Towering 15,782 feet over France, Switzerland and Italy, the Mont Blanc is Europe’s highest peak. Nicknamed the “roof of Europe” or the “White Mountain,” Mont Blanc is a popular tourist destination in the Alps Mountains. Mont Blanc was accessed via a mountain steam-powered railway line completed in 1914 (electrified in 1956). To demonstrate Nazi power, the ridges of Mount Blanc became a front line in WWII. The ridge line was defended by the Mont Blanc Battalion of the Resistance, comprised of fighters and guides with skiing and climbing experience. The city of Chamonix at the base of Mont Blanc came under German occupation and remained a frontier post until liberation in August 1944.
