimalmotto and Campo can be greatly reduced.
See also
literature
- Francesco Scaciga Della Silva: Della territorialità e della proprietà dell'Alpe Cravariola. 1870. New edition 2004: ISBN 978-88-86723-06-0 . The author was a lawyer and mayor of Crodo.
- David Lowenthal: Marsh at Cravairola: Boundary-Making in the Italo-Swiss Alps. , Environment and History 10, no. 2, 2004. PDF (1201 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dufour card
- ^ Siegfried Card
- ↑ a b c National map of Switzerland
- ↑ Georg P. Marsh puts the area at 4500 acres . Assuming an accuracy of +/- 50 acres, the area is 18.0 to 18.4 km².
- ↑ Tunnel entrance on 2-radler.ch, accessed on June 25, 2015.
- ↑ Inside the tunnel on escursionando.it, accessed on June 25, 2015.
- ↑ George Perkins Marsh: Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action . 1864. New edition 2013. ISBN 978-1-230-31715-1 .
