A significant cache of unexploded bombs from the first world war emerged this summer from rapidly retreating glaciers in the Dolomites, the Italian army has said.

The devices, which included Italian artillery shells and French mortar bombs, were removed and defused by the army’s Julia Alpine brigade, according to a statement.

The weapons originated from the white war, a battle between the Austro-Hungarian army and Italian troops across treacherous and bitterly cold terrain between 1915 and 1918.

Soldiers from Italian army’s Julia Alpine brigade at work. Photograph: Julia Alpine brigade

More than a century later, hikers reported several sightings of bombs during the summer, mostly in the area of Canal San Bovo in the Primiero Valley in eastern Trentino.…