Archaeological finds in the upper Soča Valley indicate continuous settlement since the
Hallstatt era. In ancient times, the area on the
Roman road leading up to the
Predil Pass was part of the northeastern region of the province. It was incorporated into the
Carolingian March of Friuli, after
Charlemagne had conquered the Italian
Kingdom of the Lombards in 774. With the medieval
Kingdom of Italy, it came under the rule of King
Otto I of Germany in 952 and was incorporated into the Imperial
March of Verona. Bovec itself was first mentioned in 1192, when it belonged to the ecclesiastical , ruled by the
Patriarchs of Aquileia. It was part of
Tolmin (Tolmein) County, which was conquered by the
Republic of Venice in 1420 and incorporated into the .
Habsburg rule The lands on the upper Soča River were finally annexed to the
Inner Austrian lands under Emperor
Maximilian I during the
War of the League of Cambrai in 1509 and added to the
County of Gorizia () in the south, which Maximilian had inherited in 1500. Elevated to the
Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca in 1754, the majority of the predominantly
Slovene-speaking territories of the province—with the exception of a brief period between 1809 and 1813, when it was divided between the
Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy and
Illyrian Provinces—remained under
Austrian rule until 1918, from 1815 within the
Kingdom of Illyria ()
crown land, then from 1849 within the
Austrian Littoral crown land (). Slovene completely replaced German as the language of everyday communication in the 19th century. From 1868, during the
Austro-Hungarian period when the Littoral was part of
Cisleithanian Austria, Flitsch was administered within the (one of the 11
districts within the Littoral). The
Austro-Hungarian Army had two fortresses erected along the Predil Pass road: the well-preserved
Kluže Fortress in 1881–82 and the ruined
Fort Hermann.
World War I During
World War I, the area was the theatre of the bloody
Battles of the Isonzo, fought between Austro-Hungarian forces and the Italian Army between June 1915 and November 1917, which devastated the region almost completely. After the war, the military cemetery east of Bovec was expanded and the remains of Austro-Hungarian and Italian soldiers were transferred to the cemetery from surrounding cemeteries. The remains of the Italian soldiers were exhumed and transferred to the Italian military ossuary outside
Kobarid in 1938. Over 600 soldiers are buried in the cemetery; the graves cover the entire cemetery area, although only the south quarter has concrete grave markers. There are no names on the grave markers. Upon the 1918
Battle of Vittorio Veneto, Bovec was occupied by Italian forces and by the 1920
Treaty of Rapallo officially annexed to the
Julian March as part of the
Kingdom of Italy. Under the
Italian Fascist regime between 1922 and 1943, the Slovene-speaking population of Bovec and the neighbouring villages was submitted to a policy of forced
Italianization. Numerous locals in turn joined the underground militant anti-fascist
TIGR organization, while many others emigrated to the neighbouring
Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
World War II Between 1943 and 1945, the area was occupied by
Nazi German forces, and units of
Slovene partisans were active in the area. After liberation by the
Yugoslav People's Army in May 1945, Bovec came under joint British-U.S. occupation. Between June 1945 and September 1947, Bovec and the entire right bank of the Soča River was included in Zone A of the former Julian March, which was under Allied military administration, with the
demarcation line with the Yugoslav occupation zone running just a few kilometers east of the town.
Mass grave Bovec is the site of a
mass grave associated with the
Second World War. The Cemetery Mass Grave () is located next to the entrance to the town cemetery. It contained the remains of 11 German soldiers killed between 1941 and 1945. The names of all of them are known. The grave was exhumed in 2000 and the remains were transferred to
Žale Cemetery in Ljubljana. Unlike most mass graves in Slovenia, the grave was well maintained during the communist era with funds provided by the
German War Graves Commission. The mass grave is marked by a plaque in Slovene and German.
Postwar In September 1947, the
Paris Peace Treaties gave the town to
Yugoslavia. In 1951, Bovec became a town. With the
breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, Bovec became part of independent Slovenia. Bovec was heavily damaged by the
1976 Friuli earthquake. Another moderate quake with a magnitude of 5.6 on the
Richter magnitude scale shook the town in April 1998, and a weaker one occurred in July 2004, with a 4.9 magnitude. ==Economy==