Author: Maarten Koning

The Romans, Säumer, and Napoleon made use of it: the Simplon Pass. Mountain passes, trade, diplomacy, and war have positioned Switzerland, a vital traffic artery of Europe, at the centre of commercial and strategic interests for centuries.

The Mountain Passes

Another warlord, Hannibal, crossed the Swiss Alps with his army and elephants in 218 BC, on the other side of the Alps, to defeat his Roman enemy on their territory. Despite several victories, he ultimately failed, but his journey remains legendary.

Roman and Greek historians, however, disagree on which pass he took to cross the Alps. The Col de Montgenèvre, the Mont-Cenis, the Little or the Great St. Bernard are often mentioned as the most likely options. We will probably never know for sure. What is certain is that Emperor Claudius (10 BC-54 AD) crossed the Great St. Bernard with his legions in 43 AD on his way to Britannia, which he indeed conquered that year.

Napoleon

Another warlord, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), is also known to have used the Swiss mountain passes for his military plans. After the conquest of the old Confederation of thirteen cantons in 1798 and the founding of the Helvetic Republic (1798-1803), he ordered the construction of a road over the Simplon Pass in 1800, “Pour faire passer les canons” (To pass the cannons), as stated on an inscription in the Gandertal.

Säumer around 1890. Photo: Ecomuseum Simplon-Dorf

Image: Schifffahrtmuseum Basel

Säumer in Simplon-Dorf, reenactment. Photo: Ecomuseum Simplon-Dorf

The road had to be broad and sturdy enough to transport his cannons and one hundred thousand men, their horses, and equipment. It was the shortest route between Paris, Lombardy, and Milan, which had long been in the possession of his Austrian enemy. On October 9, 1805, the road from Brig to Domodossola (63 km) was opened, a remarkable achievement and a technical feat at the time.

From 1802-1810, Wallis was an ‘independent’ republic under Napoleon’s supervision. From 1810 to 1813, the Simplon department was part of the French Empire. Centuries earlier, the pass was used by traders (known as Säumer), pilgrims, diplomats, and other individuals, and from the seventeenth century, by diligence or stagecoaches. Kaspar Jodok von Stockalper (1609-1691), ‘the king of the Simplon’, as the French Sun King Louis XIV (1638-1715) called him, reorganised trade between Milan and France and created the first stagecoach connection over the Simplon.

Stockalper Hospiz

Augustijner Hospiz

The hospice of Stockalper from the seventeenth century and the hospice of the Augustinians (built on Napoleon’s orders) from the nineteenth century remind us of the glory days of this pass, which, due to its relatively low height (2005 meters), was sometimes even passable in winter and increasingly so today.

Napoleon did not enjoy it for long (militarily). Tourists, Simplon Village, and (local) transport, until the construction of the Gotthard Tunnel in 1882 and the railway tunnel in 1906, enjoyed it much more.

The Stagecoach and the Postauto

At its peak, between 1850 and 1906, the stagecoach connection between Brig and Domodossola transported hundreds of thousands of passengers in diligences and Landauer coupés; in 1876 alone, 28,190 passengers were transported. There were at least four diligences in both directions daily, and more than 150 horses were used daily.

Images: Ecomuseum Simplon-Dorf

These numbers do not even include transport on foot, by sleigh, or by private means. This enormous increase also came because the newly founded Confederation nationalised the stagecoach in 1848. After the end of the stagecoach era in 1906 with the construction of the railway tunnel, the famous yellow Postauto emerged. The first postauto crossed the Simplon Pass as early as 1919.

Images: Ecomuseum Simplon-Dorf

A smaller version of the Postauto in 2022: Photo: TES

In 1905, the first cars used the pass. By 1960, usage had increased so much that Napoleon’s old road was modernised entirely, unfortunately without leaving anything of his masterpiece.

Today, the symbol of the pass is a giant eagle. It resembles Italian or German architecture of the 1940s, but it was erected by the 11th Swiss Border Brigade in 1944. Whether it deterred the German or Italian dictators in 1940-1945 is unlikely.

It is a fact, however, that they did not try to use the pass for their aggression. The Simplon Pass was part of the formidable defensive line and Alpine fortress Reduit, and every pass was a fortress of granite, stone, and rock during this period.

The pass leads via the border town of Gondo to Domodossola in Italy and from there to the Canton of Ticino. Along the way, there are still some surprises to be found on Italian territory, such as the enormous basilica in the village of Re and the stunning mountain landscape.

Source and further information: Ecomuseum Simplon-Dorf

The basilica is a pilgrimage church with the beautiful name Basilica della Beata Vergine Maria del Sangue di Re. It resembles, to a certain extent, St. Peter in Rome, Oudenbosch (province of Brabant) in the Netherlands, and even somewhat the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

Disasters in the Alpine region and Switzerland are in the news almost daily. Avalanches, landslides, melting glaciers and permafrost alternate with periods that are too dry and too wet. The climate is changing, and this has repercussions for humanity in many areas.

The causes and consequences are not discussed here; the emphasis is on a perspective of structural development that extends far beyond the short human existence, encompassing time scales of several thousand, even tens of thousands, or millions of years.

Moiry Glacier

The Gornergletscher

In a relatively short period, approximately 10,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age, humanity has managed to utilise almost the entire Swiss Alpine region for tourism, agriculture, residential areas, industry, roads and railways, tunnels, and hotels and restaurants, up to an altitude of 3,883 metres.

Matterhorn Glacier Paradise

These grandiose (technological) achievements have grown considerably, especially since the mid-nineteenth century. However, for nature, 10,000 years doesn’t even represent a second on the scale of the Earth’s history, which spans over 4 billion years.

To put this story into concrete terms, approximately 100 million years ago, the area that is now Switzerland was still underwater as part of the Tethys Ocean. Over millions of years, marine sediments were slowly deposited on the seabed, gradually forming a mosaic of different rocks.

Around 30 million years ago, this ocean gradually disappeared, giving way to another process: the continental plates of Africa and Europe collided, and over a long period, the Alps emerged around 20 million years ago.

Since then, the Earth has undergone significant climatic changes. Around 100,000 years ago, the last great ice age began. Massive glaciers covered most of Switzerland, with only the highest peaks, including the Matterhorn, barely rising above them. The Matterhorn owes its distinctive pyramidal shape to the glaciers, which have polished the rocks over tens of thousands of years.

Gletschertöpfe, Gletschergarten Zermatt

Almost 90,000 years later, these glaciers had largely melted away. It was only between 1500 and 1800, during the Little Ice Age, that they again reached a greater extent. Before Roman times and until the end of the Middle Ages, glaciers only existed above 3,500 to 4,000 metres.

It’s a fact that change is happening much more quickly today. Since 1800, the population of Switzerland (and the world) has grown very rapidly, as has the use of the Alpine regions. Until the 20th century, industrialisation and other uses of the Alpine region were relatively low. Since 1900, use and colonisation have become increasingly intensive.

As a result, natural phenomena have become increasingly frequent sources of human tragedies. But who can still bear witness to the Flims landslide (Flimser Felzsturz), which occurred around 10,000 years ago, the tsunami (the so-called Tauredunum) on Lake Geneva caused by the collapse of a mountain in 563 AD? The earthquake in Basel in 1356, or the multiple disasters that occurred in Vals (die Lawinechronik), in the Grisons? It’s only nature that witnessed them.

Anyone who visits the Gornergrat (3,089 m), the Jungfraujoch (3,463 m), the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise (3,883 m) or the Aiguille du Midi (3,842 m) will enjoy the moment, the view, the panorama and the hikes.

However, it is also worth visiting the information rooms and museums. They not only offer glimpses of technological prowess but, above all, put nature at the centre.

The Trockener Steg

Gornergrat

Conclusion

This insight is essential not only for the perspective and context of the Earth’s development but also for the Alps in particular. It shows that nature, and therefore the Earth, is constantly changing and in motion and will remain so. The question, then, is how humanity is coping with this.

Today, the Alps are a fabulous open-air natural history museum, partly recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The glacier gardens of Dossen, near Zermatt or in Lucerne, the slopes and glaciers of the Gornergrat, or the Matterhorn do not have this status, but it is merely a human qualification.

It in no way diminishes the grandeur of nature. There’s a Dutch proverb: ‘The sea gives, and the sea takes away’. The same applies to the Alps: the mountain gives, the mountain takes, in the past, present and future.

The Gletschergarten near Zermatt

Gornergrat

The Bernhard von Aosta Chapel

The Alpine Garden