Brenner Pass 1,371 m). Completion of the railway enabled the Austrians to move their troops more efficiently; the Austrians had hoped to secure their territories of Venetia and Lombardy (south of the Alps), but lost them to Italy following the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859 and Austro-Prussian War in 1866. At the end of World War I in 1918, the control of Brenner Pass became shared between Italy and Austria under the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919). The Treaty of London (1915) secretly awarded Italy the territories south of Brenner Pass for supporting the Entente Powers. Welschtirol/Trentino, along with the southern
Brenner railway station had been destroyed to make room for a new area, long, for the station building and other rail infrastructure. The arrival of railway opened a new era for the village: it confirmed Brenner Pass, which has already been a major trans-Alpine crossing from the ancient Roman times, as the principal mountain pass for travellers and merchants. Moreover, the railway enabled more efficient movement of troops for the Austrian Empire to secure its southern regions of modern-day Veneto and Lombardy. On 26 April 1915, the Treaty of London promised Italy the territory south of the Brenner Pass (now known as South