The Karnischer Kamm formed a section of the so-called Southwestern Front – the front situated between Austria-Hungary and Italy from May 1915 onwards. It stretched over a length of around 600 kilometres in a linear distance from the Swiss border to the Adriatic coast. In East Tyrol the front stretched approximately 115 kilometres from the national border between Tyrol and Carinthia at the height of the settlement of Maria Luggau to Carinthia/Mt. Nero (2,244 m).
Italian, Austro-Hungarian and German soldiers faced each other on this part of the front mainly between 1915 and 1918, primarily in high-Alpine terrain and usually at an altitude of 2,000 to 3,900 metres above sea level. In 1915, soldiers on both sides initially had to make the complete terrain suitable for military operations. Apart from a few mountains made accessible for tourists and trails used by the local population in summer for cattle driving, hardly any well-developed paths or tracks existed between the Ortler (3,899 m) near to the Swiss border and the Julian Alps.
Between 1915 and 1917 soldiers fighting along this section of the front had to defend their homeland under extremely adverse conditions. Many died – not just from the fighting itself but also due to frostbite because of the extreme weather conditions or due to avalanches.