History History

Until then covered by the glaciers that began to retreat towards the Rhone plain, the Alps began their history on a human scale around 10,000 BC. At that time, men - hunter-gatherers - began to colonise the Pre-Alps where they found refuge in caves dug into the limestone rocks. The climate was harsh, the animals fierce and the caves in the Alps were transformed into shelters that can still be seen in the Vercors or Royans. Hunting marmots and deer with more and more sophisticated weapons, taking advantage of a milder climate, men will leave the caves to start living from pastoral agriculture. At the edge of the lakes of the Alps emerge true lacustrine civilizations, the most famous being born at the lake of Paladru. From then on, tribes occupied the territories: the Tricores in the Champsaur, the Uceni in the Oisans, the Brigani around Briançon and the Quariates in the Queyras. The man known as Ötzi, after the discovery of his frozen body in Italy in 1991, lived about 2,600 years BC, and crossed a pass before being killed by an arrow in his back... The Alps, places of passage and conflict, between men began their history.

A few hundred years before our era, when the Allobroges took control of the Northern Alps, the birth and expansion of Rome would shake up history. Long before the Roman legions intervened in Provence and dislodged the Allobroges by creating the Gallia Transalpina in 121 BC, the very first contact between the Alps and the Romans took place in a curious way. It took place in 218 BC thanks to the Carthaginian general Hannibal. At the head of an army of 40,000 men and 40 elephants - which will leave an indelible mark on history - Hannibal will cross the Alps without anyone knowing through which pass all these people, although not very discreet, could have passed to take the Roman troops back! In the middle of the first century BC, the inhabitants of the Alps are integrated into the Roman civilization. The Romans built several roads in the Alps, as was their custom. Thus, the road linking Arles to Susa through the Durance valley passes by the Montgenèvre above Briançon. The Romans also created cities to impose their domination on the region, such as Embrun, Moûtiers... The Alps prospered under Roman rule until the middle of the 3rd century and the arrival of the Barbarians.

The Middle Ages were a turbulent time in the Alps. After the barbarian invasions, the territory was unstable. Under Burgundian rule, the borders of the Alps were constantly changing. It was not until the Treaty of Verdun in 843 that things became clearer. The Alps now belonged to Lothar and were part of the kingdom of Provence. Caught between the Lombards and the Saracens who invaded Provence, the Alpine population suffered. The villagers gathered around local lords who replaced the failing royal power. The Alps are covered with numerous castles in strategic places which are all remarkable sites, such as the castle of the Sires de Faucigny in Bonneville. In search of peace in this divided kingdom, it was the religious who left their mark on the mountains. Around the year 1000, three major monastic orders came into being in the Alps: the Carthusians, the Antonines and the Chalais. Other orders settled down, taking advantage of the quietness to pray. Once again divided between the Dauphiné in the south and Savoie in the north, the Alps were the object of all sorts of covetousness, as the subsoil was now rich in minerals: copper, iron, silver..

The vast Dauphiné, attached to the kingdom of France in 1349, suffered from the wars of Italy led successively by Charles VIII, Louis XII and François I. At this period, the Montgenèvre pass was the most used by the troops to cross the Alps. The king's soldiers refuelled in the valleys, alienating a population increasingly attracted by the Reformation. Between wars of territory and wars of religion, the Alps experienced dark times. At the beginning of the 17th century, the Duke of Lesdiguières, a fine politician and efficient warlord, succeeded in reconciling everyone and launched vast works to fortify the mountains, starting with the Bastille of Grenoble. But the great work of fortifying the Alps was the undertaking carried out by Vauban from 1693. Under the orders of Louis XIV, Vauban locked the mountains from north to south with constructions each more dizzying than the last. From Antibes to Briançon via the forts of Colmars-les-Alpes, these impregnable strongholds have kept their walls to welcome visitors who take a leap back in time

Although the Romans were the first to create a communication network across the mountains, the Alpine population was for a long time threatened to live in autarky in often difficult climatic conditions, especially at altitude. In the 19th century, the Alps still formed a natural barrier that was very difficult for people to cross. But this obstacle will prove to be an asset for a man with an exceptional destiny. Emperor in exile on the island of Elba for over a year, Napoleon set foot on the beach of Golfe-Juan on March¹, 1815 to regain power. Accompanied by a thousand men, and in order to avoid the royalist troops, he went back to Paris by following the mule tracks through the Alps to Grenoble. Today, you have to drive along the Napoleon road (N85) which follows the emperor's route quite closely, especially in the village of Laffrey. The end of the 19th century saw the progressive opening up of the whole region. In particular in the northern Alps with the arrival of the railway (from 1856 for Grenoble) and the construction of many roads (Arve valley, Isère...). The situation is less favourable in the south where only the Durance valley allows easy access to the Alps

Mountaineering was born in the 18th century with the first ascent of Mont Blanc on August 8, 1786 with Jacques Balmat and Michel Gabriel Paccard. The practice of alpine skiing began in 1878 when Henri Duhamel found a pair of boards in the Scandinavian pavilion. At the dawn of the 20th century, the advent of tourism in the Alps. The first visitors were a few wealthy socialites who discovered the charms and benefits of spas like Aix-les-Bains with their luxurious hotels and Belle Epoque buildings. The soldiers wounded during the Great War, suffering from tuberculosis, will discover the sanatoriums of the Alps. At that time, people were observing each other among tourists, a word popularized by Stendhal, an author from Grenoble. Tourists were to gain altitude and conquer the summits in their turn, encouraged by local entrepreneurs who created winter sports resorts from the 1930s onwards. Megève is the oldest French ski resort. A new asset for the development of winter sports in the French Alps was the creation of the Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix in 1924.

While the First World War had relatively spared the Alps, the Second World War was to have a greater impact on a territory that became a refuge for the Resistance. From 1942 onwards, Savoie and the Dauphiné were distinguished by large gatherings of Resistance fighters. The two most active maquis were those of the Vercors fortress (Isère and Drôme) and the Glières (Haute-Savoie). On these mountain pastures, which were difficult to access, the Resistance fighters organised raids against the occupiers. The most famous episode took place in 1944 on the Glières plateau, which had been chosen to receive parachute drops of weapons by the British in preparation for the Allied landings. After receiving 3 parachute drops, the maquisards of the Bataillon des Glières were bombed by the German air force, shelled by the artillery, surrounded by German soldiers and the French Militia. The general attack of 26 March 1944 was fatal to the maquisards who, fleeing the plateau, were awaited below by the Vichy militia and the Wehrmacht. The maquisards suffered heavy losses with 129 dead. The National Resistance Monument was inaugurated on 2 September 1973 on the Glières plateau.

The post-war period saw the depopulation of rural areas to the benefit of the large towns on the plains. In the 1950s and 1960s, Grenoble was the French city with the highest rate of growth. Industry was concentrated in the lowest areas, leaving the high valleys with little more than hydroelectric power and agriculture as resources. But the farmers in the high mountains will soon be able to diversify their activity thanks to the development of a new industry, tourism. In the highlands, winter sports were booming and were popularised by the return of the Olympic Games to the Alps, organised in Grenoble in 1968 (after those in Chamonix in 1924 and before those in Albertville in 1992). It was the advent of the big resorts with their long, shapeless and imposing bars which disfigured part of the Alps, but also brought many jobs to the local children who wanted to stay and live in the village all year round - how many farmers became ski instructors? New ski areas appear regularly, resorts sometimes created on virgin pages such as Chamrousse, Tignes, La Plagne, Avoriaz, Superdévoluy... to welcome more and more skiers in this new paradise of the White Gold, not yet threatened by global warming