The passes they tackled were some of the same roads as you will find on the latest version of the Rallye des Alpes. Names like Katschberg, Stelvio, Tauernpass, Loibl, Kreuzberg, Turracher Hohe and Pordoi Joch still crop up in road books today but their surfaces have been improved even if their gradients have not. An Alpenfahrt was planned for 1915 which was to have been much bigger event, taking in roads in Germany and Italy as well as Austria. But by 1915, the Triple Alliance no longer existed. And by 1919, neither did the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy looked to step into the breach and ran some events called the Coppa Alpi using the Stelvio and the Dolomites but they never came to much. Starting in 1921, Austria ran several events under the name Alpenfahrt but they too failed to capture the international imagination.
Then in 1929, the automobile clubs of Switzerland, Italy, Germany and Austria got together and ran the first International Alpine Rally. Held in August of that year, it started in Munich and finished in Como. During the five days, the eighty competitors were given a grand tour of all those places that are familiar to the modern Rallye des Alpes, about five hundred kilometres a day with every night in a top class hotel. Does that sound familiar?