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 Italy in the war / 
 
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ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
^ 
 
 THE REIGN OF QUEEN VICTORIA 
 
 1837-1901 
 
 By SIDNEY LOW, M.A. 
 
 Fellow of King's College, London, formerly Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, 
 And LLOYD C. SANDERS, B.A. 
 With Three Maps. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net. 
 
 BEING VOL. XII OF 
 
 The Political History of England 
 LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. 
 
 LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 
 
Artillery above the Snow-line 
 
ITALY 
 
 IN THE WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 SIDNEY LOW 
 
 WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS AND THREE MAPS 
 
 SECOND IMPRESSION 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN AND c6. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 FOURTH AVENUE & 30th STREET, NEW YORK 
 BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS 
 
 1917 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TN June and July, 1916, I visited the theatre 
 of war in Italy on the invitation of the Italian 
 Headquarters Staff. I spent some time at various 
 sectors of the Front, and had opportunities also 
 to examine certain of the industrial establishments 
 engaged in the production of war material, and in 
 other ways to obtain some knowledge of the 
 methods by which Italy has organised herself 
 for the maintenance and supply of her armies in 
 the field. 
 
 The following chapters embody the opinions 
 formed, and the information gathered, in this tour 
 of inspection. I have added a brief discussion of 
 the causes and motives by which Italy was im- 
 pelled to participate in the world conflict, and a 
 summary of the diplomatic and political trans- 
 actions leading up to the declaration of war 
 against Austria. 
 
 I was profoundly impressed by what I saw and 
 
vi ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 heard, and it is my hope that I may have suc- 
 ceeded in conveying to my readers something of 
 my own appreciation of the spirit and energy with 
 which Italy has faced her ordeal. 
 
 It was an honourable privilege to be permitted to 
 observe, at close range, the young army of an old 
 and famous people, locked in its struggle with a 
 formidable antagonist. Nor could the observer fail 
 to be stirred by these grandiose warlike operations 
 amid scenes that make so moving an appeal to 
 the historic and artistic imagination : carried on 
 as they were under conditions of exceptional and 
 excessive difficulty. 
 
 Italy has borne the strain with patriotic 
 ardour and high courage, and she has done 
 valuable service to her allies no less than to 
 herself. She has earned the gratitude and respect 
 of the great nations with which she is associated 
 in the vindication of liberty and justice ; and her 
 well-wishers have good ground to expect that 
 she will emerge from the contest with her national 
 and racial unity complete, and with her political 
 and economic stability more securely established. 
 
 I regret that I am precluded, by military exi- 
 gencies and regulations, from referring by name 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 to those courteous and capable friends by whom 
 I was escorted, advised, and protected in my 
 travels over the war-zone. As it is, I can do no 
 more than express, in general terms, my cordial 
 acknowledgment of the kindness shown to me by 
 the officers of the Comando Supremo, and those 
 of the armies, divisions, and regiments with which 
 I was brought into contact. To their willing and 
 judicious aid, and the facilities they gave me, 
 such interest as there may be in these pages is 
 mainly due. 
 
 I am under particular obligations to the 
 chiefs of the admirable Photographic Department 
 of the Italian Headquarters Staff, who have been 
 good enough to place at my disposal the photo- 
 graphs from which the majority of the illustrations 
 in this volume are derived. 
 
 S. L. 
 
 London, October, 1916. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 0HAI>T11K PAOK 
 
 I. North and South . .1 
 
 II. To THE Eastern Front .16 
 
 III. Geography and Strategy . . 31 
 
 IV. The War-zone and the Trenches . 53 
 V. Gorizia and the Isonzo Front . . 70 
 
 VI. The Carnia and the Cadore . 95 
 
 VII. The Trentino Battles .111 
 
 VIII. A Mountain Walk in the Trentino . 140 
 
 IX. A Rear-guard Action near Asiaoo . 155 
 
 X, War Amid the Eternal Snows . . 174 
 
 XI. Impressions of the Italian Army 197 
 
 XII. Transport and Munitions . 215 
 
 XIII. Why Italy is Fighting . . 236 
 
 XIV. The End of the Triple Allianck 257 
 XV. The Welding of the Nation . . 278 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Abtiilkry Abovk the Snow-ijne . . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PACK 
 
 The Mosaics in S. Ai>ollinare Nuovo, Ravenna . 18 
 
 A Covered Altar in St. Mark's^ Venice 
 A Hard Pull Upwards 
 
 . 26 
 
 . 36 
 
 1916 . 42 
 
 The Ghapenbhrg After the Attack op Aug. 8, 
 
 Advanced Post in Val Lagarina . .48 
 
 Barbed Wire on the Mountains . . .56 
 
 Trenches in the Carnia . . 64 
 
 Italian Cavalry in Gorizia .70 
 
 Railway Bridge Across the Isonzo wrecked by the 
 
 Austrians . . . . .76 
 
 Marching to the Carso Front . . .82 
 
 Carso : Hill 240 After the Battle^ Arc. 8, 1916 88 
 
 The Calvario Position, Captured Aug. 8, 1916 93 
 
 Alpini Crossing a Glacier . . .98 
 
 A Heavy Gun in Position .... 104 
 
 On the Freikopel .... . 108 
 
 Defence Works in the Trentino . 116 
 
 A Communication Trench . . . .124 
 
 General Luigi Cadobna, Chief of the Staff of the 
 
 Italian Army ... .132 
 
 On the Hillside . . . .144 
 
xii ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 rACING PAGE 
 
 Observing Station on Monte Neho . . .162 
 
 H.M. The King op Italy . .160 
 
 Railway Bridge Across the Isonzo under Austrian 
 
 Artillery Fire . . . . .17- 
 
 A Vedette op the Alpini . . . .178 
 
 Gun on the Wire-bope Railway .18 
 
 Alpini on Adamello . . . 19( 
 
 A Fatigue Party . . . . . .10 
 
 Italian Infantry in the Piazza Grande, Gorizia . 2' 
 
 A Mountain Post ..... 210 
 
 Gorizia : Carabinieri Questioning Inhabitants, Aug. 9, 
 
 1916 215 
 
 On Guard 10,000 ft. Above the Sra Level . . 224 
 
 A Gun Emplacement in the Snow . . . 232 
 
 MAPS 
 
 The Austbo-Italian Frontier on May 23, 1915 . . 31 
 
 The Isonzo Front . . . . . .71 
 
 The Trbntino and the Asiago Plateau . 117 
 
ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 NORTH AND SOUTH 
 
 WAB, AND NATIONAI* CHARACTER — SOME MISCONCEP- 
 TIONS — THE LATIN TEMPERAMENT — THE ORDEAL 
 OF FRANCE — THE CALMNESS OF ITALY 
 
 UNDER the plastic touch and fiery breath of 
 war the characters of nations, like the char- 
 acters of men, have been swiftly moulded to new 
 forms. Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to 
 call the process not so much a development as a 
 revelation. Few of us there are who have not 
 been moved by this strong and subtle magic, as 
 it has manifested itself on individuals and classes 
 in these years. We have seen the soul awakened 
 where often we thought the soul was dead, and 
 have had cause to marvel anew at the strange 
 contradictions, the infinite possibilities, that lie 
 hidden beneath the mask of personality. If some 
 figures, shining with light and splendour, have 
 been transformed, as by Ithuriel's spear, to 
 
2 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 shapes loathly or despicable, how many others 
 have been clothed with a starry radiance ! 
 
 We live in an age of heroes and martyrs, born 
 under our own roofs, bred up in our households. 
 The boys we saw the other day in the playing- 
 fields are the knightly young leaders of our battles, 
 wise, valiant, alert, indomitable. The idler of the 
 club and the music-hall endures without a murmur 
 the misery of the trenches ; the comic actor who 
 capered for our pleasure has become the war- 
 hawk on wings of air, dying as he hurls the thun- 
 derbolt. The work-a-day toilers from field and fac- 
 tory and office, grumbling over their daily task, are 
 the warriors who go to their graves like beds with a 
 jest between their teeth. The girls who lived, it 
 seemed, to dress and flirt, are scrubbing the floors 
 of the hospitals, or staining their arms in the 
 munition works. Most of us, in our several degrees, 
 have drawn upon unexpected reserves, have found 
 ourselves sometimes unhappily worse, but more 
 often rather better, than we deemed that we 
 could be. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 So it is with the nations. In the war the out- 
 ward vesture of convention and tradition has 
 fallen away, and spiritual values are unveiled. 
 The generalities so lightly repeated are shown to 
 be inaccurate and^shallow. Not in one country 
 
NORTH AND SOUTH 3 
 
 but in many has the revelation come, and not 
 always is it welcome. With a shock we faced the 
 stark brutality beneath the German veneer of 
 sentiment and culture. We have learnt much 
 concerning our foes, but more of our friends, as 
 they also have gained a surer knowledge of us. 
 We know how deeply we misjudged the Latin 
 peoples when we thought them wanting in the 
 purposeful steadiness we chose to ascribe to our 
 Northern stocks. We liked to believe the gaiety 
 that blossoms under bluer skies than ours to be 
 mere frivolity, the vivaciousness that goes with 
 clearer airs and easier tongues a symptom only 
 of instability and fickleness. 
 
 The Germans, who are experts in everything 
 except human nature, strangely misconceived the 
 psychology of peoples. They thought the British 
 slothful and effete, the French decadent, the 
 Russians doltish, the Italians unadventurous and 
 soft. These were disastrous errors ; but we too 
 make mistakes in our hasty analysis of national 
 and racial character. We, who ought to know 
 something of our own fitfulness and caprice, who 
 have lived to see the Teuton intellect break up in 
 brain-storms of insolence and hate, we acqmesced 
 in the tradition of the superficiality and levity of 
 the Latin peoples. We found the French wanting in 
 seriousness, a strange misunderstanding of the 
 countrymen of Bossuet and Corneille, of Montes- 
 
4 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 quieu and Pascal. We thought the Italians 
 volatile and temperamental, a nation merely of 
 singers and artists, though it is the nation of 
 Machiavelli and GaUleo, Mazzini and Cavour. 
 
 This misconception was held unquestioningly by 
 the Germans and their ally. One of their journals, 
 soon after the declaration of war against Austria, 
 sneered at the army of " mandoline-players, 
 beggars and brigands " which would presently, it 
 was suggested, run howling before the conquering 
 legions of the Hapsburg emperor. The taunt was 
 widely quoted and sank deep. Shortly after the 
 victories on the Isonzo an Italian paper pubUshed 
 a cartoon in which the Austrian Kaiser, much 
 battered and shaken, is seen hobbling away under 
 a shower of musical instruments pelted upon him 
 by pursuing bersaglieri. " Rather too many man- 
 dolines," murmurs the disturbed potentate. The 
 Austrians had never been able to believe that there 
 was any real fighting quality in the troops of the 
 South. 
 
 But indeed this myth of the weakness, the ador- 
 able weakness, of Italy was common to the world 
 at large. Italy is so beautiful, it is so rich in the 
 treasures of art and the glories of nature, it is so 
 gemmed and jewelled by the hand of man and the 
 hand of God, it is altogether so exquisite and delect- 
 able that it is not easy to treat it quite like the 
 rest of this hard, prosaic, practical, materialistic, 
 
NORTH AND SOUTH 5 
 
 latter-day Europe. For generations Italy has been 
 
 the chosen haunt of the Sentimental Traveller, the 
 
 paradise of the literary and artistic holiday-maker. 
 
 It is the Italy of Byron and Shelley, of Goethe and 
 
 Heine, of Stendhal and George Sand, of Landor 
 
 and Browning, that we know best, the Italy of the 
 
 pictures and the palaces and the Vatican galleries, 
 
 the Italy of the purple hills and sapphire seas : the 
 
 land of song and music and verse, the " woman 
 
 country" that inspires her alien lovers with an 
 
 undying passion. 
 
 " Open my heart and you shall see 
 Graved upon it, Italy." 
 
 Yes ; but the Italy of the past, the Italy of a 
 dream, of many dreams. 
 
 * * 
 
 For there is another, a Mving, Italy, an Italy 
 de nos jours, which resents this patronising homage. 
 If Italy is the woman nation she is feminist in the 
 modern way, the way that leads to experience 
 activity, adventure. To lie passive and lovely, 
 while wealthy people (who have made their money 
 in trade) rhapsodise and domineer over her, is not 
 to her mind : she will be up and doing herself. 
 Young Italy, braced by the invigorating waters of 
 the risorgimento, still stirring with the flush of 
 adolescent nationhood, rebels under this worship 
 of her ornaments and her charms. 
 
6 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 Not without significance is it that Italy gave 
 birth to the Futurist movement, with its savage 
 repudiation of the Past, its angry dishke for all 
 that is traditional, romantic, sentimental. The 
 thing may be not only extravagant but merely 
 artificial elsewhere. In Rome, Milan, Bologna, it 
 has some root of meaning. " We are tired," say 
 the young Italians, "of all this historic and 
 aesthetic adoration ; we have heard enough of 
 Petrarch and Boccaccio and Botticelli, of Cimabue 
 and Fra Angelico. We cannot live for ever on 
 memories of Virgil and Tasso and Francesca da 
 Rimini. Let those who will dream in museums 
 and old churches ; for us the clanging factory, the 
 beating hammers, the tall chimneys, the throbbing 
 engines, the clamorous cities and crowded streets 
 where things are done and the new world is being 
 shaped. Away with your Past ; we are of the 
 Future — ^as Italy, too, shall be." 
 
 Philosophic publicists write books on " the 
 deeper causes of the war."^ I think that this 
 reaction was one of the deeper causes of the war 
 for Italy. Behind all the political motives was 
 this sentiment of self-consciousness, this feeling 
 that the time had come for Italy to show that she 
 was one of the family of great modern nations, 
 vigorous and alive, a country to interest statesmen 
 
 ^ Hovelacque : Les muses profondes de la guerre. 
 
NORTH AND SOUTH 7 
 
 and capitalists as well as tourists and antiquarians. 
 " Meno alberghi, piii officine," exclaimed the late 
 Premier, Signer Salandra: "we want fewer hotels 
 and more factories." D'Annunzio gave voice to 
 the same indignant revolt against impotence and 
 dependence when he said in the great week of 
 May, 1915 : " We will no longer be a museum of 
 antiquities, a kind of hostelry, a pleasure resort, 
 under a sky painted over with Prussian blue, for 
 the benefit of international honeymooners." Well 
 might the audience shower roses on the orator ! 
 Well might Italians say to themselves : — " They 
 think us powerless — ^we who are the inheritors of 
 Rome ! They hold us idle and weak — ^we whose 
 labouring hands have built the roads, the railways, 
 the harbours of the world. They think us light 
 and changeful — ^though for a century we have held 
 fast to an ideal, to the ideal of a Greater Italy, 
 which now we shall live to see fulfilled." 
 
 * * 
 
 To pass from Britain to the Latin countries in 
 the early days of June 1916 was a lesson for any- 
 body disposed to accept the traditional valuation 
 of national qualities. I left England still in that 
 stage, which lasted too long, of the strong man 
 rousing himself from sleep. The giant was indeed 
 beginning to shake invincible locks ; we who knew 
 
8 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 him knew he would not rest again until the task 
 was done. But all the same, the England I had 
 left was unquiet and anxious, even while muddling 
 on, in its own inimitable fashion, towards effective- 
 ness and victory. At the moment our optimism 
 was chequered with depression. We had gone 
 through those bad weeks of the Irish rising, the 
 shelling of insurgent strongholds in the heart of 
 Dublin, the shooting of the rebels, the raiding of 
 German cruisers and Zeppelins, the surrender of 
 Townshend's army at Kut, the loss of the Mediter- 
 ranean flagship, the sudden tragedy of Kitchener's 
 death. The Battle of Jutland had been fought, 
 but we did not yet quite know \vhat to make of it. 
 London felt the irrepressible animation and san- 
 guine vitality of the young soldiers in her streets. 
 But under the surface there was uneasiness : we 
 were not so calm and confident as we wanted to be. 
 In France one breathed a different atmosphere. 
 The French, " our lively neighbours," were not 
 lively ; but tranquil, restrained, sedate. They had 
 suffered much and knew that great sufferings were 
 still to come ; but they faced the future with an 
 invincible fortitude. The Gallic vivacity had given 
 place to a new reticence ; there was not much 
 talking in the public places and little laughter ; 
 work was done qiiietly and soberly, but done it was. 
 Few young men were to be seen except soldiers in 
 uniform, and those too often wounded. But the 
 
NORTH AND SOUTH 9 
 
 old men, the women, even the children, saw to it 
 that the life of the country went on behind the line 
 of steel which held back the invading host, and 
 made certain that after the tempest France should 
 still be as she has been, rich, thrifty, industrious, 
 artistic, able to hand down to the generations to 
 come all that has been derived from an incomparable 
 past. 
 
 One recognised this even in Havre, that outpost 
 of England, full of clean, cheerful soldiers in khaki, 
 of smart young British officers. Havre was not 
 wholly absorbed in the activities of the war. The 
 shops in the wide well-kept streets were doing a 
 brisk business, the tramcars with women conduc- 
 tors were always full of passengers. In the 
 centre of the town there is a pleasant public garden, 
 and I noticed that the lawns here were carefully 
 mown and tended, the paths swept, the parterres 
 bright with geraniums, carnations, and roses. 
 Outside there were men at work repairing the 
 roadway and pavements. Even in the stress of 
 war it is not well to lose all sense of values or 
 to become slovenly and tasteless. 
 
 It happened to be a Confirmation Day at Havre, 
 and one saw many family groups gathered about 
 some virginal young figure in lawny and spotless 
 white. Sometimes the aspirant would be accom- 
 panied by a father or elder brother in uniform, 
 grave, bearded, often middle-aged ; nearly always 
 
10 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 there was a mother or a sister in that nighted garb 
 of mourning which one Frenchwoman out of every 
 three wears. Cast your eye anywhere in France 
 and it falls upon those draped and hooded figures, on 
 those serene and spiritualised faces, subdued by 
 sorrow and faith to new expressiveness and beauty. 
 
 And everywhere in France, from the Channel to 
 the Alps, the prevailing note is the same : an 
 intense seriousness, a silent endurance, an untiring 
 industry, a faith unshaken. You do not hear much 
 war-talk ; the time for talking has long gone by. 
 Nor do they sing hymns of hate, or put into words 
 their bitterness against the enemy who exulted in 
 the atrocious hope of bleeding France to death. 
 The day of vengeance has not yet dawned : when 
 it comes I think France will not forget or forgive. 
 Meanwhile she shows that she is far indeed from 
 being saignee a blanc. The red blood is pulsing in 
 her veins, and all her energies are at the stretch to 
 keep the economic and social fabric intact. 
 
 How successful the effort has been even the transi- 
 ent visitor can see. The fields are tilled, the vines are 
 pruned, new hives of industry, warlike and peace- 
 ful, are swarming, there is no sign of scarcity or 
 want : the regular processes of life seem to go on 
 with surprisingly little change and interruption. 
 It is a triumph of systematic organisation, backed 
 by thrift and labom* and a passionate patriotism. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
NORTH AND SOUTH 11 
 
 In Italy one felt a lighter air. It was grey and 
 clouded weather as I travelled southward from 
 Paris, such as we had in Western Europe all 
 through that rain-washed spring and early 
 summer. But in the morning I looked out 
 upon sunlit valleys and great hills shining in the 
 dawn ; and presently we had passed through the 
 gateway of the Alps and were out upon the green 
 Piedmontese plain, with its flanking crescent of 
 snow-crowned mountains. As one rolled through 
 that busy and fertile land the oppression that had 
 weighed ceaselessly upon us all for twenty-two 
 months was lifted, and for moments the war seemed 
 far away. And so in a sense it was. Up there in 
 the waste places of the frontier it was eddying and 
 seething ; but down in the cultivated and populous 
 provinces of the great river -basin there was the 
 tranquil and secure atmosphere of peace. 
 
 Italy, it was evident, had not felt the war as 
 France has or even England. The conflict had not 
 bitten so. deep into the fibre of the nation's being, 
 nor so absorbed its consciousness. Often in that 
 first journey through Piedmont, and Lombardy, 
 and the Veneto, to that charming little Friulian 
 town of Udine which was my destination, and often 
 afterwards, I drifted back into the mood which is 
 natural to the northern traveller in Italy, the mood 
 of him who is here but to enjoy and to admire. 
 Slaughter and strife — ^how think of them in these 
 
12 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 arcaded streets, with the deep shadows, and 
 gracious Jportals, and fluttering curtains shutting 
 out the sun from dim httle shops ? Or in those 
 daughter -towns of Venice where the eye falls en- 
 tranced upon feudal turret and half -pagan temple, 
 and the slant of red-brown roofs cutting across the 
 changeless blue ? Among these rose-clad villages 
 where the yoked white oxen pace solemnly by the 
 olive groves ? Or in those chattering market squares 
 where fruit and flowers, in heaps of glowing colour, 
 lie on the stalls before peasant girls who might 
 have stepped straight from the canvases of Bellini ? 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 It was the week when Cadorna's great army of 
 reserve was gathering from many quarters to thrust 
 back the Austrian drive down the Trentino ; and 
 yet in many ways things seemed strangely, almost 
 unnaturally, normal. There were many soldiers 
 in the trains, hot and dusty, with young ladies to 
 give them water at the stations. But the service 
 was not much delayed, one suffered no special in- 
 convenience, porters, cabs, restaurants were dis- 
 charging their functions. In Turin, except that 
 there were officers and soldiers on all sides, things 
 seemed to be going on almost as usual. One did 
 not grope in obscurity after sunset as in London 
 and Paris. The lights were brilliant in the Corso 
 Vittorio Emanuele and the Corso Umberto, the 
 
NORTH AND SOUTH 13 
 
 shops were open late, idlers sauntered in the streets 
 under the midsummer moon, or listened to music 
 in the cafes till far into the night. The great, rich, 
 pleasure-loving city seemed very much itself, and 
 war had not appreciably disturbed its prosperous 
 content. 
 
 Later, when I visited the industrial works, 
 especially the wonderful munitions' and trans- 
 port factories, I knew that Turin, with all its out- 
 ward ease and enjoyment, was throwing its energies 
 into the tasks of equipment and supply for the 
 armies at the Front. Its aspect, and that of other 
 large towns, and of the countryside in general, is 
 typical of the manner in which Italy takes her war. 
 Before the decision was reached there was plenty 
 of excitement and agitation of which something 
 will be said later. ^ But the Italians, having decided, 
 adapted themselves to the new conditions with 
 surprising smoothness, and had no notion of allow- 
 ing themselves to be shaken beyond what was 
 necessary out of their habitual courses. Every 
 requisite sacrifice was made : the whole nation 
 gave up its white bread without a murmvu-, and was 
 now, from prince to peasant, eating brown loaves^ 
 and rolls. There is no real reason why white bread 
 should not be eaten by those who can afford it, 
 and as a matter of fact it is little dearer and no 
 
 ' See below, Chapter XV, 
 
14 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 better than the brown. But this excellent war- 
 bread is a symbol that all classes are sharing in the 
 national effort, and that rich and poor alike are 
 under the same obligation. Nevertheless they do 
 not see why, when proper provision has been made 
 for the needs of the fighting forces, they should not, 
 so far as possible, apply themselves to their 
 customary interests and even their customary 
 pleasures. 
 
 In the book-shops — ^there are about as many 
 in any third-rate Italian town as would serve a 
 million of Londoners — I did not see many war- 
 
 ybooks ; but, on the contrary, works on economics 
 and science, sandwiched between thick layers of 
 miscellaneous fiction, from translations of Paul de 
 Kock and Dumas to Raffles and Sherlock Holmes. 
 Women, as I presently found, were beginning to 
 do their part in making munitions, and in some 
 places acting as tram-conductors, ticket-collectors, 
 and office clerks. But they had not taken men's 
 places so largely and diversely as in England and 
 
 V France, and, I suppose, Germany. In the clubs 
 and restaurants your viands are still served to you 
 by male attendants. Waiting at table is man's 
 work in Italy, and there is a rooted belief that this 
 is an art the feminine brain cannot master. The 
 only woman chauffeur I saw was an English girl 
 driving one of those Red Cross motor ambulances 
 which have rendered such admirable service to our 
 
NORTH AND SOUTH 15 
 
 allies. In Turin there were plenty of young or 
 youngish men out of uniform ; theatres, picture 
 shows, and other places of recreation were doing 
 excellent business ; money was as plentiful as it 
 is in other belligerent countries, for indeed one 
 immediate effect of war is to pump a stream of 
 gold from national treasuries into private pockets ; 
 and here it was spent openly and without 
 reserve. 
 
 Italians are very much in earnest about the war 
 — " our war " as they call it. But they do not 
 allow themselves to be obsessed or flurried by it : 
 they keep their heads. This equanimity is due in 
 part to the conditions under which the campaign is 
 carried on. But also it has deeper causes. The 
 Italians are idealists, but they are not sentimental ; 
 they face facts, and they distinguish between 
 objective realities and phantoms of the imagina- 
 tion, keeping the two things apart and in their 
 places with a kind of artistic remorselessness, which 
 is a little puzzling to us, who are apt to mix them 
 together in our large, confused, romantic northern 
 fashion. If they have gone to war for an idea, the 
 idea of a greater Italy, they have applied them- 
 selves to the practical business before them with a 
 coolness extremely characteristic of the Latin in- 
 telligence, so calculating, clear-sighted, and pre- 
 cise, under its outward garb of vivacity and 
 impulsiveness. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 TO THE EASTERN FRONT 
 
 AUSTRIAN AIR-RAIDS WANTON RAVAGE AT 
 
 RAVENNA THE FAILURE OF " FRIGHTFULNESS " 
 
 MEMORIES OF ROME AND VENICE AQUILEIA 
 
 THE DELECTABLE LAND OF FRIULI UDINE 
 
 AND THE ISONZO COUNTRY 
 
 IF Turin was lighted at night, the towns that lie 
 nearer the war-zone were dark enough. Milan, 
 Brescia, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Mantua, Venice, 
 and other cities of the plain and the coasts keep 
 their lamps low, and draw the shutters close over 
 their windows. For if the Austrian guns cannot 
 reach them the Austrian aeroplanes can, and they 
 have been exposed to many attacks from the 
 corsairs of the air. 
 
 The assailants have been undiscriminating in 
 their attentions, and though occasionally they 
 have sought to wreck a fortress or an arsenal they 
 have devoted themselves much more frequently 
 to the harassing of undefended towns and peaceful 
 centres of population. Few mihtary results of 
 value have been attained, and jthe destruction of 
 
 16 
 
TO THE EASTERN FRONT 17 
 
 civilian life has been inconsiderable. The victims, 
 as elsewhere, have been chiefly women and children. 
 At one place I visited the raiders plumped a bomb 
 into the middle of a crowded market square, killing 
 and injuring a score of persons, shopkeepers and 
 peasants from the neighbouring villages. 
 
 All the world has hoped that the intellectual 
 tragedies of Ypres and Rheims would not be re- 
 peated, and that the matchless art treasures of 
 Northern Italy would escape the ravages of the 
 latter-day Vandals. For the most part they have 
 done so. Venice, swathed in sand-bags and pro- 
 tected by hoardings of brick and timber, has been 
 bombed frequently but on the whole ineffectively, 
 though it has lost fine churches and one of the best of 
 Tiepolo's pictures. This latter masterpiece will not 
 be keenly missed by the tourist, for it was in the 
 Chiesa degli Scalzi, on the Grand Canal, a church 
 near the station and seldom visited. Nor perhaps 
 was it ruined in the mere lust of destruction, for 
 on the rails hard by a train of munitions was 
 standing, and at that, let us hope, the Austrian 
 aviator was aiming. 
 
 No such excuse can be made for the assault on 
 the cathedral of St. ApoUinare at Ravenna, with 
 its unequalled mosaics, those triumphs of early 
 Christian art, that glowed and glistened on its 
 walls as fresh and brilliant as when they were 
 pieced together by cunning hands thirteen cen- 
 
18 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 turies ago. The cities richest in memorials of the 
 past seem most to tempt the German and Austrian 
 ravagers. Yet of these some, even when they are 
 not fortresses, are -within the zones of war or not 
 far removed from places that may have a military 
 or economic significance. But Ravenna, dead this 
 thousand years, that haunt of memory and silence ! 
 Ravenna, watching over its monuments and tombs, 
 dreaming among the pines of its brief, forgotten 
 reign of splendour ! To pour bombs on the deserted 
 city of Placidia and Theodoric was an insult to the 
 ghost of fallen greatness. 
 
 " We do it wrong, being so majestical, 
 To oiFer it the show of violence." 
 
 Happily, though much damage has been done, the 
 mosaics are not injiu-ed past redemption. The 
 cultured realists of the armed empires, in their fury 
 against the relics of past civilisations, have not 
 often found their power equal to their malice. 
 
 Hospitals, too, are the objects of their attention 
 in Italy as elsewhere. Several have been attacked, 
 and in some cases clearly with premeditation. 
 There is one, a great block of white isolation wards 
 and galleries, standing apart from other buildings, 
 which could not easily be taken for anything but 
 what it is, even without the red cross blazons con- 
 spicuously displayed upon its roofs and walls. 
 The Austrians threw bombs on this and got the 
 
TO THE EASTERN FRONT 19 
 
 customary bag of blameless victims : a couple of 
 nursing sisters killed and others wounded. 
 
 This aerial frightfulness is taken very calmly. 
 - The exposed towns of Lombardy and the Veneto 
 have been visited so frequently that the business 
 of receiving hostile aircraft has settled down into 
 a kind of routine. As the Austrians use aeroplanes, 
 not airships, they do not often fly by night, pre- 
 ferring the morning hours for their excursions. 
 I was present on several occasions when these 
 attacks took place, and found them, as the 
 local populace does, more interesting than 
 alarming. 
 
 A very complete vigilance service has been ar- 
 ranged, with watchers stationed on some lofty point 
 of observation, if there is no kite-balloon or "saus- 
 age" anchored near at hand. As soon as the 
 observer telephones that an enemy avion is ap- 
 proaching, thi'ee cannon shots are fired, and a syren 
 sounds a long shrill note of warning. The sudden 
 arrest of out-door activity which ensues is curious. 
 Tram-cars are left standing on the rails, and autos in 
 the roadway ; the shop-keepers pull down their iron- 
 bound shutters ; the stalls in the market-place are 
 hastily deserted ; the carabinieri drive all way- 
 farers from the pavements and piazzas ; every- 
 body seeks the shelter of colonnades and doorways, 
 or watches (contrary to regulations) from court- 
 yards and open upper balconies, 
 
20 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 Presently you see a speck far up in the blue 
 vault of the sky, which grows larger till it is like 
 a black insect ; and round the insect there dance 
 white puff-balls, which are the bursts of shrapnel 
 from the anti-aircraft guns. Then, hke a flight of 
 wild ducks, three, four, five of oixr own Capolani and 
 Farmans go streaming towards the intruder, the 
 sun flashing from the green, white, and red tricolour 
 painted on their burnished planes. We watch them 
 rising skywards, till they approach the black insect, 
 which turns and goes, with or without leaving a 
 visiting-card in the shape of a bomb somewhere in 
 the outskirts. The syren emits a joyous howl. 
 "E finito," says everybody; and the passengers 
 climb back into the trams, the tradesmen reopen 
 their shops, and Pietro and Battista return to 
 their market-stalls and the serious affairs of life. 
 Business is business ; and one must get the best 
 price for one's lettuces and polenta in spite of 
 superfluous interruptions. 
 
 * 
 
 * * 
 
 You begin your examination of Italy's campaign 
 in that north-eastern corner of the country from 
 which it started. The Itahans forced the fighting 
 on the day after war was declared, May 24, 1915, 
 in the wedge of country from the Adriatic and the 
 C^mia mountains, between the old Austrian fron- 
 
TO THE EASTERN FRONT 21 
 
 tier, now rubbed off the map, and the Isonzo, 
 which gUdes down to the Gulf of Trieste in front 
 of the spurs of the Julian Alps and the great Carso 
 upland. It is a sequestered and little known land, 
 this Friulian annexe, a land of peasants and vine- 
 dressers on the inner levels, and of fishermen down 
 by the sea : little known to the tourist who 
 glances upon it out of the carriage window on his 
 way through to the Dolomites ; neglected by the 
 artist though it should be full of temptation for 
 him ; unattractive to the men of commerce, for it 
 has been part of Austria's policy to keep the east- 
 and-west communications, the roads and the rail- 
 ways, poor and ba^, lest Venice should draw away 
 trade from Trieste and Fiume. 
 
 Yet it is a land full of beauty and of memories, 
 famous in the days of imperial Rome, close to the 
 heart of Venice, when that was a seat of empire too. 
 On her side of the border, Austria, since she could 
 not Germanise or Magyarise the district, did her 
 best to overwhelm its Italian-speaking population 
 with immigrant Slovenes. Here, if nowhere else, 
 she patronised and favoured the Slavs, not 
 from love of them but as a counterpoise to the 
 Latins. 
 
 She has small interest in the things that recall 
 the city of the Caesars or the city of St. Mark. 
 Down among the rice-fields of the Natisone, a few 
 miles from the seashore, which has been pushed 
 
22 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 forward through the centuries by the silt of the 
 river, lies Aquileia, a solitary, decayed, forlorn 
 little provincial town. It should have been a shrine 
 to attract the pilgrims from all the world, as it will 
 be now that the Itahans have regained it and will 
 treat it with the reverence it deserves. It will 
 become, I think, one of the great centres of artistic 
 resort in Italy, for there is no more interesting place, 
 none richer in memorials of Imperial Rome. The 
 Austrian officials plundered the local museum of 
 many valuable small objects before their flight 
 last year ; but this museum — it bears the inscrip- 
 tion Museo Nazionale now — ^has still such a wealth 
 of Roman statues, busts, bronzes, and ornaments 
 as are scarcely to be met with elsewhere. Sys- 
 tematic exploration and excavation may make of 
 it almost another Pompeii. 
 
 Before it was sacked by the ferocious legions of 
 the Huns — ^the real Huns under Attila — ^in the 
 fifth century, Aquileia was a far larger and finer 
 city than the pleasure town by Vesuvius. It was 
 the favourite residence of Augustus and Diocletian 
 and several other emperors, the splendidissima 
 colonia of Rome, the chief outpost fortress and 
 naval station of Italy on the east, the head-quarters 
 of the Admiral of the Adriatic, the emporium 
 whence the trade routes branched off into Pan- 
 nonia and lUyria. It was one of the great cities of 
 the western world, and was said to have a circuit 
 
TO THE EASTERN FRONT 23 
 
 of twelve miles within its walls and half a million 
 inhabitants. Augustus made it his head-quarters, 
 whence he directed the campaign of the legions 
 under Tiberius and Drusus. He found Aquileia a 
 convenient centre, " so that," as Suetonius tells us, 
 " he might be close at hand, or at any rate not far 
 off when there was war with the Germans and 
 Pannonians." Thus it goes on through the ages. 
 " Etranges recommencements de I'histoire," writes 
 M. Gabriel Faure, " qui, a vingt siecles de distance, 
 rapproche, a quelques kilometres, les quartiers 
 generaux d'un empereur romain et d'un roi 
 d'ltalie, dans I'eternelle lutte des Latins contre 
 les bar bares du nord." 
 
 * 
 
 * * 
 
 Venice, the inheritor of Rome in these parts, 
 took over Aquileia, repaired the ravages of Huns 
 and Lombards, and left her mark upon it in a beau- 
 tiful mediaeval basilica and interesting mosaics. 
 But Aquileia waned before Grado, which lies on 
 the sands of its lagoon, and was once a busy, 
 thriving port, almost a " second Venice." Under 
 Austrian rule this little pearl of a town among 
 the waters has become a bathing-place, a seaside 
 resort, for families from Vienna and Trieste and 
 Budapest taking their salt-water hur. Austria 
 had no objection to that : Grado could be con- 
 tent to exhibit its winding streets arid pictm'esque 
 
24 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 piazzas to the holiday-makers ; but it was too 
 Italian to be encotiraged as a harbour or trade 
 entrep6t. 
 
 The Venetians, in their more vigorous day, had 
 maintained navigable channels through these 
 Friulian lagoons, connecting Grado with the 
 mother city, and so bringing the products of all 
 this country into Italy. Under the Austrian 
 regime the communications and the traffic of the 
 country between the Tagliamento and the Isonzo, 
 even on the Italian side, went eastward to Trieste. 
 But that will not last much longer. No sooner did 
 the Italians get possession of Grado in the summer 
 of 1915 than they set to work to restore the old 
 canalisation of the lagoons and the river mouth, 
 to link up Grado, Aquileia, and the Tagliamento 
 with Venice. Even in the first stress of the war the 
 enterprise was pushed on with ardour. By the 
 autumn it was finished, and barges of 600 tons bur- 
 den were floating through the Marano lagoon and 
 passing up the Tagliamento, carrying stores and 
 munitions to the depots for the Army of the 
 Isonzo. 
 
 Primarily these great engineering works, like the 
 roads, railways, bridges, the Italians are building 
 all over the frontier territories, serve military 
 purposes ; ultimately they will be potent agents 
 of that commercial and industrial expansion which 
 is to follow the war. " Quel grand pays cette 
 
TO THE EASTERN FRONT 25 
 
 Italic," exclaims M. Maurice Barres, " qui con- 
 struisait Aquileia quand les Germains ne savaient 
 que faire des ruines, et qui se remet aujourd'hui au 
 premier rang des peuples, par le talent de ses 
 terrassiers et ses ingenieurs ! " One of M. Barr^' 
 Italian friends said to him, " Our armies, like the 
 legions of Rome, leave in their track not ruins 
 (that will do for the Tedeschi), but the works of 
 civilisation." Those who see what the Italians 
 have done, during the war, in the Carnia and the 
 Trentino, as well as in the basin of the Tagliamento 
 and the Isonzo, will feel that there was some 
 warrant for this proud claim. 
 
 * 
 
 Ms M: 
 
 On your way into the Italian war-zone you turn 
 out of the main west-and-east railway at Mestre, 
 which all the world knows because it is the jumping- 
 off place for Venice, the station at the beginning of 
 the long causeway that links the island-city to 
 the mainland. But the Veneto northward is less 
 known to the traveller from abroad than it should 
 be. For it is studded over with charming little 
 towns, Treviso, Pordenone, Conegliano, Cividale, 
 Udine, bearing the ineffaceable stamp which the 
 Republic sealed upon its colonies and dependen- 
 cies all the way round from the Montenegrin 
 mountains to the Alps. Here, in their villas among 
 
26 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 the jasmines and roses, the nobles and merchant 
 princes of Venice escaped from the sea mists of the 
 lagoon. Here, too, are names that recall other and 
 later memories. We pass Campo Formio, and 
 think of the young Bonaparte scattering the 
 Austrians in defeat before his impetuous legions, 
 and then bartering away to his vanquished adver- 
 sary the liberties of Venice, impotent and decayed. 
 Here, in this greatest of all wars, we are always 
 on the traces of the battles, the little battles 
 — how small they seem now ! — of the past. What 
 skirmishes they are : Rivoli, Arcole, yes, even 
 Austerlitz and Waterloo, compared with Tannen- 
 berg and Verdun, the Marne and the Somme ! 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 Udine is as charming as any of these Friulian 
 towns, and as unknown, or at least it was as un- 
 known, to the alien tourist before the beginning of 
 the war, though since then^ it has had important 
 visitors. Prime Ministers, Commanders-in-Chief, 
 Ambassadors, Parliamentary delegates, foreign gen- 
 erals, famous authors, journalists of many tongues, 
 have found their way to it. They were not 
 exactly engaged in searching for the pictm*esque ; yet 
 
 I " Foi- reasonSj" says M. Gabriel Faure, with a discretion it 
 is proper to imitate, "which cannot be mentioned, though all 
 the world knows them."— G, Faure, t^iir I' autre cote des Alpes, 
 p. 111. ^ 
 
A Covered Altar in St. Mark's, Venice i 
 
TO THE EASTERN FRONT 27 
 
 even in the midst of their preoccupation they must 
 have noticed that Udine is a delightful place, and per- 
 haps have resolved, as I did, to come back to it when 
 one can do so with an easier mind. I found myself 
 constantly tempted to saunter through its arcaded 
 streets, forgetful of that great business of the hour 
 which one forgets so seldom ; or lingering about 
 the little piazza, as exquisite as any you will 
 find in all Italy, with its loggias and its statues. 
 There is a fountain, and two huge and very naked 
 giants in stone, an Austrian emperor pompously 
 imperial on horseback, a marble slab in honour of 
 certain Friulian martyrs whose blood Austria had 
 shed, and a monument to Peace that must have 
 seemed as ironically out of place, when Napoleon 
 had it set up to commemorate the Treaty of Campo 
 Formio in which he signed away the independence 
 of Venice, as it does to-day. 
 
 For Udine does not long allow you to lose sight 
 of the fact that it is one of the hubs of the world- 
 war. Soldiers are everywhere, strolling in groups 
 and couples along the narrow pavements of the 
 curving streets, and lounging in the piazza. Officers 
 of every grade and arm of the service pass by, 
 saluting and saluted. The Italian soldier salutes 
 by passing his hand to his forehead and holding 
 it there horizontally with the palm downwards, 
 shading his eyes with it, as it were, a respectful 
 mode of greeting which is more graceful than our 
 
28 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 own jerky back-hand swing, or the staccato move- 
 ment of the French. He has plenty of scope for 
 this exercise in Udine. Grey-headed staff officers, 
 smart cavalrymen, officers of the Alpini in their 
 mountaineering hats, black-plumed bersagheri, stout 
 colonels, and slim sottotenenti (sub-heutenants) 
 claim his attention. 
 
 He must keep his eyes open in order to pay the 
 proper compliments to foreign officers also. Here 
 is a French colonel, very decorative, amid the sober 
 Italian grey, in his pretty light blue uniform and 
 gold-braided kepi ; here a tall, much medalled 
 Russian ; here a British general brass -hatted, 
 belted, and red-tabbed ; or a group of British 
 subalterns, in their neat khaki, fresh-cheeked, 
 smart, cheerful. The French are grave, the ItaUans 
 composed and sober, the Germans, I suppose, grim 
 and sour. But Britain began the war with a smile, 
 and smiling, I think, she will go through with it. 
 
 The war comes home to you in more pungent 
 forms. Up above the gem of a piazza there is a 
 great mound. They say Attila had it made as a 
 sort of observation post wherefrom he might con- 
 veniently watch the siege and burning of Aquileia. 
 It is serving a similar purpose now. On the top 
 of the hill there is a palace, once the residence of 
 Venetian and Austrian governors, and a castello 
 with a tall tower, and a broad terrace walk, from 
 which you can see, far away across the plain, the 
 
TO THE EASTERN FRONT 29 
 
 Isonzo and the whole curve of the mountains from 
 over Monfalcone up past Gorizia and away to the 
 Carnia, You can walk up to this platform from 
 the bustling, sunny streets, and have the war 
 before you : hear the guns booming from Italian 
 and Austrian batteries, see the white puffs where 
 the shells are bursting on the hillside, and note the 
 captive balloons lying in motionless blobs of brown 
 against the clear sky, on the look-out for hostile 
 aeroplanes. 
 
 The flyers of the enemy are much interested in 
 Udine, and the syren is constantly in action warn- 
 ing the inhabitants to get under cover, of which 
 there is no lack in this town of arcades and stone- 
 built verandahs. The fine old palazzo in which I 
 lodged (Udine is full of palaces, the ancient resi- 
 dences of the Friulian aristocracy) fronted on an 
 open square which was a favourite dumping ground 
 for Austrian bombs. Two days before my arrival 
 a projectile had fallen just outside the house, break- 
 ing all the windows and leaving its traces in the 
 shape of several large holes blown out of the inner 
 wall of the room where I slept. My host, coming 
 down the stairs to investigate, opened the front 
 door and found the dead body of a young girl lying 
 across the threshold. But the assailants had never 
 yet reached their real military objective, nor had 
 they succeeded, in spite of their occasional murders, 
 in convincing the civilian population that an air- 
 
30 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 fight was anything but a highly entertaining show. 
 From which it will be seen that the Austrian 
 raiders are no more scrupulous in their methods, 
 nor are they more successful in the results, than their 
 friends of the Gterman Zeppelin squadrons when 
 they assail the British Isles. 
 
THE AUSTRO-ITALIAN FRONTIER ON MAY 28rd, 1915 
 
 10 20 30 
 
 "V" V Fortified Towns and Forta 
 -*- Railways ^i< Passes 
 
 Heights in feet 
 
 Longman*, Qraan It Co.. London, New York. Bombay, Calcutta & Madras. 
 
 QKOnaC PHILIP 4 tON LTO. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 GEOGRAPHY AND STRATEGY 
 
 Italy's prime difficulties — the alpine stair- 
 ways — AUSTRIA ALWAYS LOOKING DOWN THE 
 
 PROJECTED INVASION — CADORNA'S VIGOROUS 
 COUNTER- ACTION — THE RUSH FOR THE TRENTINO 
 
 — TRIESTE THE MAIN ITALIAN OBJECTIVE THE 
 
 AUSTRIAN RETREAT — THE BRILLIANT STROKE AT 
 GORIZIA 
 
 TT'ROM Udine or from Vicenza, with a good 
 -*- motor-car, an abundant supply of petrol, 
 and competent guidance, you can set out to 
 examine the Italian front. The process will give 
 you some new ideas and add much to your en- 
 lightenment. To understand the campaign you 
 must go and look at it. When you have done that, 
 when you have come to close quarters with this 
 imique warfare on the rugged fringes of the great 
 mountain mass which is the backbone and project- 
 ing dorsal fin of Central Europe, you will lose all 
 disposition, if you have had any, to depreciate 
 Italy's share in the world conflict, or to make in- 
 vidious comparisons between her effort and that 
 of her allies. 
 
 31 
 
32 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 Any tendency of this kind will be checked by 
 such an investigation of the geographical conditions 
 as can only be usefully attempted in the theatre 
 of operations itself, with such opportunities as 
 General Cadorna and his staff courteously placed 
 at my disposal. The bulletins of the Italian War 
 Office, which from the beginning have been notably 
 precise, lucid, and trustworthy, may do much to 
 help the student, if he will take the trouble, which 
 of course not one person in ten thousand ever does, 
 to work out the orographical details on a large- 
 scale contour map. But the official communiques 
 deal, as they must, with the minutiae of the tactical 
 situation, as it changes, at one point or another, 
 from day to day ; and the reader at a distance 
 finds it difficult to seize the full meaning of these 
 movements and manoeuvres in a country so torn 
 and twisted, so channelled by river valleys and 
 sinuous passes, so crumpled into layer upon layer 
 of folded hills, so overlooked and dominated by 
 that colossal background of the alpine ranges 
 which thrust their vast black shoulders, and their 
 headsj of splintered rock and gleaming snow, over 
 all the lesser heights before them. 
 
 There is no prospect on earth quite Hke the im- 
 mense irregular crescent of serrated peak, and 
 towering mountain wall, that is thrown round 
 Italy on the north, as it unrolls itself from the 
 plains of Lombardy and Venetia. How often one 
 
GEOGRAPHY AND STRATEGY 33 
 
 has gazed at it in sheer delight over its bewildering 
 wealth of contrasting colotir and fantastic fornij 
 its effects of light and shade, and measiireless 
 space ! But now, for these many months past, 
 keen eyes have been bent upon it, eyes not of the 
 artist or the poet but those of the soldier. It was 
 such a pair of military eyes that I had beside me 
 when I stood upon the topmost roof of a high 
 tower in a certain little town in Northern Italy, 
 where much history has been made ; and since the 
 owner of the eyes was likewise the possessor of a 
 very well-ordered mind and a gift of lucid exposi- 
 tion, I found myself able to grasp the main elements 
 of the extraordinarily complex strategical problem 
 with which the chiefs of the Italian army have had 
 to grapple. As I looked and listened I felt that the 
 chapter which Italy is contributing to the record 
 of the greatest war of all time is one of which she 
 will have every reason to be proud when she has at 
 length brought it to a victorious conclusion. 
 
 There are few such view-points as this; for in 
 the luminous stillness of a perfect morning of 
 Italian summer I could look north, and east, and 
 west, upon more than a third of the embattled 
 line that goes snaking among the mountains, 
 from the huge massif of the Ortler on the Swiss 
 frontier to the Gulf of Trieste. And what a length 
 of line it is 1 In England some people seem to 
 think it is a little war that Italy has on hand, 
 
34 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 little in comparison with the main campaigns in 
 France and Russia. But it is not small weighed 
 even in that exacting balance. Trace out the Front 
 on the map — and here again you must have a 
 large-scale map to follow all the intricate convolu- 
 tions — ^and you will find that it measures out at 
 over four hundred and fifty miles, and so may bear 
 some comparison with that ribbon of trench and 
 ruined villages and tortured earth which is drawn 
 across Western Europe. 
 
 * 
 
 * * 
 
 But here the geographical situation is very 
 different from that in Flanders and France. " The 
 frontier,' ' saidthe Italian officer to me, " is worth three 
 victorious campaigns to Austria." I could easily 
 believe it at the moment, for from where we stood, 
 high up above the plain of the Veneto, a wide 
 stretch of this same frontier was visible. At our 
 feet and all about us the level country lay glisten- 
 ing in the sunshine, with the white towers and red 
 roofs of the towns rising like islands out of that 
 sea of green and gold. And if your gaze travelled 
 across the plain, north, or east, or west, it was 
 arrested by the mountain masses, billowing sky- 
 ward in range beyond range, banks of grey and 
 purple in the foreground, great black hulks and 
 ridges further back, with gleams of silver flashing 
 from snow-peaks among the clouds of the horizon. 
 
GEOGRAPHY AND STRATEGY 35 
 
 On that bastion, everywhere on its higher ranti- 
 parts, Austria has sat in her armour, guarded and 
 secure herself, always ready to surge down through 
 the gates and passes and river valleys upon the hill 
 country and lower slopes of Italy, and then into 
 the rich cities and fertile fields of Lottibardy and 
 Venetia. The barrier for part of its length, in the 
 great salient of the Trentino, and on the steep and 
 stony cliffs along the Isonzo, has Italian soil and 
 Italian peoples behind it, the unredeemed Italy 
 that gives the motive for this war. But to reach 
 the promised land Italy has to fight her way up 
 the mountains, and throw out the alien garrison 
 encamped upon their upper levels. 
 
 The task which she is now accomplishing would 
 have been spared her if Prussia had kept faith in 
 1866, when Austria lay at the mercy of her northern 
 and southern neighboiu's. But the HohenzoUern 
 monarchy, as usual, sacrificed its allies. After 
 Sadowa, when the Treaty of Prague was being 
 arranged, Italy asked for the Trentino. Her re- 
 quests were ignored. The Prussian Government 
 coldly replied that no Tyrolese territory could be 
 alienated from Austria since it belonged to the 
 Germanic Confederation. Let us at least have 
 Trieste, implored the Italians. Bismarck angrily 
 refused. " Trieste for Germany," he had twice 
 exclaimed at the Diet of Frankfort in resonant 
 tones. Austria could keep the great Italian port 
 
36 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 in pledge for Prussia, till Prussia was ready to 
 plant her own mailed foot upon the sands of the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 Thus it has come about that Italy has had to 
 fight on a front which that able Italian critic, 
 Luigi Barzini, calls the most arduous in the whole 
 European war. French and English military 
 experts, he says, familiar with the conditions in 
 France, in Russia, even in the Dardanelles, Swiss 
 writers who know what mountain warfare means, 
 the attaches of the allied armies, have been amazed 
 by the unexampled difficulties which the Itahan 
 armies have faced. ^ 
 
 The feature of the campaign when it opened 
 was that, the Italians were always going up while 
 the Austrians only needed to come down. The 
 former were below, and the latter high above on 
 that immense natural rampart of the Rhaetian 
 and Tyrolese Alps, the Dolomites, the Camia, the 
 Julian and Dinaric ranges, which places Italy at 
 the mercy of the invader so long as it is in the hands 
 of an armed and alien Power. From my watch- 
 tower I could see the plain lying before me, pegged 
 down to the earth, as it were, like a green carpet. 
 On that dead flat it stretches to the edge of the 
 mountain barrier, where the hills leap from it Hke 
 cliffs rising out of a motionless sea. 
 
 Some of the hills are within the Italian frontier. 
 ■ Luigi Baraini : Al Frmte (1915). 
 
GEOGRAPHY AND STRATEGY 37 
 
 But these are the lesser heights ; and always 
 behind, and commanding them, are the loftier 
 uplands, which were in enemy territory. The 
 double loop of the S-shaped Austro -Italian frontier 
 is as bad as it can be for the southern country and 
 gives all the advantages to the northern. 
 
 The S starts in the Bernina at the sources of the 
 Adda, from which there is a steady descent down 
 that river to the Lake of Como and the network of 
 roads and railways running across the rich flat land 
 to Milan. Then, after cutting across the Stelvio and 
 Tonale passes, dominated by the snow-clad masses of 
 the Ortler and Adamello, the loop swings southward 
 round the Trentino, leaving in Austrian hands the 
 mountains that look down on the roads leading to 
 Brescia and Verona, and towering above the lesser 
 elevations of the Sette Communi and the Asiago 
 plateau. At the Val Sugana it turns north again, 
 curving through the jagged gulleys and rock 
 castles of the Dolomites, and leaving Austria to 
 sweep from the Carnia through the only tolerable 
 inlets into the Veneto. And in its final southward 
 stretch, from Cividale to the Marano lagoons, it 
 leaves Istria and the Triestine blocked off by 
 Monte Nero and the grim stone bank of the Carso, 
 from which the Austrians had an unobstructed 
 view, right away to the horizon, over the levels of 
 the vast alluvial plain of north-eastern Italy be- 
 tween the Apennines and the Alps. 
 
38 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 Sedulously had the'Austrians, in the years before 
 the war, laboured to increase the natural strength 
 of the frontier which luck, the accidents of 
 history, and the age-long political weakness of 
 Italy, had given them. Their roads were laid out 
 strategically behind the border line, so that they 
 could move transport and troops and military 
 stores to the key points and the valley heads. 
 Every state has a right to make defensive works 
 along its own frontier ; but the fortresses and 
 fortified posts which pointed their guns over 
 the Trentino and the Isonzo country went far 
 beyond any reasonable exigencies of defence, and 
 were clearly intended to muzzle and menace Italy. 
 
 They were the less necessary for protective pur- 
 poses, since Italy had not ventiued to stiffen her 
 own side of the mountain cm'tain in any similar 
 fashion. Had she begun to make military roads 
 or to erect elaborate fortifications she would have 
 risked a quarrel, for which she was unprepared, 
 with her watchful and arrogant neighbour. The 
 Triple Alliance would not have guaranteed her 
 against that " preventive war " which, even as it 
 was, General Konrad von Hoetzendorf had been 
 in favour of initiating, in order to teach Italy her 
 place, and keep her for all time from interfering 
 with the Balkanic policy of the " forward " party 
 in Vienna and Budapest. And thus it fell that when 
 at last war came, it found the Italians so situated 
 
GEOGRAPHY AND STRATEGY 39 
 
 that they have had to make their advance, and 
 build their trenches, and place their guns, in the 
 face of an enemy who lay generally much above 
 them, sometimes so much above them that he 
 could watch them from his nests of earth and rock 
 as though he were soaring in an aeroplane. 
 
 It is a great achievement in strategy and military 
 engineering that the Italians are attempting, and 
 what it has involved is seen when one examines it 
 in its details. But it is also something besides this. 
 It is the reversal of an historic process that has 
 gone on at intervals for over fifteen centuries. 
 Down that momitain stairway, to the fertile fields 
 and wealthy cities of the plain, have the invaders of 
 Italy tramped. Hun and Goth and Lombard, 
 Frank, German, Austrian, flung themselves from 
 the heights upon that low-lying delectable land 
 of sunshine and verdure. 
 
 As it was before so it might have been again. It 
 was commonly expected outside Italy, and I believe 
 by many people in Italy itself, that the story of 
 the former campaigns would have been repeated. 
 The Austrian arnodes, with all their advantages 
 of position accentuated by their superiority in 
 heavy artillery, would have forced their way down 
 the valleys, and the Italians would have been com- 
 pelled to retire behind the Lombard fortresses ; and 
 then, since fortresses are no more than temporary 
 barriers in modern warfare, they might have 
 
40 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 had to contemplate a further withdrawal beyond 
 the Po. 
 
 The retirement might have been avenged, as the 
 full strength of Italy developed, by a victorious 
 advance in which the enemy would have been 
 gradually cleared out of the plains and chased back 
 through the mountains. But even though the 
 invasion of Italy had ended in failure, it would in 
 itself have been a misfortune of the gravest kind. 
 Italy would have seen her most productive indus- 
 trial districts raided and occupied. The seizure of 
 those rich and famous northern towns, and of 
 that busy agricultural region, would have been a 
 misfortune comparable to those which have de- 
 livered the wealthiest manufacturing provinces of 
 France and Russia to German occupation. Italy 
 would have carried on the campaign under finan- 
 cial and economic difficulties that cannot well be 
 exaggerated. 
 
 The Italian General Staff must have considered 
 this disastrous contingency, and were no doubt 
 ready to meet it if it arose. But they determined 
 to counter it by striking first. Instead of waiting 
 for the enemy to come down the passages from the 
 Trentino, they rushed the stairway themselves. 
 Their magnificent Alpine troops and moimtain 
 artillery brought up their guns by incredible exer- 
 tions to the gates of the Austrian frontier for- 
 tresses, battered some of these into shards, and 
 
GEOGRAPHY AND STRATEGY 41 
 
 pushed their way to within a few miles of the capital 
 of Italia Irredenta. There they hung grimly all 
 through the winter and the spring. 
 
 Gteneral Cadorna had rightly read the lesson of 
 this war, the lesson of all wars : which is that a 
 passive defence is not the road to victory. And 
 so, with forces not yet completely embodied, and 
 with a conspicuous inferiority of artillery and 
 munitions, he boldly forced the game, and placed 
 his scaling ladders against the bastions of the enemy. 
 
 The people of Italy were spared the tribulations 
 of France, Belgium, Serbia, Poland, the bitter 
 thought that vast numbers of their countrymen 
 were living in their own provinces under the heel of 
 a ruthless foe. There is no Austrian military gover- 
 nor of Brescia or Vicenza engaged in imitating the 
 brutaUties of the German rulers of Belgium. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 The Austrian strategic programme, worked out 
 during the years in which Italy was supposed to be 
 Mled into security by the Triple Alliance and 
 dosed to somnolence by the German banks, con- 
 templated a brusque and rapid offensive. Once 
 again, as so often before, the Northern troops would 
 pour do-v^ from their fortresses, drive the army of 
 " mandohne-players " before them, and speedily 
 inflict upon the Italians, whose military capacity 
 
42 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 was regarded by their former oppressors with the 
 utmost contempt, " punishment " Hke that re- 
 served for the presumptuous Serbs. 
 
 The plan might have had more prospect of suc- 
 cess if Austria could have thrown her whole strength 
 upon the southern front during those months in 
 which Italy was still striving hard to complete 
 her preparations. But the Dual Monarchy had 
 its right arm held in Galicia, and the ItaUans were 
 strong enough to keep the war for twelve months 
 on the frontier. By the magnificent work of his 
 Alpini and other mountain troops Cadorna blocked 
 the passes of the Ortler, the Adamello, and the 
 Cadore. In the Trentino the Austrians were com- 
 pelled to give ground, the Italians crossed the 
 border, and got almost within sight of Trent, the 
 City of Desire. The Italian Chief of the Staff had 
 no intention of confining himself to the defensive. 
 He opened the campaign with a vigorous attack 
 on the only portion of Austrian territory which had 
 no strong natural protection, and quickly overran the 
 wedge of country west of the Isonzo. Monfalcone, 
 Cervignano, Cormons, Gradisca — old Itahan towns 
 all — were occupied. 
 
 Cadorna's main objective was Ti-ieste, and from 
 that he never allowed himself to be diverted. The 
 city is protected by the formidable rocky ridges 
 of the Carso and San Michele, with the fortress of 
 Govizia, the Austrian Verdun, guarding the bridge- 
 
GEOGRAPHY AND STRATEGY 43 
 
 head and the depression through which the railway 
 runs to Trieste. At these the Itahan generals 
 were sapping and hammering incessantly from the 
 early summer of 1915 onwards. The task was 
 much more arduous, and the Italian sacrifices far 
 heavier, than English people in general under- 
 stood until the brilliant coup de main on Gorizia 
 attracted the attention of the world to the Carso 
 operations. 
 
 The Italians would have made more rapid pro- 
 gress in this quarter but for their deplorable in- 
 feriority, at the outset, in artillery. They were 
 badly in want of heavy guns to grind the enemy's 
 strongholds to powder. What they did in July 
 1916 they might have accomplished several months 
 earlier if they had not been overmatched by the 
 hostile batteries, as the British and French were 
 in the first period of the campaign on the Meuse 
 and Yser. Guns of large calibre cannot be built 
 in a week. By strenuous exertions the Italians, 
 helped by no such industrial resources as we possess, 
 have gone far to make up their deficiencies. They 
 compensated for their shortage of the heaviest 
 cannon by a rapid output of guns of medium calibre, 
 and by making numerous howitzers and big mor- 
 tars, pieces of short range which hurl a deadly mis- 
 sile into an opposing trench. While these weapons 
 were being prepared the infantry clung on tena- 
 ciously, holding the groimd till the time came to 
 
44 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 smother the hostile defences under tempests of 
 
 concentrated fire. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 The Austrian offensive in the Trentino in May 
 1916 was designed to draw away the pressure 
 from the Isonzo and divert the Italians from their 
 main objective ; with the subsidiary hope also of 
 dealing them such a blow at a vital point that their 
 whole scheme of defence would have been shattered. 
 But (General von Konrad's enterprise involved so 
 many risks, and most of all the risk of weakening 
 the eastern flank in face of the Russian advance, 
 that it was probably dictated as much by political 
 and moral as by purely military reasons. Race 
 hatred, an angry scorn for the ItaUans as a fighting 
 people, and a desire to revive the prestige of the 
 Monarchy by carrying the war into the enemy's 
 country, were contributory factors. 
 
 The conception, if faulty, was bold, and it was put 
 into execution with energy. In the spring vast 
 dep6ts of stores, equipment, and munitions were 
 established, and an elaborate system of transport 
 and water supply organised. Units were collected 
 from the Russian front, the Balkans, and the 
 Landsturm contingents, and by the middle of May 
 the Austrians had massed upon the Trentino eigh- 
 teen full divisions with supplementary battalions, 
 roughly. 400,000 men, with no fewer than 2000 
 
GEOGRAPHY AND STRATEGY 45 
 
 guns, including twenty batteries of the huge 
 12-inch cannon, and eight of the 15-inch and 16*5 
 monsters — giants Avhich had no rivals on the 
 ItaUan side. 
 
 " Moral " agencies were busily employed. The 
 Trentino inroad was described as a Strafe expedi- 
 tion, designed to chastise the Itahans for their 
 " treason." The soldiers were told that the Italian 
 troops were cowardly and disheartened, that vic- 
 tory over them would be easy, and that then the 
 towns and villages of Lombardy and Venetia, with 
 their wealth, and wine, and women, would be 
 delivered over to the lust and greed of the con- 
 querors. 
 
 In the middle of May the powerful concentration 
 of guns and men rolled down between the Adige 
 and the Brenta. The ItaUans, smitten by a tre- 
 mendous bombardment and exposed to sudden in- 
 fantry onslaughts at many points, bent back before 
 the blast. They executed what the official review 
 calls a " calm and well-ordered retirement," which 
 eventually left the Austrians in possession of the 
 greater part of the elevated plateau of the Sette 
 Communi, and the upper portion of the Brenta 
 valley. With the enemy hanging over the very 
 edge of the plains, and steadily moving his great 
 guns forward from the higher positions, the situa- 
 tion for the Itahans in the beginning of June 
 seemed at one time critical, and it looked as if the 
 
46 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 invaders might after all make good their dash upon 
 the main railway and line of communications, 
 and seize Vicenza and perhaps Verona. 
 
 But the Army of the Trentino, hampered though 
 it was by insufficient ammunition, held on grimly, 
 and its infantry never yielded a yard of ground 
 without a desperate struggle. Von Konrad had 
 banked all his stakes upon a swift irresistible 
 advance, that would paralyse the Italian defence 
 in time to allow guns and troops to be sent back 
 in a few weeks to the Eastern front. But after 
 the first downward swoop the Austrian progress 
 slackened ; and by the middle of June it had defi- 
 nitely come to a standstill in the Adige valley. In 
 the Astico and Val Sugana sectors the forward 
 movement of the invaders was continued a little 
 longer ; and a considerable zone, mostly of wooded, 
 rugged, and mountainous country, with a few small 
 towns like Arsiero and Asiago, was abandoned to 
 them. 
 
 But here, also, the road was blocked. To obtain 
 this limited success the Austrians had used up an 
 enormous quantity of material and munitions, and 
 had lost in killed and wounded at least a hundred 
 thousand men. They had fatally weakened them- 
 selves on one of their fronts, and had failed to 
 deliver a decisive blow upon the other. Such suc- 
 cess as they had attained was largely the result of 
 an audacious, but, as it turned out, a futile attempt 
 
GEOGRAPHY AND STRATEGY 47 
 
 at bluff. The Comando Supremo did not believe 
 that the Austrian General Staff would leave them- 
 selves at the mercy of the Russians by sending a 
 horde of troops and the cream of their artillery to 
 cut the Italian communication in the Upper Veneto. 
 The very irrationality of the project prevented ade- 
 quate preparations being made to meet it. When 
 the move did come it obtained the temporary advan- 
 tage that nearly always attends a surprise attack. 
 
 Cadorna had the situation well in hand through- 
 out. Even while the Austrians were still slowly 
 and expensively bearing back the Italian centre 
 he was pushing his troops up on their flanks. For 
 this purpose strong reinforcements were required, 
 and a new army was collected from the garrisons, 
 the reserve companies, and other portions of the 
 line, organised, equipped, and moved to the field 
 of action with unprecedented rapidity. There has 
 been no more remarkable triumph of administra- 
 tive energy in any of the theatres of the war. In the 
 working days of a single week this army of half a 
 million men had been swept together from many 
 distant and scattered stations, formed into brigades 
 and divisions, provided with its staff, train, medical 
 units, and artillery, and transported into the moun- 
 tain country, in many cases by roads which had 
 to be constructed for this special purpose. 
 
 The colossal task was carried out with astonish- 
 ingly little disturbance of the normal conditions of 
 
48 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 life. Outside the war-zone Italy was hardly con- 
 scious of the amazing effort she was making. One 
 has heard hard words said of the Italian railways by 
 impatient tourists ; but on this occasion they rose 
 briUiantly to the emergency. Regiments, batteries, 
 army corps, tons of ammunition, supplies, wagons, 
 horses, machinery, the immense and cumbrous 
 impedimenta of modern warfare, were trucked 
 from all parts of the Peninsula and rolled in end- 
 less trains along the main line to the strategic 
 centres. It is scarcely credible that with all this 
 gigantic movement of troops the public service 
 of the railways should have been suspended for no 
 more than three days. After that it was resumed, 
 and a week later it was working as smoothly as 
 ever, and there was little to tell the traveller that 
 anything unusual was happening. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 By the opening of the last week in June the 
 Austrian General Staff recognised that its bold 
 stroke for the subjugation of Italy had failed. Their 
 invading force, held fast in front, and now counter- 
 attacked on both flanks, could make no further 
 progress ; and events in Galicia clamoured for the 
 release of the regiments and batteries tied up 
 beyond the Alps. It was decided that half at least 
 of the eighteen Trentino divisions and most of the 
 
GEOGRAPHY AND STRATEGY 49 
 
 heavy guns should be drawn back and railed^ to 
 the Carpathians. Cadorna knew of this intention, 
 or shrewdly guessed at it, and determined that it 
 should not be carried into effect without at least 
 considerable delay and difficulty. On June 26 
 flags were fluttering, and faces were gay with 
 smiles, in the towns of Northern Italy, for it was 
 known that the invading army was in retreat with 
 the national troops hard upon their traces. 
 
 Then followed another week of rapid movement, 
 fierce fighting, and skilful manoeuvres. The Chief 
 of the Italian Staff performed an invaluable service 
 to the Allied cause, not so much by compelling the 
 Austrians to retire, for that they had resolved to 
 do in any case, as by rendering it impossible for 
 them to retire in the manner they had proposed. 
 Their programme was to retreat to their pre- 
 pared positions on the high ground from Vallarsa, 
 across the Altipiano, to the Dolomites, and to 
 establish themselves on this commanding line, 
 with much reduced numbers, while at least nine 
 full divisions were being brought away for the 
 East. But the pursuit was so eager that the 
 Austrians could not disengage, and could only fall 
 back slowly, in touch all the time with their relent- 
 less antagonists. If any unit gained a kilometre 
 of ground it was swiftly followed up and forced to 
 stand and fight a hard rear-guard action Avith 
 infantry and guns. The Italian troops were flimg 
 
50 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 after them in motor-cars along the mountain roads, 
 or streamed on foot over the hills, unresting and 
 impetuous ; even cavalry were pushed through 
 the woodland paths to worry and delay the retreat- 
 ing columns until the infantry could get their teeth 
 into them. 
 
 It was another signal triumph of organisation 
 and skilful staff work ; for the pursuit moved 
 through an empty and thirsty land, and food and 
 water for the men, ammunition for the cannon, 
 had to be brought up on wheels and mule-back 
 from the plains. But the object was attained. 
 The great transfer of enemy troops could not be 
 effected ; and while these sorely needed divisions 
 were chained to the Trentino, the Russians were 
 pressing on to the Dniester. The Austrian retreat 
 was still menaced. The Italian guns commanded 
 the two railway lines via the Brenner and the 
 Pusterthal, which meet at Franzensfeste, and it 
 was doubtful whether the enemy would be able to 
 use them freely for the further withdrawal of troops 
 and cannon. Certain it is that the Italian opera- 
 tions in the Trentino contributed directly, and in 
 no slight degree, to the Russian successes on 
 Austria's receding Eastern front. 
 
 But Cadorna, as I have said, never lost sight of 
 his main objective, which was the road to Trieste. 
 All through July, while the enemy was kept busy 
 with attacks on their remaining positions in the 
 
GEOGRAPHY AND STRATEGY 51 
 
 central region and bombardments of their Dolomite 
 fortresses, preparations were being made for the 
 assault on Gorizia and the Carso. There was 
 another of those swift movements of troops in 
 masses in which the Italian General Staff excels, 
 and a highly successful attempt to mislead the 
 enemy as to the purpose in view. The wonderful 
 engineering and road-making contingents were set 
 to work, and tunnels were driven under the very 
 feet of the Austrians on the Carso, so that when 
 the attack was delivered ItaUan infantry detach- 
 ments emerged from the earth within a few yards 
 of the trenches. 
 
 The Austrians were completely deceived by the 
 ostentatious demonstrations of activity in other 
 quarters, and apparently knew nothing of the 
 great assemblage of guns, howitzers, and heavy 
 trench mortars which, on August 5 and 6, rained 
 a torrent of fire upon their defensive works, 
 and rendered them untenable. The garrison of 
 Gorizia, stunned and deafened by this feu d'enfer, 
 directed now on one point, now on another, was 
 in no condition to resist the impetuous onslaught 
 of the Duke of Aosta's soldiers rushing in with 
 bayonet and grenade. Hardly anywhere in the 
 whole European war have fortified positions been 
 carried \vith such elan and such rapidity. The 
 evacuation of Gorizia, which its former owners 
 believed impregnable, and the rich haul of prisoners 
 
52 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 and guns, were the best testimony to the demorah- 
 sation of the defenders, and the vigour and spirit 
 of the attack. 
 
 It was a notable victory, achieved not only by 
 the gallantry and fighting quality of the troops 
 engaged, but by consummate generalship. The 
 Austrians were under the illusion that the effort 
 made to arrest and throw back the invasion from the 
 Trentino had exhausted the Italian power of taking 
 the offensive for a long period. Some foreign critics 
 agreed with them. Military writers of authority 
 in the summer of 1915 warned the world not to 
 expect an effective stroke from the side of Italy for 
 many months to come. These predictions were 
 falsified by the skilful use of inner lines, which en- 
 abled the Italian Command to maintain the pres- 
 sure in the Trentino while the concentration of 
 troops and war material was proceeding on the 
 Isonzo. Battles, even in this day of trenches and 
 long-range artillery, are not won by sitting down 
 and standing still. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE WAR-ZONE AND THE TRENCHES 
 
 THE GUARDED ARENA — ^A NATURAL DIVISION IN 
 
 ITALY — THE NEW ROADS BATTERIES IN THE 
 
 AIR SOUTHERNERS IN THE SNOW — THE ADAPTA- 
 TIONS OF TRENCH WARFARE 
 
 "VTOU have not been many days or even hours 
 -*- in the Italian theatre of war before you 
 discover that it is in many respects different from 
 those of Western Europe, 
 
 It has indeed one point in common with these 
 and I suppose with all the others. It is a theatre 
 to which nobody is admitted without a ticket. 
 This is among the strangest characteristics of the 
 new warfare. In the old days, right down to 1870 
 and later, the armies wandered about among the 
 civilian population, and it could not have been 
 very difficult for the non-combatant to go and 
 see a battle if he cared to take the risks. In these 
 times matters are more strictly regulated. 
 
 Fifteen millions of men are engaged in mortal 
 conflict within a number of gigantic prize-rings, 
 carefully railed oft and fenced in, and most rigidly 
 
 53 
 
54 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 guarded from unauthorised intrusion. There is 
 positively no admission except on business. The 
 huge multitude of performers, and the very 
 minute handful of spectators, cannot pass the 
 barriers unless they have an official permit, 
 elaborately signed, countersigned, stamped, and 
 vise. 
 
 Even those who had their abodes within the 
 war-zone, before the armies came, cannot enter 
 or leave it or move from their homes, without a 
 licence and safe-conduct. To neglect these rules 
 is futile, to defy them extremely dangerous. 
 Those who, from curiosity or other motives, climb 
 into the arena without shoAving their passes at the 
 gates will be lucky if nothing worse happens to 
 them than prompt and unceremonious expulsion. 
 Something much worse may happen ; and in the 
 early stages of the campaign in France, before the 
 new system was quite understood, and when 
 espionage was rampant, it not imfrequently did. 
 
 It follows fi-om this that a line is drawn roimd 
 the sphere of operations which marks it off 
 decisively from the adjacent territory. But 
 generally the boundary is pmrely artificial. This 
 is painfully noticeable in France where the war has 
 been waged on the native soil, so that a large 
 French population has been exposed tluovighout 
 to the rigours of military rule or the greater hard- 
 ships of hostile occupation. Those long tiers of 
 
THE WAR-ZONE AND THE TRENCHES 55 
 
 trenches — a combination, as someone has called 
 them, of slaughter-house and cesspool — ^have been 
 drawn through some of the most fertile and 
 thriving districts of the covintry. The tragedy has 
 been enacted not merely at the doors of France 
 but within the corridors and living-rooms of her 
 house. And of Belgium, and Serbia, and Poland 
 one need not speak. 
 
 In Italy it has been otherwise, partly through 
 wise and bold strategy at the outset, partly from 
 the geographical conditions. Nature, which threw 
 the sea round three sides of the Peninsula, piled 
 up the great belt of mountains and upland where it 
 joins the Continent on the north. It is in this 
 isolated region of rock, and wood, and lofty 
 pasture, and secluded valley, thinly inhabited by 
 herdsmen and hunters, that the military opera- 
 tions have taken place. 
 
 In Italy the war-zone is a natural, rather than 
 a merely strategical and political, division ; and 
 except on part of the Isonzo front, where it fades 
 into the lowlands, it is a sort of no-man's-land, 
 picturesque and beautiful, but well marked oft 
 from the thriving, populous, fertile country below 
 it, which has been curiously and mercifully un- 
 touched by the ravages and perturbations of war. 
 There have been occasional air-raids, less destruc- 
 tive than those we have endured in Britain, on the 
 Lombard towns and the coasts. But otherwise 
 
56 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 the war-zone lies outside the populated world of 
 Italy, and belongs to that other world of vast 
 solitary spaces and sparsely peopled slopes. 
 
 This feature of the campaign is brought well 
 before your consciousness as you make your way 
 to the scene of operations through the sxm-smitten 
 roads and smiling little towns of Northern Italy. 
 When you think of France, with the fangs of the 
 invaders biuied deep in her quivering side, of 
 Britain with all its busy restlessness, this is like a 
 land of peace. The war is close at hand ; and yet 
 it seems far away from this cheerful coimtryside, 
 that might have been delivered over to rapine and 
 outrage, like so many other fair regions of Europe. 
 Life runs quietly and pleasantly ; there is no sign of 
 scarcity or want or indeed of any unusual agitation. 
 As we sped along the lovely lower valley of the 
 Brenta, and stopped at a village albergo for an 
 excellent breakfast, it was hard to believe that one 
 was not just the ordinary tourist in search of the 
 
 V picturesque. Here and there one passed a base 
 hospital ; now and again a few soldiers were 
 on the move ; occasionally a military motor-car 
 went by. There are no private cars on the roads, 
 for the Government has commandeered them all, 
 and does not allow petrol to be wasted over joy- 
 rides. The peasants were at work in their fields, 
 mostly old people and women of course, though it 
 
 " struck me that there were more yomig men about 
 
THE WAR-ZONE AND THE TRENCHES 57 
 
 than one sees just now in either France or England. 
 Italy has a large army embodied. But she 
 has not exhausted her reserves and has plenty more 
 men to call up when she is ready for them. 
 
 We turned from the wide low valley and swept up 
 a road into the hills ; and then quite suddenly the 
 atmosphere changed, and we knew that we had 
 plunged into the real war area. Here we come 
 upon the now familiar signs which indicate that 
 one is behind the lines of a great army deployed 
 on a fighting front. We paused at a little town 
 to get our passes checked at the divisional Staff 
 Office. In other times it is a haunt of artists. Now 
 its winding narrow streets and small piazza were 
 so choked with soldiers that we could hardly make 
 our way through them. Many thousands are 
 camped or billeted here, for this is near the base 
 of a long, long slope which rises to where the 
 trenches are, and the batteries, far up the heights. 
 Motor-lorries, packed with food or ammunition, 
 rumble past on their way aloft. They have broad 
 wheels with transverse flanges on their flat iron 
 tyres, and with this aid they can plough along 
 upwards at what seems an impossible angle of 
 ascent. In this war of the mountains the very 
 waggons become mountaineers. 
 
 But the most adventurous of wheeled vehicles 
 want a road of some sort if it can be got. Here, 
 when the campaign began, there was nothing but a 
 
58 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 hill -path up which the villagers could climb with 
 stick and bundle. To-day that path has been 
 changed into a fine road, graded, metalled, and 
 carried by cunningly devised spirals and turns 
 three-quarters of the way up the mountain. 
 Eventually it will go on into the next valley, and 
 then over the shoulder of the opposite hill, where the 
 Austrians now have their first-line trenches, and 
 then again up and on into Italia Irredenta beyond. 
 
 It is a notable piece of military engineering, but 
 it is not merely that. It Avill serve as an artery of 
 commerce when it is no longer needed for the 
 passage of guns and army -service waggons. There 
 is nothing temporary or makeshift about it. Rocks 
 have been blasted to make a passage, and solid 
 bridges of stone and steel thrown across the 
 mountain torrents. There are many such roads 
 behind the Italian front, and they will remain as a 
 permanent memorial of the campaign and the 
 spirit in which it is undertaken. The Italians are 
 an economical people, with the Latin tm'n for 
 accurate measurement and careful calculations. If 
 they are spending a vast amomit of money on this 
 war they mean to get a good deal in return. And 
 they understand that the work of the soldier and 
 the road-maker goes hand in hand. 
 
 This road has made it much easier to supply the 
 batteries which lie behind, or among, the first and 
 second line trenches, and the trenches themselves. 
 
THE WAR-ZONE AND THE TRENCHES 59 
 
 By its means stores can be pushed high up and 
 accumulated at convenient spots whence they can 
 be distributed by mule carts or hand trucks. Along 
 it the medium and heavy calibre guns are hauled 
 comfortably, by traction engines, and placed in 
 position with that concealment which is almost 
 the prime requisite of modern artillery science. 
 
 There are batteries far away from any road, and 
 which no road could reach. Because the Austrians 
 started with the weather-gage in their favour, 
 being for the most on the upper side of the great 
 ridges, it was necessary for the Italians to get their 
 guns as high as they could. The means by which 
 they accomplished these tasks were described to 
 me. They would seem incredible if one had not 
 ocular demonstration of the actual presence of the 
 cannon among these inaccessible crags. There are 
 some of them on the ice-ledges of the Ortler nearly 
 ten thousand feet above sea level, in places which 
 it is by way of an achievement for the amateur 
 climber to reach with guides and ropes and 
 porters and nothing to take care of but his own 
 skin. And here the Alpini and Frontier Guides had 
 to bring up the heavy pieces, hauling them over 
 the snow slopes, and swinging them in mid-air 
 across chasms and up knife-edged precipices by ropes 
 passed over timbers wedged somehow into the rocks. 
 
 Some of the pioneers lived through the winter 
 very much in the manner of Polar explorers. In 
 
60 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 snow huts and dug-outs they found shelter, not 
 merely from the searching Austrian guns but 
 from the icy winds and pitiless storms. They are 
 in no danger of perishing from lack of food and 
 fuel. They have good kerosene stoves to keep 
 them warm ; and their oil and meat and bread and 
 wine are sent up to them by the teleferic railway, 
 the wire rope with its sliding baskets stretched 
 across the chasms and the tree tops. Woimded men 
 are sometimes sent down by that sagging rope, 
 when there is no other means of getting them away 
 quickly, clinging as best they can to the swaying 
 boxes. 
 
 They are not all mountaineers, or men used to 
 mountain climates, who face these ordeals. Many 
 of the artillerymen and the gallant bersagUeri are 
 from the South, that warm sub-tropical South of 
 Italy, where the perfumed winds breathe softly 
 over mjTtles and oleanders imder radiant skies. 
 These men, Sicilians and Neapolitans, many of 
 whom had scarcely seen snow or ice, how would 
 they endure this life of wind and cold and drench- 
 ing mist and cutting rain ? I am told that the 
 question was asked with some anxiety at the 
 beginning. It has tiu?ned out that the Southerners 
 have done as well as the soldiers of the North, and 
 suffered no more. They have come quite cheer- 
 fully and in good health through it all. Perhaps it 
 is the stored caloric of ancestral sun in their bodies 
 
THE WAR-ZONE AND THE TRENCHES 61 
 
 that keeps them warm ; perhaps the flame that 
 has been kindled in their souls by the thought of 
 Italy's great adventure. 
 
 The worst of dangers in some of these alpine 
 stations, worse even than the Austrian cannon, 
 the great 305's and 420's which drop their crashing 
 projectiles from the clouds, was the avalanche. 
 The snow masses, loosened by the concussion of 
 the bombardments, are more treacherous and 
 insecure than ever. Those indications of coming 
 movement, for which the mountaineer is always on 
 the watch, are no longer perceptible ; and at a 
 moment when all seems calm the valanga will 
 thunder down and sweep men and guns away or 
 bury them fathoms deep. " We lost forty men and 
 two guns up there the other day," said the artillery 
 colonel to me, pointing to an innocent -looking 
 slope above us. We were standing beside one of 
 his own guns hidden snugly in a wooded hollow, so 
 covered up with leafage that no prying aeroplane 
 could find it out. But sometimes, in this war at 
 high altitudes, risks must be taken, and the pieces 
 exposed to the perils prepared by natvue or the 
 enemy. So it was on this occasion. The guns were 
 got out from under the snow, little damaged. They 
 were to be moved up again next week. And the 
 men ? " We shall send other men," said the 
 Colonel quietly. 
 
62 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 There arc trenches and trenches. When the 
 World Museum, which will be a record of the 
 World War, is established, it will doubtless contain 
 models and specimens of every kind. An amazed 
 posterity — ^then perhaps conducting its mihtary 
 operations exclusively in the air — ^will note the 
 many different fashions in which men fought on 
 the ground and under the ground, in this second 
 decade of the twentieth century. There will be a 
 rich variety in the exhibition of mole -work and 
 worm-work. Ditch and tunnel and mine in all 
 their forms will be presented, from the shallow 
 groove scooped with the soldier's entrenching tool 
 on the field, to the elaborate fortified moat, with 
 its concrete walls, and revolving steel turrets, and 
 emplacements for howitzers and heavy mortars : 
 not to mention its bath-rooms laid on with hot 
 water, and its gramophones and sofas, and other 
 luxuries, such as are to be seen in Gterman second- 
 line burrows on the Western Front. 
 
 The Italians will be able to contribute some 
 unique samples to the Exposition. They have 
 had rock trenches, mud trenches, ice and snow 
 trenches, trenches in the clouds, and trenches deep 
 in the river valleys. When they made their first 
 advances on the Isonzo side, their trenches, 
 hastily dug and consolidated as ground was 
 gained, were of the familiar pattern, already 
 growing and antiquated : the narrow slit in the 
 
THE WAR-ZONE AND THE TRENCHES 63 
 
 earth, revetted where possible with timber and 
 wire, with a loopholed parapet thrown up in front, 
 and before it a barbed entanglement. These 
 original trenches are now in the third or fom'th 
 line, and they are being elevated to what may be 
 called the modern standard, the standard that has 
 been set up since the first half of 1915. They are 
 being converted into forts, such as a fort is now 
 conceived to be according to the latest canons of 
 military science. 
 
 I saw the engineers hard at work on them, and 
 sighed to think how the fine old art of fortification, 
 the art of Vauban, has lost its impressive dignity of 
 aspect. Gone are the imposing bastions and 
 ramparts, the horns and crescents and demi-lunes 
 in massive masonry, the great star-angled 
 batteries. Instead, we have long lines of tunnels, 
 floored and walled with concrete, with vaulted 
 concrete roofs several feet thick, and layers of earth 
 above these. It is all so low down, so incon- 
 spicuous, that you might stumble upon it unawares, 
 if the barbed-wire fences in six-fold rows did not 
 effectually keep you out. But these mean-looking 
 cellars and passages, well served with machine-guns 
 and quick-firers, can defy the bravest infantry and 
 laugh at aeroplanes and field artillery. Nothing 
 but salvos of 12-inch or 15-inch shell could shake 
 them, and then the fire must be concentrated for 
 days at a time on one small sector. 
 
64 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 These works were being constructed partly by 
 military engineers but largely by civilians. 
 Economy is the " note " of the Itahan General 
 Staff. They are not unduly taxing their trained 
 men with rough manual labour when there are 
 plenty of hardy fellows who can handle spade and 
 trowel to be had for the asking, or at any rate for 
 a lire or two a day. Many of these workmen are 
 peasants from the adjacent countryside, above the 
 military age, tough veterans, lean, wiry, and sun- 
 burnt, who have wrestled with Mother Earth all 
 their lives. Others were young men who are not 
 yet called up to their regiments, and are put to 
 these jobs till they are wanted elsewhere. All 
 were working under a sufficiently pungent sun 
 with the ant-like industry that causes the 
 Italian labourer to be sought after whenever 
 there is digging and building to be done the world 
 over. 
 
 Such trenches as these are made with an eye not 
 merely to the present but the futm'e. They may not 
 be wanted, it is hoped they will not be wanted, in 
 this campaign unless things go imexpectedly 
 wrong. But they will come in very useful in the 
 next campaign, if there should be a next campaign, 
 which is a painful contingency that the Italians 
 are far too shrewd in their appreciation of realities 
 to leave out of their reckoning. These are the 
 fortifications that will protect the new Itahan 
 
o 
 
 K 
 
 H 
 
THE WAR-ZONE AND THE TRENCHES 65 
 
 frontier if any attempt should be made to violate 
 it again. 
 
 Trenches of another kind there are which the 
 Italians made as they fought their way up the 
 Carso and San Michele. These hills have not the 
 elevation of the great Alpine heights on the 
 central and western sections. But they rise out of 
 the wood and verdure at their feet in bare and 
 naked stone heaps. They were tuimels and 
 galleries, rather than trenches in the proper sense, 
 that had to be made. The pick and crowbar and 
 blasting charge were needed more than shovel and 
 earth carrier. And, since there was no cover, all the 
 work had to be done at night, a scrap at a time 
 and mostly under fire. The Austrian batteries 
 plugged at the half -finished breastworks, and their 
 blows were rendered more deadly by the nature 
 of the ground ; for the rocks themselves were 
 shivered by the shells, and more men were killed 
 and injured by the needles and splinters of flying 
 stone than by shrapnel. It was hard, grim fight- 
 ing that gained these positions and held them, and 
 the price paid has been heavy. And always the 
 Italians were driving their way upwards against a 
 foe placed above them, in positions prepared and 
 fortified beforehand. Here, on the Carso, the 
 Austrians had turned almost every funnel-shaped 
 cavern and ragged circle of boulders into a strong- 
 hold. 
 
66 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 In some sections the hostile lines are as close 
 together as they are anywhere in France and 
 Flanders. There are trenches or tunnels divided 
 from one another by a single wall of earth 
 or rock. Austrians and Italians can converse with- 
 out raising their voices above conversational pitch ; 
 and to lob a grenade over the partition is so simple 
 that the thing is not often done, since retaliation 
 is equally easy, and life would become intolerable 
 for both parties. 
 
 There are other parts of the Italian front where 
 the trench conditions are different, and very 
 strange to those who only know the modem type 
 of warfare as it is seen in our o\m and the French 
 zones. In France the trench-line is not only con- 
 tinuous but it is practically occupied at all times. 
 Some portions may be thinly held as activity shifts 
 elsewhere ; but no stretch of front-line trench, I 
 believe, would be left untenanted for any period 
 lest it shotdd be suddenly rushed by an ever- 
 watchful enemy. The advanced trenches are 
 always under potential, if not actual, fire ; nobody 
 can get into them except under cover of dark- 
 ness, without the risk of receiving a bullet fron\ 
 a row of rifles and machine-guns, aligned im- 
 mediately opposite, usually at very short range. 
 
 There are many positions like that in this 
 theatre also. But there are others where trenches 
 forming part of the strategic front are empty for 
 
THE WAR-ZONE AND THE TRENCHES 67 
 
 hours or days at a time, trenches which the casual 
 visitor, if he is permitted, can stroll into and 
 " occupy " himself without the danger of im- 
 mediate annihilation. The line on the high 
 mountains is so long, and it goes over a terrain so 
 twisted in shape and so broken by abrupt changes 
 of level, that every yard of it cannot be held 
 constantly. 
 
 A trench perhaps will run looping across a valley 
 between two commanding peaks almost unclimb- 
 able. If either side has its observation posts on 
 these summits, and its gun positions well back 
 behind them, the trench cannot be attacked at 
 short notice, especially if to make an assault the 
 enemy would have himself to come down from a 
 height and move across a valley or up a long, 
 exposed slope. There would be time to fill the 
 trench with troops when they are wanted to repel 
 an attack, and it is sufficient if the place is well 
 watched from the adjacent posts and fortified 
 stations, instead of being permanently kept full of 
 tired infantry to draw the distant fire of the 
 adversary's heavy guns. 
 
 The Italian General Staff has had to provide for 
 a winter war and a summer war simultaneously. 
 Down on the extreme right of their line near the 
 Gulf of Trieste and on the Carso they are fighting 
 in the hot breath of the torrid South European 
 summer. But at the other end of the line, on the 
 
CHAPTER V 
 GORIZIA AND THE ISONZO FRONT 
 
 A DRIVE IN AUSTRIA THE SECTORS OF THE FRONT 
 
 — THE ISONZO LINE THE STRENGTH OF THE 
 
 ENEMY CADORNA'S PROMPT OFFENSIVE — ^THE 
 
 FIRST RUSH BARZINI'S DESCRIPTION IN THE 
 
 RECOVERED LAND SLOVENES AND SERBS THE 
 
 CARSO — GORIZIA, THE GARDEN CITY ITALIAN 
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR A NEW OFFENSIVE ^A SILENT 
 
 CONCENTRATION THE BATTLE OF GORIZIA — THE 
 
 CITY CAPTURED — THE AUSTRIAN DEFEAT AND 
 ITS RESULTS 
 
 ""ITTOULD you like to come for a little drive 
 
 ^^ in Austria ? " said the Italian staff - 
 officer. 
 
 " Won't the Austrian troops object ? " I asked. 
 
 " Very likely ; but you see there are no Austrian 
 troops where I propose to take you, because we 
 induced them to retire in some haste a yeai" ago. 
 We will go to-day into what was Austrian territory, 
 but is so no longer — and never will be again." 
 
 It is a fact I do not think Englishmen have quite 
 appreciated, that Italy, alone among the Entente 
 Powers, instead of having to give ground to the 
 
 70 
 
THE ISONZO FRONT 
 
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GORIZIA AND THE ISONZO FRONT 71 
 
 invader began the war by seizing certain valuable 
 slices of the hostile soil, of which the enemy has 
 been unable to dispossess them. Of this the most 
 important was in that wedge of country where the 
 Germanic, Italian, and Slavonic elements of South- 
 Eastern Europe come into contact, and where the 
 Isonzo winds down from the Julian Alps to the sea. 
 
 * * 
 
 The Austro -Italian Front divides itself into four 
 sectors, tracing it through the whole of that double 
 loop or irregular S mentioned in a former chapter. 
 The sectors may be briefly described as : first, that 
 of the Isonzo ; second, the Carnia and Cadore ; 
 third, the Trentino ; and fourth, the Alpine. 
 
 The first extends roughly from the lagoons of the 
 Gulf of Trieste, past the great ridge of the Carso, 
 along the course of the river, beyond the point where 
 it turns from south-east to south at Tolmino, to 
 Plezzo where it turns again in its passage through 
 the Carnic Mountains, The Carnia section passes 
 over the watershed that separates the Drave and 
 other rivers running into the Danube from those 
 that drain into the Adriatic. It traverses the wild 
 mountainous regions of the Carnia, the Cadore, and 
 the Eastern Dolomites, with the Austrian strategic 
 railway through the Pusterthal and the Drave 
 valley, passing behind it on the route from Carinthia 
 
72 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 and Styria to Franzensfeste, Botzen, and Trent. 
 The third sector, from the Dolomites road to Lake 
 Garda, crosses the great bastion of the Trentino, 
 with its openings into Italy made by the Adige 
 through the Val Lagarina, the Brenta by the Val 
 Sugana, and the other streams flowing from the 
 Tyrolese uplands into the Lombard and Venetian 
 plains. The fourth division covers the northward 
 turn of the loop from the western shore of Garda 
 up to the Swiss frontier, where the Bemina group 
 joins the Tyrol system in the huge snow-crowned 
 and glacier-ridden masses of the Adamello and 
 Ortler, pierced by the long devious passes of 
 the Tonale and the Stelvio. 
 
 The Isonzo frontier differed from the others in 
 being drawn across low-lying country instead of 
 threading its way among the mountains. Here 
 there was nothing in the way of a natural or 
 geographical division. The frontier was a mere 
 sinuous line on a map, striking south from the 
 Julian mountains and marching across the Friulian 
 plain to the sea. Austria held the right bank of the 
 Isonzo ; and beyond the left bank she was seated 
 on the formidable glacis of the Carso and its saw- 
 backed prolongation the San Michele range, the 
 outlying bulwarks of the Triestine. So here, as 
 elsewhere, she had the weather-gage, the upper 
 ground. The Head-quarters Staff of the Austrian 
 Army of the Isonzo explained the situation to its 
 
GORIZIA AND THE ISONZO FRONT Y8 
 
 subordinates in a memorandum issued at the 
 outset of the operations : " We have to retain 
 possession of a terrain fortified by nature. In front 
 of us, a great watercourse ; behind us a ridge from 
 Avhich we can shoot as from a ten-story building." 
 It might have been added that art had aided 
 nature in the fortification ; for the Austrians had 
 been engaged, for years before the war, in so 
 arming the Carso with guns and defensive works 
 that it might well have been deemed impregnable. 
 
 4: 
 
 * * 
 
 The Italians did not undervalue their immediate 
 enemy. In England we have thought so much of 
 Germany that we have thought very little of 
 Austria, We have insisted on regarding the second 
 of the two Central Empires as a mere appendage, 
 a rather doubtful auxiliary, to the first, and have 
 hardly ever been able to take its share in the war 
 quite seriously. We made up our minds from the be - 
 ginning that Austria would speedily break up under 
 the impact from without ; we were told that it was 
 a " ramshackle Empire," certain to be torn limb 
 from limb so soon as strong hands were laid upon it. 
 
 We were waiting all through the first and second 
 years of the war for the prediction to be ful- 
 filled, and we reckoned confidently on the approach- 
 ing collapse of Austria all the time that Austria 
 
74 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 was fighting, with apparently unabated vigour and 
 no sign of internal disruption, against powerful 
 foes on two of her frontiers at once. To some few 
 of us Austria has been the surprise of the war, a far 
 greater surprise than Germany ; for while we knew 
 something of the resolution, the energy, and the 
 superb organisation of the one Power, we had 
 expected no such manifestation of military and 
 political force from the other. But the majority of 
 us were too little interested in Austria even to be 
 struck by this amazing and unexpected develop- 
 ment. We have seldom been able to remember 
 that we are fighting anybody but Germany ; and 
 we are inclined to place Austria-Hungary, as we 
 place Bulgaria and Turkey, among those mere 
 tools and dependents of Germany, which owe such 
 strength as they have displayed in the main to 
 German direction and support. 
 
 But those who were in closer contact with the 
 Dual Monarchy took a different view. There might 
 be something " ramshackle " about the Austrian 
 Empire ; but they felt that ramshackle was not 
 the word for the Austrian military machine. They 
 knew that the Monarchy could draw upon a 
 population of fifty-two millions, and that out of 
 this human reservoir it had extracted an army 
 which was the fourth in Europe in numbers, and 
 in quality a good third. They were aware that in 
 equipment this army was surpassed only by those of 
 
GORIZIA AND THE ISONZO FRONT 75 
 
 Germany and France, though they did not perhaps 
 realise that in some respects it was even better 
 furnished than the forces of our Ally. 
 
 The Italian officers I met showed no disposition 
 to speak slightingly of the military capacity of their 
 opponents. They held that the Austrian regi- 
 mental officers were less disposed to take risks and 
 incur hardships than their own, and that the rank- 
 and-file were inferior to the Itahans in spirit and 
 elan. But they did not deny that the enemy's 
 troops were capable of fighting with courage and 
 obstinacy, that among the Magyars, Germans, and 
 Tyrolese jagers there were as good soldiers as could 
 be found anywhere, that there are plenty of brave 
 men among the other subjects of the Emperor-King, 
 and that the half-heartedness of some of the Slav 
 contingents would be largely counteracted by a 
 stern discipline and a traditional loyalty to the 
 Throne and the reigning House. They believed 
 that the Austrian Staff had studied in a good school 
 and was capable and efficient, and they had a 
 high and well-grounded respect for the Austrian 
 artillery. They felt that Austria, with her advan- 
 tages of geographical position and intense prepara- 
 tion, was an adversary whom Italy, with incomplete 
 armaments and half-empty arsenals, could not 
 have ventured to engage with any prospect of 
 success if a large part of the forces of the Monarchy 
 had not been diverted to the eastern frontier. 
 
76 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 Even with this handicap, it was thought that the 
 enemy might be strong enough to gain the initia- 
 tive at the outset, and bring the war into ItaHan 
 territory. This seemed extremely likely to happen 
 on the Isonzo front. The common opinion in Italy 
 was that the low country west of the boundary 
 would be abandoned to the invaders, and that the 
 Italian army would make its stand behind the 
 broad reaches and spreading sands of the Taglia- 
 mento river. Great was the joy and relief through- 
 out the kingdom when Cadorna took the offensive 
 in the very first hours of the war, left the Taglia- 
 mento far in the rear, carried his troops in a 
 splendid rush across the frontier, and seized a 
 whole group of Italian towns and villages, and the 
 entire triangle of Italian-speaking country up to 
 the Isonzo, and in some cases beyond it. Austria 
 was placed on the defensive; and Itahan troops 
 were laying siege to the ten-story house fi-om 
 Austrian soil, or soil hitherto marked Austrian on 
 the maps. The re-conquest of Italia Irredenta had 
 begun. 
 
 The moral effect of this movement was pro- 
 digious. Italy, taking up arms after long hesitation, 
 was peering anxiously into the imknown, bracing 
 herself to resist that fresh invasion of the Tedeschi 
 which she awaited with resolution but with some 
 nervousness. And then on the 24th of May, the 
 very day after war was declared, the glad news 
 
GORIZIA AND THE ISONZO FRONT 77 
 
 resounded through the Peninsula that the enemy 
 was already in retreat, that the national troops 
 were over the border, and the alien garrisons fleeing 
 before them in disorder. The most eloquent of 
 Italian journalists, Luigi Barzini, has given a vivid 
 description of that first rush into the unredeemed 
 territory : " It was the rSveilli of Italy ! " 
 
 " Our troops pressed forward in a mood of 
 exultant resolution. They crossed the Natisone ; 
 and then, amid thickets of blossoming acacias, 
 under the glory of the brilliant simshine of May, 
 in an atmosphere panting with the allurement of 
 the Italian spring, the human wave swept gaily on. 
 
 " It came to the green and wooded bank of the 
 Judrio, the frontier river. Joy changed to a kind 
 of delirium. Tumultuously the soldiers rushed 
 through the bushes and threw themselves into the 
 water, eager to reach the further shore, raising 
 their clanging battle-cry of ' Italia ! Savoia ! ' as 
 the columns came up, in turn, from various roads, 
 and each launched upon the threshold of the New 
 Italy that fateful salutation. . . . 
 
 " Under the vivid sun, the plain spread before 
 them, a sea of verdure, while distant chiurch bells 
 rang out in mingled voices of welcome. Villanova 
 was the first to sound the tocsin. The campaniles 
 of Manzano, of Trivignano, of Palmanova, took up 
 the peal. One after another the chimes gave 
 tongue. It was the voice of the country, the 
 
78 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 voice of the soil, the voice of the motherland, that 
 saluted the troops with the antique melody of its 
 festal days, the music of its traditions, and gave 
 to that unforgettable hour a religious solemnity. 
 In that moment the Greater Italy had come into 
 being. The ancient boundary, the boundary of 
 dishonour, was effaced." ^ 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 Our little drive into Austria took us through the 
 scenes of this triumphal progress a year before. 
 We crossed the Judrio, and saw, lying overthrown 
 and unregarded by the roadside, a post striped in 
 black and yellow. " The frontier ! " said my 
 friend ; " but you will not have to go through the 
 douane here or produce your passport." We went 
 on into Cormons, the first town in Austria captured 
 by the Italians. War was declared on the night of 
 May 23, 1915, and by the evening of the 24th 
 Cormons was in Italian hands. There was fierce 
 fighting in the streets during the day, and they 
 showed me many w^alls pierced with shell-holes or 
 pock-marked by bullets. But otherwise all was, 
 by this time, peaceful, prosperous, Italian. Here 
 and there you might see a German inscription at 
 a corner or over a shop, and an Austrian emperor 
 still ramped haughtily on his bronze charger in 
 the market place, though they had put a tricolour 
 ' Baivjni : Al Fronie. 
 
GORIZIA AND THE ISONZO FRONT 79 
 
 flag in his hand. The principal thoroughfare was 
 now named the Street of May 24 in honour 
 of Liberation Day. The Stadthaus had become 
 the Municipio, and the arms of Savoy had replaced 
 the double-eagle crest above the doorway. There 
 was little left to tell of the alien domination that 
 had held long but transient sway over this Latin 
 coimtry. 
 
 We passed on through the perfumed land, glow- 
 ing with jasmine and roses, with peach-blossom and 
 cherry-flower, in an air and sun as ravishing as 
 Barzini had found it. All spoke of Italy: the 
 vine-trellised balconies, the villas with their tinted 
 and frescoed walls, the traces of old Venice in 
 grey church-tower and Byzantine basilica, the 
 peasant girls walking like young princesses with 
 their yoke of buckets on their shoulders, the large- 
 eyed white oxen drawing the rough wooden carts. 
 
 But as we drew nearer the Isonzo we found our- 
 selves in touch with another people, and we heard 
 villagers talking in a tongue that belonged neither 
 to the German nor the Italian family of languages, 
 but to the Slav. The Slovenes are scattered 
 thickly over all this district, and in some communes 
 and towns they form the majority of the popula- 
 tion. So numerous are they that the Jougo-Slav 
 partisans claim all this country for the Greater 
 Serbia of their dream, along with Croatia and 
 Istria and Styria and Carinthia up to the Drave 
 
80 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 valley. The dream will not be fulfilled. Italy has 
 not set back one foreign frontier to replace it by 
 another. She will keep all her conquests here, and 
 it may be hoped that by amicable arrangement 
 and sensible adjustments the Jougo-Slav aspira- 
 tions will be satisfied in other ways. 
 
 The Slovenes may reconcile themselves to 
 Italian rule, as some of them have done already. 
 The Latin nations seem more successful than some 
 others in conciliating alien populations, even when 
 these have been annexed by force. The Alsatians, 
 in spite of their history, and their Glerman speech, 
 remain French in sympathy. Kabyles and 
 Berbers in Algeria and Tunis get on better with 
 their rulers than some of oiir own native African 
 subjects. Italy, if she governs wisely, may assimi- 
 late the Slovenes as she has assimilated Savoy and 
 Aosta, and as, long ago, she Italianised the Veneti, 
 themselves a people of Illyrian, if not of Celtic, 
 origin. 
 
 *** 
 
 We made our way nearer to the Italian front 
 on the right bank of the Isonzo ; and from a good 
 observation-point, well screened from the hostile 
 artillerymen on the heights across the river, we 
 could see the long line of the formidable barrier 
 range which held up the advance after inat first 
 rapid rush in the opening weeks of the campaign. 
 
GORIZIA AND THE ISONZO FRONT 81 
 
 We obtained an ampler view of the Carso, San 
 Michele, Podgora, and Sabotino, and we found no 
 difficulty in understanding why the further pro- 
 gress of the Italians in this direction had been 
 suspended for several months. 
 
 The Carso is said to derive its name from a Celtic 
 word akin to " cairn " ; and a mammoth cairn it 
 is, a gigantic heap of piled stone. This great up- 
 standing bank, which walls off the Triestine plain 
 from the Isonzo valley, and links up the mid- 
 European Alpine system with the Dalmatic and 
 Balkan mountain ranges, is as strong a natural 
 fortress as the world can show. There are groves 
 of oak and orchards at its foot ; but after these 
 are passed it is a mass of wrinkled rock, with 
 scrub and thick undergrowth in some of the 
 gullies, here and there scanty vegetation, but for 
 the most part naked stone, its gaunt ribs and blank 
 shoulders scourged and flayed by the relentless 
 sxm. Save for the lizards that bask and bake 
 themselves on its furnace-like floors it is lifeless, 
 as it is waterless and treeless ; no shrub or tuft 
 of mountain moss, no bird and scarcely an insect 
 can find nourishment over large spaces of this 
 burnt solitude. 
 
 The Austrians had strengthened the forbidding 
 fastness by elaborate works. The whole face was 
 veined with galleries and covered ways, notched 
 and crenellated with dug-outs and caves and gun- 
 
82 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 emplacements hewn in the sohd rock. The Italians, 
 laboriously drawing their own tunnels and trenches 
 up the lower slopes, were faced by Austrian 
 cannon, dropping shell from sheltered embrasures, 
 served by gunners well supplied with food brought 
 along the strategic roads, and water pumped to 
 them through pipe-lines. 
 
 To besiege this place was like attempting to 
 carry the Rock of Gibraltar. Yet the Italians 
 slowly pushed upwards, winning a position here 
 and there by a daring rush in the darkness of the 
 night, and consolidating it with pickaxe and 
 hammer under the glare of the day. The Austrians 
 had good engineers ; but in tunnelling and road- 
 making the Italians are better — ^the best in 
 Europe. 
 
 They needed all their skill and all their courage 
 here. The difficulties of the advance were terrible. 
 Trenches, traverses, sunken roads, of what may 
 be called the orthodox pattern, could hardly be 
 dug. Boring machinery often replaced the 
 spade; and the upward path was gained in a 
 succession of mines and deep galleries protected 
 by stone-built breastworks. The enemy's shrapnel 
 and high explosive broke with deadly effect on the 
 bare rock, and they scattered flakes and splinters 
 of stone which were more dangerous than the 
 flying bullets and fragments of shell. Earthworks 
 could not be made, for there was no earth except 
 
GORIZIA AND THE ISONZO FRONT 83 
 
 what the ItaUans brought with them in sandbags 
 and hand-carts. 
 
 Slowly, and at heavy cost of life and limb, the 
 Italian troops pushed on, and by yards and inches 
 drew close enough to assault, one after another, 
 the armoured caverns and the labyrinth of fortified 
 passages which the Austrians, long before the war 
 and in preparation for it, had constructed. 
 
 If the assailants were amazed at the formidable 
 completeness of the defensive works, the defenders 
 were no less svirprised by the daring with which 
 the attacking infantry threw themselves upon these 
 rows of forts and tiers of guns. It was the Sicilian 
 Army Corps which covered itself with glory in the 
 earlier operations on the Carso, springing like 
 mountain goats up the slopes under a rain of fire, 
 and singing the ancient island songs as they went 
 to what must have sometimes looked like certain 
 death for all, and was indeed death for many. 
 
 * * 
 
 From our view-point we could look down on 
 (Jorizia, still held by the enemy so that we could 
 not get close to it. We had to be content with a 
 distant prospect of the " city of gardens," with its 
 white towers rising among quivering leaves, and 
 its roofs glowing red and ochre above the silver 
 waters of the Isonzo. Seen thus from afar Gorizia 
 might well suggest, as it did to M, Maurice Barres, 
 
84 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 the idea of a captive princess, with the river flung 
 like a broad moat before her prison, and the grim 
 armed warders of the Podgora and Sagrado hills 
 barring the road to her deliverers. The town lies 
 in the valley of the Wippach, which passes between 
 the bluff bows of the Carso and the last spurs of 
 the Julian Alps, and so makes way for the roads 
 and railways to Trieste, Laibach, and Vienna. A 
 place therefore of immense strategic importance, 
 which Austria had fortified with all the resources 
 of military art, so that it was deemed an Antwerp 
 or a Verdun, one of the strongest places d'armes in 
 Europe. 
 
 But no fortress can of itself resist modern 
 battering guns if there are enough of them. 
 Antwerp, Liege, Lemberg, Maubeuge, Namur, have 
 taught the lesson ; and Verdun was saved not 
 by its bastions and armoured works but by the 
 fire of the French field-pieces, and the heroic 
 bodies of the French infantry. The Italians could 
 have blown Gorizia into shreds by the winter of 
 1915. But the city of gardens would have been 
 uselessly sacrificed. Gorizia might have been 
 destroyed, but it could not have been held, so long 
 as the guardian hills were in enemy hands. The 
 " Great Push " into the Wippach valley and up 
 the flank of the Carso could only be effective 
 when the Italians had concentrated guns and 
 troops sufficient to silence the Austrian batteries 
 
GORIZIA AND THE ISONZO FRONT 85 
 
 on Podgora and Sagrado, on Monte Sabotino and 
 Monte San Michele, and when they were in a 
 position to carry and occupy those commanding 
 heights themselves. 
 
 The Austrians beUeved that this concentration 
 could not be executed for many months. Their 
 own great advance on the Trentino front had been 
 designed, in part at least, to prevent such a 
 manoeuvre ; and they supposed that to this extent 
 the operation had been successful. In order to 
 meet the imminent peril to his centre Cadorna had 
 been compelled to throw heavy reinforcements 
 upon the Adige and Brenta line. Much of his 
 best artillery was sent there, a new army of half 
 a million men was organised, and it had to be 
 stiffened by many of the Isonzo regiments ; so that 
 the hold upon the main objective, which was, and 
 always has been, the road to Trieste, was neces- 
 sarily somewhat relaxed. 
 
 The recovery, it was thought, would be slow, 
 even after the Austrian forward di'ive had been 
 arrested. Fierce fighting was still going on over 
 the central theatre, many Italian divisions and 
 batteries were held up, and the Isonzo army, it 
 was believed, could not develop its full strength 
 for some time. The Italians would be closely 
 engaged on the Trentino, with all the force they 
 could spare, until the snow fell on the mountains, 
 so that during the campaigning season of 1916 no 
 
86 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 serious advance could be anticipated in the other 
 quarter. That was undoubtedly the opinion of 
 the Austrian General Staff, which had shifted 
 some of the best of its contingents from the 
 Gorizia sector, thinking that there was no im- 
 mediate danger there. 
 
 They had underestimated the enterprise, the 
 resourcefulness, and the organising ability of their 
 opponent, and his power of swift and silent move- 
 ment. All through July the pressure was kept up 
 on the Austrian centre ; and further east, in the 
 Cadore, the Italians were also busy and took by 
 assault several important positions on the Dolo- 
 mite passes. So violent was the struggle on this 
 line that during the month the Austrians moved 
 back to it four divisions, which had been ordered 
 to Galicia, and were urgently needed there. 
 
 The Italian General Staff had utilised the delay 
 created by the Trentino campaign in increasing 
 its supply of munitions, and in supplementing its 
 bouches de fer by constructing a number of large - 
 calibre mortars and howitzers. These weapons, 
 with many other guns and a great body of infantry, 
 were quietly accumulated in front of the Isonzo, 
 and skilful preparations, of which the enemy, it 
 would appear, was ignorant, were made for be- 
 ginning the carefully planned offensive. How 
 complete and elaborate these preparations were 
 I had some inkling myself as I wandered through 
 
GORIZIA AND THE ISONZO FRONT 87 
 
 this part of the country before the battle, though 
 nothing was said of them for fear of arousing the 
 enemy's suspicions. Unknown to him (and the 
 fact speaks volumes for the cleverness with which 
 (jeneral Porro's able staff had muzzled or misled 
 the Austrian secret agents), there had been going 
 on a reconstruction of the lines of communication 
 over an extensive area, because the network of 
 roads made by the Austrians was framed in accord- 
 ance with their strategic scheme, and each of these 
 tracks was so drawn that the defending artillery 
 could keep every section under a murderous fire 
 and thereby prevent the movement of troops and 
 convoys. 
 
 The new roads were laid dm-ing the winter and 
 spring, and wherever possible they were hidden 
 amid woodlands. The exposed parts were masked 
 by shelters formed of woven rushes of a yellowish 
 shade or by high artificial hedges so contrived that 
 the character of the routes could not be detected 
 even by aerial observers. These screens looked 
 innocent enough, and only those who knew the 
 lie of the coimtry well could appreciate the art 
 with which they were placed. 
 
 The Italian Staff also organised water supplies, 
 ovens, slaughter-houses, depots of all sorts, and 
 comfortable camps for the troops to rest in. The 
 guns and mortars were brought to their appointed 
 positions without attracting the enemy's observa* 
 
88 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 tion, a truly remarkable achievement when it is 
 remembered, as I have pointed out, what facilities 
 the Austrians had for watching the Italian terrain. 
 Equally unknown to the foe was the great tunnel 
 850 feet long, which the Italian engineers had 
 driven to within some thirty yards of the Austrian 
 trenches, and in which nearly a battalion lay con- 
 cealed ready to spring out and lead the assault. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 AH was ready by August 4th, when fighting 
 began along the line from Monfalcone upwards, 
 and some strong enemy works were carried. 
 But the operations in the Monfalcone zone were 
 only a feint, a demonstration intended to draw off 
 the Austrian reserves from the real danger point, the 
 Gk)rizia salient. On this segment the storm burst 
 on the morning of the 6th with terrific violence. 
 Hundreds of the Italian guns and mortars came 
 into action at once, and a roaring tempest of 
 shell broke upon the town. At the outset, says an 
 acute observer, ^ the tactics of the artillery seemed 
 extraordinary. Its fire was not, as it seemed, in- 
 tended to demolish the Austrian works or to place 
 curtains of shell behind them. The real purpose 
 
 ' The Milan correspoudent of The Times whose despatches 
 have shown an accurate knowledge of the details of the fighting, 
 and a shrewd grasp of the tactical and strategic problems 
 involved. 
 
\- 
 
 >-■'.-;'.■ -I'-'-" 
 
 
GORIZIA AND THE ISONZO FRONT 89 
 
 of the bombardment was to aim at the enemy's 
 brain and eyes. 
 
 The artillery was in fact endeavom'ing to dis- 
 cover and destroy the Austrian commanders' head- 
 quarters and the armoured observation posts used 
 by them. A large hotel in Gorizia, from which the 
 fire of the Austrian artillery was directed, con- 
 nected with the observation posts over a vast 
 front by himdreds of telegraph and telephone 
 wires, was soon a blazing ruin. The Italian 
 batteries rained projectiles on the depots, the rail- 
 way station and sidings, but left the greater part 
 of the town untouched. By nine o'clock the 
 enemy's brain and eyes were numbed. 
 
 His numerous artillery deprived of central con- 
 trol became ineffective. Then the full destructive 
 fury of the Italian fire was turned on the fortifi- 
 cations of San Michele, Podgora, and Sabotino, 
 and again on the rear of the lines connecting the 
 enemy's works west of the Isonzo, on the hills 
 above Podgora, Peuma, and the Grafenberg, with 
 Gorizia. So steadily was the curtain of shells 
 maintained that no reinforcements could cross 
 the river. 
 
 A task of stupendous difficulty was the capture 
 of Sabotino, where so many heroic assaults in the 
 past had been shattered with terrible carnage. 
 It is a mountain two thousand feet high, and no 
 man thought it could be carried with the bayonet : 
 
90 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 the enemy's entrenchments were too formidable 
 and the distance to them was too great. There 
 was difficulty in bringing up reinforcements owing 
 to the curtain fire which the enemy could inter- 
 pose from his guns at San Marco and Monte Santo. 
 Only by the device of building the tunnel a mile 
 and a quarter long, into the very heart of the hostile 
 position, was it possible for the first waves of the 
 attacking force to dash upon the enemy's entrench- 
 ments without being blasted into annihilation. 
 
 " Despite the frightful difficulties the men had 
 to overcome the first line of stormers swept for- 
 ward, keeping pace with the white discs which 
 were carried high above their heads to show the 
 gunners how far they had advanced, as swiftly 
 as a scrap of paper is whirled by a hurricane, 
 until the moment when they disappeared on the 
 farther slope of the mountain, towards the 
 Isonzo." 
 
 The Italian official statement makes the follow- 
 ing comment on these operations : 
 
 " The work of our batteries and bomb-throwers 
 on this day was a truly classic example of the 
 concentration of fire against fortified lines- It had 
 for a long time been meticulously thought out and 
 prepared. Thanks to the observation of the ground 
 by our aviators, patrols, and other observers, the 
 
GORIZIA AND THE ISONZO FRONT 91 
 
 enemy positions had become perfectly known to 
 us, the information obtained had been tabulated, 
 the various targets carefully noted, and the ranges 
 fixed with scrupulous precision. Therefore, at the 
 prescribed moment, a veritable tempest of fire 
 was unexpectedly hurled against the enemy's 
 positions, wrecking his advanced defences, de- 
 molishing the shelters, destroying observation and 
 other posts, and cutting the communications. Then 
 our infantry advanced in columns with their 
 usual impetuosity, the attack being all the time 
 supported by our artillery whose curtain fire 
 prevented the enemy from sending reinforce- 
 ments. Our troops charged with irresistible dash 
 and overcame every obstacle, forming a rampart 
 from the Sabotino to the vital point at the bridge- 
 head of Gorizia. In the open country we broke 
 through the entanglements and the line of defence 
 constructed by the enemy between the southern 
 boundary of Podgora and the Isonzo, and reached 
 the right bank of the river as far as the St. Andrea 
 height. 
 
 " As the result of our victorious operations all 
 the heights on the right of the Isonzo, forming the 
 Gorizia bridge-head and Monte San Michele on the 
 left of the river, are now strongly held by us. The 
 Isonzo line below Tolmino is entirely assured to us, 
 and Gorizia is dominated by our guns. State- 
 ments made by prisoners all bear witness that the 
 
92 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 enemy command was taken by surprise by our 
 sudden offensive. Our preparatory fire proved 
 very effective. This was due to the remarkable 
 number of guns which we were able to employ, 
 owing to the constant development which has 
 taken place during the war in the production of 
 guns, and the introduction of a new and powerful 
 means of destruction in the shape of heavy 
 howitzer batteries, also to the excellent use made 
 of the means which enabled us to obtain a per- 
 fect concentration of fire on strategic points of the 
 greatest importance . " ^ 
 
 * 
 
 * * 
 
 The fighting continued for three days, during 
 which the troops of the Italian Third Army, com- 
 manded by the Duke of Aosta, covered themselves 
 with glory, and gave abundant proofs of their 
 spirit and dauntle^i courage. The Austrians, 
 though disconcerted, and to some extent demoral- 
 ised, by the unexpected suddenness and concen- 
 trated energy of the attack, fought bravely at some 
 points, and made the captors pay dearly for the 
 intricate positions which were carried in close 
 combat. In one fortified cavern an officer with 
 a small body of men put up such a stubborn 
 
 ' See the communique from the Comando Supremo in the 
 Italian newspapers of Aug. 10, 1916. 
 
GORIZIA AND THE ISONZO FRONT 93 
 
 resistance against overwhelming odds that the 
 Italian soldiers presented arms to the survivors 
 when at length they came out and surrendered. 
 But by the evening of August 9th, the attack, 
 " one of the most important and violent onslaughts 
 on fortified positions that the European War has 
 yet seen," had been completely successful, the 
 whole Gorizia place d'armes, so strengthened by 
 natural and artificial means, had been won, with 
 the bridge-head and those guarded and forbidding 
 heights which had cost the Italians a heavy toll 
 of valiant lives for more than a year. 
 
 The beaten army, in its hasty retreat to the 
 positions further back on the Carso upland where 
 it took its stand, yielded ample booty to the 
 victors. Cavalry and cyclists as well as infantry 
 were launched in pursuit, and the guns hunted the 
 scattered regiments as they scrambled up the 
 ridges. Nearly nineteen thousand prisoners, 
 Magyars, Germans, Slovaks, Wallachians, Slovenes, 
 representing most of the races of the Monarchy, 
 were taken, sixty-seven heavy pieces of artillery, 
 machine-guns and bomb-throwers by Mie score, 
 rifles by the thousand, five million cartridges, and 
 vast quantities of shells, grenades, barbed wire, and 
 war material of all kinds. 
 
 A very damaging blow had been dealt at 
 Austrian prestige, and the self-esteem of the 
 Italians, and their justifiable confidence in their 
 
94 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 own military capacity, rose high. The strategic 
 results were of extreme value. The battle had 
 opened the road to Trieste, though the crest of the 
 Carso had still to be passed, and the Italians had 
 before them the waterless and barren tract of 
 country through which the enemy could retire, 
 taking up his pipe -lines as he fell back. The 
 first line of Austrian defence had been wrecked, 
 and a whole system of fortification, deemed 
 impregnable, had collapsed. Italy had good cause 
 to be proud of the foresight of her generals and 
 the valour of her troops. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 THE CARNIA AND THE CADORE 
 
 CONTKASTS^ — ^FROM FIRE TO FROST BARRING THE 
 
 DOORS — MOUNTAIN WARFARE UDINE TO THE 
 
 CARNIA GEMONA AND VENZONE — THE GREAT 
 
 CARNIA ROAD NO MAN'S LAND — A HIDDEN 
 
 BATTERY THE CADORE — CORTINA A TOURISTS* 
 
 PARADISE BITTER MOUNTAIN WARFARE 
 
 ITALIAN SUCCESSES — ON THE AUSTRIAN COM- 
 MUNICATIONS 
 
 TO pass, as I did in a day, from the first to 
 the second sector of the front is to gain a vivid 
 impression of the difficulties under which the 
 Italian campaign is conducted. Down on the 
 Carso the fighting is done under a sun like that of 
 Africa. But when you turn into the line that runs 
 along the crest of the Carnic Alps from Plezzo to 
 Monte Peralba, and when you follow it through 
 Cadore and under the Dolomites, you are in a 
 theatre of Alpine warfare, in the realms of snow and 
 bitter cold. On the Carso the bodies of the dead 
 would sometimes be baked hard and mummified 
 after lying out for a day on that oven-like floorj^of 
 
 95 
 
96 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 scorched stone. In the Carnia they have been 
 found stiff too, but stiff with frost. Half a 
 battaUon of Austrian infantry had fallen on 
 Monte Nero, and as they fell the snow came down 
 and covered them with its fleecy pall. All the 
 winter they lay there, buried deep under their 
 white shroud, and forgotten. But in the spring 
 the snow melted, and the Italian troops witnessed 
 a sight as strange and ghastly as any seen even in 
 this war of unprecedented horrors : six hundred 
 corpses, clothed and uniformed, frozen into rigid im- 
 ages of life, in the attitudes in which they had died. 
 
 The Italian plan of campaign, it may be 
 repeated, as worked out by General Cadorna and 
 General Count Porro, was to direct the main effort 
 to the Eastern front, and so open the road to 
 Trieste and Lower Austria. For this purpose they 
 deployed large forces on the Isonzo plain and 
 rapidly drove the enemy back to the river. But 
 they were always liable to have their scheme 
 frustrated by an Austrian invasion from the 
 northern movuitain ranges, either down the wide 
 river valleys of the Trentino bastion, or through the 
 passes from the Pusterthal and the Drave valley. 
 These doors had to be barred and bolted, and the 
 best way to do that was to get to the other side of 
 them. Accordingly, while the Isonzo operations 
 were developing in the summer of 1916, and the 
 
THE CARNIA AND THE CADORE 97 
 
 5th Austrian Army kept closely occupied, the 
 ItaUans made a dash for the northern heights. In 
 the Trentino they passed well beyond the frontier, 
 captured Rovoreto and pressed up the Adige and 
 the railway till they were outside the circle of 
 forts thrown roTind about Trent. Near this place 
 d'armes they remained till the great Austrian con- 
 centration of the spring of 1916 enabled (Jeneral 
 von Konrad and the Archduke Frederick to turn 
 upon them in force and roll them back to the 
 plateau of the Sette Communi. 
 
 * * 
 
 In the Cadore and the Carnia there are only two 
 main roads, one on the east and the other on the 
 west, through which an irruption could be made. 
 But there are various passes and hill paths, by 
 which, if time and opportunity were allowed them, 
 the invaders could have worked their way down to 
 the flank and rear of the Italian Eastern Army. The 
 Austrians, conscious of the significance of this 
 section of broken country, had aligned along 
 Cadore their 14th Army Corps, composed of 
 Tjnrolese jagers and sharpshooters, the best troops 
 they had for moimtain warfare. Another good 
 corps, the 10th, under General von Rohr, carried 
 on the line eastward to Tolmino. The passes 
 were in many cases protected by fortified works, 
 
 H 
 
98 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 and the heights dominating them on the Austrian 
 side well planted with batteries of heavy artillery. 
 
 Despite these favouring conditions the Austrians 
 have never been able to advance in this quarter, 
 where also they were compelled to give ground at 
 the outset . The Italians from the beginning, forced 
 the war right up to the mountain barrier, and in some 
 cases across it, notably about Cortina and Tofana, 
 that district, Austrian by the accident of politics, 
 which is Italian in speech and character, and Italian 
 by the sentiment of its inhabitants. Here the 
 troops of King Victor Emmanuel are in possession 
 and the government is administered by military 
 commissioners in his name. 
 
 It is all mountain warfare in this region. The 
 Italians know more about mountain warfare than 
 any people in Europe, except possibly the Swiss, and 
 the Swiss have not their mechanical appliances or 
 engineering aptitude. The Alpini, a picked force, 
 the Mite of the Italian Army for physique and 
 stamina, are in their own element, and it was 
 largely by the skill, courage, and hardihood of 
 these mountain warriors that King Victor's 
 generals were able to counteract the effect of the 
 Austrian heavy artillery and fortifications, and to 
 capture positions which no ordinary troops would 
 have attempted. Such was Monte Cristallo, which 
 dominates the Ampezzo basin, and on the Italian 
 side shows an almost vertical face nearly five 
 
-£ < 
 
THE CARNIA AND THE CADORE 99 
 
 thousand feet high. The Alpini attacked it armed 
 with ropes, climbing-irons, and rock-drills. For a 
 week they worked at the escalade, ignored by the 
 Austrians, who never suspected that any attempt 
 could be made to reach them up this apparently in- 
 surmountable cliff. But the pioneers drove rings and 
 iron pegs into the wall of rock, and from day to 
 day mounted higher, while their comrades followed 
 up the ladder they had made. Gradually they 
 collected in the gullies and clefts under the summit ; 
 and then one night they stole out on the crest and 
 rushed the Austrian garrison, too surprised and 
 dismayed to offer more than a feeble resistance to 
 these shouting groups of fierce foes, who seemed to 
 have descended upon them out of the clouds. 
 
 
 It is another gracious journey, for the first part 
 at least, from Udine up to the Italian positions in 
 the Carnia, and on the slopes of the Julian Alps. 
 Before us lay the great crescent of the mountain 
 chain, a curving wall of dim blue topped with 
 gleaming white ; over us the keener blue dome of 
 the cloudless sky ; roimd us fields sown with wheat 
 and maize, vineyards, plantations of mulberries, 
 cypress, and oleanders. We passed through 
 exquisite little towns, not often visited now, though 
 once they had an art and an art-life of their own. 
 
100 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 We pause for a few minutes to look at Gemona, 
 perched high above the Tagliamento, and we 
 glance at the church with its thirteenth-centviry 
 sculptures. The most curious of these is an enor- 
 mous St, Christopher, a stone giant reaching half- 
 way up the miniature fa9ade. A little later we 
 halt again at Venzone, another stranded relic of the 
 Middle Ages, with a church and a municipal palace 
 fine enough to remind us of the culture and delight 
 in beauty that radiated from Venice over this 
 Friulian country five hundred years ago : to 
 remind us also that these forgotten little towns, 
 slumbering on their hill-sides, once shared in the 
 brilliant vitality of the Empire City on the lagoons. 
 Little sign here of the preoccupations of our own 
 perturbed times. But presently we come full upon 
 them. A few kilometers beyond Venzone is the 
 Stazione per la Carnia, where the railway turns up 
 the Fella Valley on its way to Pontebba and 
 Villach. It has now become a great store place and 
 transport centre for the troops operating on the 
 higher levels. It is not on the same scale as the 
 immense installations we have set up in France to 
 supply our armies at the front. There are no such 
 huge multitudes to be provisioned here, and the 
 Italian soldier can do without many of the things 
 deemed essential by his British confrere. But there 
 was an imposing range of sheds and warehouses, 
 and everything necessary for the sustenance and 
 
THE CARNIA AND THE CADORE 101 
 
 comfort of an army was to be seen in sufficient 
 abundance, bread, wine, cheese, petrol ; tinned soup, 
 which is liberally served to the outposts and patrols 
 on the wind-stricken heights and has saved many 
 lives in the winter campaigning; chocolate, dried 
 fruits, clotlung, boots, all neatly stacked and 
 docketted. A conspicuous order prevailed : it is 
 an orderly and a tidy army, that of Italy, managed 
 throughout with thrift and care and a systematic 
 avoidance of waste. 
 
 * 
 
 We followed the Fella road, and found ourselves 
 in a wilder and more rugged coimtry than that of 
 the Veneto. Here the place-names brought to 
 our notice that the thi'ee elements, Italian, Slav, 
 and Teuton, meet and mingle in this debateable 
 land of the border. At Chiusaforte we were at the 
 beginning of the road which has been driven up 
 the Raccolana valley. It is one of the most 
 famous and most noteworthy of all the roads made 
 by the Italian engineers since the beginning of the 
 war. Before that there was nothing but a perilous 
 and uncertain mule track. But something more 
 was wanted — ^something that would carry three-ton 
 lorries, and the long-ranging guns that had to be 
 emplaced sufficiently far up to throw their pro- 
 jectiles over the crests upon the Austrian batteries 
 
102 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 on the other side. But was it possible to find a 
 way for such wheeled burdens up these broken 
 acclivities ? The Corpo di Genio and the Alpini 
 showed that it was possible, and as our car panted, 
 somewhat slowly, onwards we saw the result of 
 their labours. 
 
 The road twists up through pine forests, past 
 bare cliffs of rock, on the brink of precipices, with 
 the waterfalls gushing from their flanks and the 
 mountain torrents humming far down at their feet. 
 It rushes along, says Barzini, as if to the attack ; 
 swinging from side to side, whirling backwards and 
 forwards in a bewildering spiral, zigzagging up 
 the face of a rock-wall, or gliding by the very edge 
 of a fathomless chasm, but always moimting 
 purposefully towards the summits and the clouds. 
 Sometimes as we went we could see it above us, 
 sometimes below, sometimes it seemed to dis- 
 appear as it plunged into the bosom of a hill to 
 emerge higher up. It made rather nervous 
 travelling ; for at places it clung to the narrowest 
 shelf between rock-face and precipice, with just 
 room for a vehicle ; and cautiously as our soldier 
 chauffeur drove we felt sometimes as if, hke 
 Kipling's mountain-gunners, we were running with 
 " one wheel on the horns of the morning and one 
 on the edge of the Pit." How they could have 
 guided the battery teams and columns of transport 
 wagons and motor-lorries along these stretches 
 
THE CARNIA AND THE CADORE 103 
 
 of narrow, unfenced, track at night it is difficult 
 to conceive. But the road is a fine conception, 
 finely carried out. It showed mind, thought, 
 energetic intelligence, in its elaborate grading, 
 its clever grasp of natural obstacles and natural 
 advantages. Many peaceful voyagers will pass 
 along it in the time to come, and exclaim over 
 the grand views it gives of dark forest and distant 
 peak and foaming cascade. 
 
 Then came a point where we left our car and 
 walked on to the verge of the neutral ground 
 between the opposing forces. No Man's Land just 
 here is not the narrow strip of earth, strewn with 
 shell craters and nameless horrors, of France and 
 Flanders. Sometimes, it is true, the Italian and 
 Austrian soldiers can look, as King Victor 
 Emmanuel has said, into each other's eyes ; but 
 elsewhere they are kilometres and even miles 
 apart. We had before us a wide space, fenced off 
 by many pallisades of barbed wire, and baulks of 
 overthrown tree trunks piled into confused but 
 formidable barriers. All the same, the Austrians 
 are not far away, but we do not see them. In this 
 region of corrugated soil and sharply jutting 
 points enemies are easily hidden from one another, 
 and strange indeed are the daring wiles and 
 stratagems., and unutterably perilous raids by 
 which their presence becomes known. 
 
 One's former conception of artillery action has 
 
104 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 been, curiously modified by this war. On our way 
 downwards we visited a battery of heavy guns, the 
 powerful and effective " 280's." It was the last 
 situation that would have been chosen in the 
 old campaigns, when the idea was that a gun 
 position should be one with a " commanding " 
 range of view. But this battery " commanded " 
 nothing. It was planted far down in a wide glen 
 or hollow, overgrown with foliage, and so deep and 
 sheltered that the full rays of the sun never 
 reached it. In this large hole the gunners and the 
 guns were stowed away, the great pieces further 
 protected by roofs and pent -houses thatched with 
 leaves and branches. 
 
 I talked with the officer in charge of one of the 
 guns, who had been in this dark retreat for many 
 weeks. Was it not rather a dull life here ? No ; 
 it was not dull. There was enough to do ; there 
 were the men to look after, and the machines and 
 ammunition to be brought up and stored and got 
 ready. One could read sometimes — and he showed 
 me in his dug-out half a dozen books of poetry and 
 science. And then — ^there were the Austrians. 
 " Listen," he said ; and afar off I heard a dull 
 booming. They are not bombarding us to-day ; 
 but they may be at any time, or we may be 
 bombarding them. Yet it seemed rather absurd 
 to talk of bombarding anybody from this pro- 
 fundity. For my friend's gun pointed its eager 
 

 
 
 
 
 
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THE CARNIA AND THE CADORE 105 
 
 muzzle at nothing save a wall of mountain that rose 
 hundreds of metres above it and shut everything 
 in like the sides of a box. One saw nothing, nothing 
 but that great green slope springing to the sky. 
 But it is up that slope and over the lofty crest that 
 the big gun tosses its projectile, to find the enemy's 
 battery shut up, no doubt, in a similar recess 
 somewhere on the other side. The Italian gimners 
 have never seen the Austrian gunners ; the 
 Austrian gunners have never seen them. 
 
 Nevertheless they can throw bursting thunder- 
 bolts upon one another with almost mathematical 
 accuracy of aim. One of the ornaments of the 
 gulch in which this 280-battery was ensconced was 
 a twelve-inch shell, that had fallen here from an 
 Austrian battery niiles away, and had failed to 
 explode. It was set up on its blunt end, and the 
 soldiers had planted a little garden of flowers 
 about it. I imagine the tourists, to whom this 
 district will then cease to be unknown, chattering 
 roimd that memento of the Great War long after 
 the Great War has gone into history. 
 
 * * 
 
 West of the Carnia, in the Cadore, we are in a 
 region that the tourist knows very well already. 
 Here the Italians are campaigning in one of the 
 celebrated holiday-grounds of the world. All 
 
106 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 Europe went pleasure -seeking and scenery-hunting 
 in the Dolomites, and round about Cortina, and 
 Lake Misurina and Monte Tre Croci. The district 
 was a favoured resort of English, French, and 
 others, most favoured of all by well-to-do Germans 
 and Austrians, who found this earthly paradise as 
 much to their liking as that other paradise further 
 west, the lake country of Como and Lugano, 
 Which of the two is the more beautiful it would be 
 hard to say ; but no lover of form and colour can 
 ask for anything more satisfying than these 
 Cadore highlands, with their contrasts between the 
 softness of the flower-decked valleys and the savage 
 grandeur of the mountain masses, piled in colossal 
 obelisks, or twisted into monstrous spires, turrets, 
 cones, streaked rose-red like an old Indian temple. 
 
 No wonder Cortina is a town of hotels. Their 
 guests from Vienna, Berlin, and Hamburg, took 
 wing and fled when the war came that way ; but 
 their traces are still there. The cannon have 
 roared above the terraces and shaded walks where 
 the visitors took the air ; the tinted walls of 
 verandas that invite to long lounging over cool 
 drinks still bear inscriptions and notices in (ierman ; 
 the nailed boots of the Alpini have crunched over 
 lawns and gardens with trellised arbours and 
 tables suggestive of leisurely out-door meals. The 
 saloons where the lufi-kur guests took their ease 
 have become the mess-rooms of the Italian ofiicers. 
 
THfi CAHNIA AND TttE CADORE 107 
 
 Some of the " Swiss " waiters are still left to serve 
 them ; a few faded veterans of the Tsigany 
 orchestras cheer them with the strains that used 
 to enliven the diners who came in from walks and 
 drives in fairyland to show their diamonds and 
 drink champagne. 
 
 It is war in fairyland ; but a war more fitted, 
 one would say, for gnomes and demons than for 
 the spirits of light. It was bitter and desperate 
 fighting in this labyrinth of glens and gullies, of 
 mule paths and goat-tracks climbing among the 
 ragged pinnacles to the shelves where the glaciers 
 rest, and where the snow lies all the summer ; often 
 a Red Indian warfare of scouts and guides, more 
 intense and trying even than that on the Carnia, 
 for here the chasms are deeper and the mountains 
 higher. Here the guns and mimitions have had to 
 be hoisted, by incredible exertions, to a greater 
 elevation, even to that of the summit of Tofana, 
 which only the more adventurous of the holiday 
 climbers will attempt in normal times. There are 
 batteries, emplaced at an elevation of more than 
 9000 feet, in which each gun with its platform 
 and carriage weighs between forty and fifty tons. 
 Here splendid work was done by the wire-rope 
 railways, with their sliding buckets stretched 
 from precipice to precipice, and spanning the 
 abysses, which would carry anything of moderate 
 weight, from a wounded man to a mountain gun. 
 
108 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 And here also, wherever a practicable track 
 existed or could be made, the small handy Italian 
 motor-lorries, equal to a load of one and a half tons, 
 fed the sturdy porters, who bore the burdens to 
 still loftier levels on their own broad backs and com- 
 petent shoulders. At Darjeeling in the Himalayas 
 they say that if you want a grand piano brought 
 from the plains a native woman will carry it up the 
 7000-feet path on her head. An Alpine porter, I 
 believe, would carry the piano and the native 
 woman as well. 
 
 * * 
 
 The Cadore line links up the Isonzo and Trentino 
 theatres and is extremely important for both sides ; 
 since if the Austrians could break through it they 
 could attack the two chief Italian armies in flank 
 and rear. But they have not succeeded in getting 
 through, though they held nearly all the crests at 
 the beginning. The Italians blocked the passes, 
 and broke across the frontier in the Cortina 
 d'Ampezzo district, seizing the Tofana and Cris- 
 tallo masses that dominate the great Dolomite 
 road. They have been steadily, if slowly, pushing 
 forward, bombarding Toblach and Sillian on the 
 Pusterthal railway, and making that artery of 
 communication more and more precarious for its 
 owners. The first rush of the Italians in the 
 summer of 1915 carried them fourteen miles up 
 
THE CARNIA AND THE CADORE 109 
 
 the Val Costella and Val Cismone along the road 
 of the Dolomites. Then there was a long pause, 
 for the Austrians, entrenched on the Fassa Alps, 
 strong in niimber and well served with modern 
 artillery, held their assailants at bay. 
 
 But in July 1916 preparations were made for 
 a further advance, and gims were concentrated in 
 the woods of the Val Cismone bearing upon the 
 mighty natural fortress of Monte Cavallazza which 
 the Austrians occupied. Once more the Italians 
 took their enemy by surprise. The Austrians were 
 entirely unprepared for the storm of projectiles 
 which burst upon the morning of July 21, and 
 beat in their dug-outs and fortified shelters. 
 Dazed and stunned, they allowed the Italian 
 infantry to get possession of their front-line 
 trenches almost without resistance. One position 
 after another was taken, including the giant 
 pyramid of Monte Cauriol, which was captured 
 by the Alpini after a three-days' assault, under a 
 heavy and constant artillery fire. The Italian 
 left on the Cadore was thus secured, the whole 
 Austrian position on the Fassa Alps rendered 
 exceedingly dangerous, and the way prepared for 
 a further forward movement which would bring 
 the Italians right upon the railway, and compel 
 the enemy to fall back in their centre on pain of 
 having their retreat cut off and the road to Trent 
 again laid open. 
 
110 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 " Along with the great military advantage won 
 by our allies in their advance," says an observer, 
 I have already quoted, " it will be a pleasant 
 thought to English people that the wonderful Val 
 Cismone, Italy's by right of race and culture — 
 surely Italy's by right of beauty — ^has now 
 become completely hers by right of conquest. At 
 San Martino di Castrozza fragments of walls, still 
 tinted the palest rose and blue, ghosts of famous 
 inns, stand out against the pines. They represent 
 the enemy's wrath at being driven out of fairyland. 
 Farther down, however, the valley has resumed its 
 peaceful workaday life and seems to have already 
 forgotten the horror of war."^ 
 
 ' The Times Milan Correspondent, September 6, 1916. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE TRENTINO BATTLES 
 
 CRITICISM AND COUNTER-CRITICISM — THE ITALIAN 
 
 OFFICIAL SUMMARY THE AUSTRIAN PLAN AND 
 
 PREPARATIONS THE INVASION ITS QUALIFIED 
 
 SUCCESS — CAUSES OF THIS THE TACTICS OF 
 
 DEFENCE APPLICATION TO MOUNTAIN COUNTRY 
 
 WHY THE ITALIANS GAVE GROUND AUSTRIAN 
 
 OFFENSIVE CONSIDERED " IRRATIONAL " 
 
 GRADUAL ITALIAN WITHDRAWAL FROM AD- 
 VANCED POSITIONS NEW ARMY FORMED 
 
 ITALIANS BEGIN COUNTER-OFFENSIVE — AUS- 
 TRIAN RETREAT — A JOYOUS WEEK — THE ITALIAN 
 
 BATTLE OF THE MARNE WHAT ITALY DID FOB 
 
 RUSSIA THE RETREATING AUSTRIANS HELD 
 
 NO REINFORCEMENTS FOR GALICIA — A RE- 
 LENTLESS PURSUIT GENERAL RESULT OF THE 
 
 OPERATIONS 
 
 UNTIL the brilliant swoop upon Gorizia in 
 August 1916 the most dramatic series of 
 events in the Italian campaign was the drive of 
 the Austrians down the Trentino in May and 
 its cheek by Cadorna's armies at the end of the 
 following month. These transactions impressed 
 
 m 
 
112 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 the imagination of Europe, and probably first 
 attracted to this theatre of the war the attention 
 of many persons who had not previously foiind 
 much to interest them in the operations beyond 
 the Alps. 
 
 For some weeks the crisis was keenly watched. 
 Many people feared that another nation was about 
 to fall crushed under the steam-roller of the 
 military Empires. When it was seen that this 
 danger had passed the common opinion was that 
 the irruption had been only a colossal, and almost 
 inexplicable, blunder, which would bring its 
 pimishment in the shape of a speedy collapse of the 
 whole Austrian effort. The invaders were said to 
 be routed, falling back in complete disorder, and 
 the victors had only to follow them across the 
 frontier and march into the heart of their country. 
 And why, it was asked, were they so fooUsh as to 
 court this fate by an enterprise foredoomed to 
 failure ? 
 
 On the other hand, Cadorna was severely 
 ci'iticised by a section of his own coimtrymen for 
 allowing the enemy to come so far. The late Prime 
 Minister, Signor Salandra, in a hasty sentence, 
 which was made the occasion of his overthi'ow, 
 gave expression to this sentiment when he asked 
 why the army had failed to keep the gates of Italy 
 closed. Any feeling there may have been of this 
 kind was submerged in the wave of enthusiasm 
 
THE TRENTINO BATTLES 113 
 
 which rolled over the country when it was seen 
 that the enemy had been held and forced into 
 retreat. Yet even now there is left a good deal which 
 needs explaining as to the action of both sides. 
 
 The explanation has been given, in part at least, 
 by the Italian General Staff itself in an interesting 
 review of the Trentino operations issued at the 
 beginning of August.^ I suppose this may be 
 regarded as conveying the Comando Supremo's 
 view of the enemy's proceedings and as the 
 vindication of its own policy. It is, at any rate, 
 an instructive and enlightening document, and 
 well worth attention. 
 
 * * 
 
 What induced the Austrian High Command 
 to conceive its bold but hazardous project of 
 invasion ? The answer has been hinted at above. ^ 
 
 " Political and moral as well as military reasons 
 appear to have induced Austria to attempt a 
 decisive action against us. Race hatred, em- 
 bittered by resentment against our so-called 
 treachery, contempt for former subjects, a long 
 
 1 This communication, bearing date August 6, 1916, was 
 published by the- leading Ibtlian newspapers on the following 
 day. It was translated and transmitted by Router's Agency to 
 the English newspapers ; but none of them, so far as I could 
 ascertain, printed more than a few extracts from it, 
 
 2 See supra, Chap. III., p. 44 seq. 
 
 X 
 
114 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 material and moral preparation in times of peace, 
 and our attempt to catry the war into the enemy's 
 country, were contributory factors. The general 
 offensive, which it was feared the Entente would 
 undertake, was another inducement for the Austro- 
 Germans to try to crush some of their adversaries. 
 Our gradual advance into the Trentino, which was 
 approaching closer and closer to the main lines of 
 his defence, aroused in the enemy a desire to free 
 himself from a pressure which was growing more 
 threatening. Austria too laid great stress on the 
 moral effect, on our army and the country in 
 general, of an unexpected and powerful irruption 
 threatening to overflow into the Venetian plain 
 and to cut off the Italian Army from its lines of 
 communication. 
 
 " For these reasons the Trentino was chosen as 
 the scene of the offensive in spite of the clearly 
 unfavourable characteristics of the region from 
 the point of view of military geography, its 
 remoteness from the rest of the territory of the 
 Monarchy, its appreciable distance fi-om the 
 Austrian front on the Isonzo, the enormous 
 interval separating it from the Russian and Balkan 
 fronts with the consequent difficulty of rapid 
 transfers of troops in case of concerted attacks 
 either on our side or on the side of the Allies, the 
 mountainous nature of the district, which lent 
 itself badly to the collection and maintenance of 
 
THE TRENTINO BATTLES 115 
 
 large forces and to the development of the major 
 operations of war, and finally the difficulties of 
 supplying a large army, which could only be 
 served by two railway lines, via the Brenner and 
 the Pusterthal, which merge into one line at Fran- 
 zensfeste and have no double track beyond Trent. 
 "The enemy Command believed that it could 
 overcome all these obstacles by the unity of its 
 forces, which would speedily enable it to beat down 
 our defence, thus shortening the period of crisis ; 
 and that by exhaustive preparation it could create 
 in the Trentino, even before the arrival of the great 
 masses of troops which were to fight there, a base 
 of operations provided with everything required 
 by a numerous body of combatants, so as to 
 reduce to a minimum the necessity for railway 
 transport during the period of operations." 
 
 It is shown how, with this object in view, the 
 Austrians established vast dep6ts of food, clothes, 
 equipment, medicines, and, above all, of mimitions. 
 Engineering material of every kind was collected 
 for the rapid construction of subsidiary defences. 
 Many large buildings and huts were adapted to 
 receive sick and wounded, the inhabitants being 
 turned out of their houses for this purpose. An 
 elaborate service of transport was organised with 
 pack animals, carts, and especially motor-cars. 
 Roads were improved an,d extended and steps 
 
116 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 were taken to meet any scarcity of water in the 
 mountainous zones of the field of operations. 
 
 Among the " moral " agencies employed to 
 stimulate the spirits of the soldiers were propa- 
 gandist pamphlets, speeches by commanding 
 officers, parades at which high officers and Arch- 
 dukes were present, proclamations by the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, the Archduke Frederick, with 
 special emphasis on the " hated enemy," on Italy's 
 " perfidious treachery," on the hour of revenge 
 being at hand. 
 
 Efforts were also made to persuade the troops 
 that the campaign would certainly be successful. 
 The Italian infantry was described as cowardly 
 and of poor quality, and the soldiers were told 
 that the army generally was tired out and dis- 
 couraged, and that the people were exhausted 
 by the war and shaken by revolution. " The 
 men were promised an easy invasion and the 
 sacking of our rich countryside and our wealthy 
 cities where the victorious troops would find 
 food and pleasures in abundance." The ideas 
 of the soldiers on the difficulties they would have 
 to overcome were distorted, and sketches were dis- 
 tributed giving merely as the crow flies the distances 
 between Trent and Udine, Treviso, Venice, Vicenza, 
 and Desenzano. And the fanaticism of the 
 Tyrolese element was aroused with the cry : " Let 
 us drive the intruder beyond our mountains. Let 
 
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THE TRENTINO BATTLES 117 
 
 us conquer for the Fatherland the frontiers 
 required for our safety in the future," 
 
 Whatever may be said of these methods, it must 
 be admitted that the material preparations made 
 by the Austrians for their great coup were well 
 thought out, judicious, and effective. They were 
 much more complete than was at all suspected by 
 the Italian generals, who were evidently taken 
 aback by the " intense bombardment " which 
 began on May 14 and 15 along the entire front, 
 and was followed almost immediately by infantry 
 assaults at numerous points. " In this way," 
 says the official review rather naively, " in several 
 places our troops found themselves suddenly 
 fighting the enemy at close quarters before they 
 had realised that the bombardment had come to an 
 end. In some places our men were attacked while 
 they were still taking cover in their dug-outs. The 
 effect of these operations varied in the different 
 sectors of our front." 
 
 But the general result was that the Italians fell 
 back along their centre between the Adige and 
 Vallarsa, and on this narrow front the Austrian 
 infantry and field batteries followed, covered by 
 the fire of their long-range guns, as far as the strong 
 position of Monte Pasubio, a massif on the frontier, 
 towards the south-east corner of the Trentino 
 salient, overlooking the Vallarsa, through which 
 the main road runs from Italy to Trent. Further 
 
118 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 to the right, on the Sette Communi, the Italians 
 were also hurled out of their defences by the 
 prolonged and destructive salvoes of the enemies 
 formidable artillery ; and after an ineffectual 
 attempt to hold the second lines their com- 
 manders decided to save them from further 
 decimation by " a bold withdrawal to the rear," 
 which did not stop till it reached the southern edge 
 of the Val d' Assa and the Asiago basin. 
 
 The retirement, which had involved heavy loss 
 to both armies, came to an end in the middle of 
 June. On the 15th the Austrians were beaten 
 back in a violent attack against Monte Lemerle. 
 The invaders had reached the limit of their 
 advance, having driven the Italians from the Aus- 
 trian Trentino, except in the Lagarina and Sugima 
 valleys, and occupied the sector of Italian soil 
 which included most of the Asiago plateau with 
 several villages and four small towns. " In 
 order to obtain this limited success, an army of 
 400,000 picked men, provided with 2000 guns, 
 among which was the entire heavy artillery 
 possessed by them, had to fight a series of difficult 
 and sanguinary battles extending over thirty 
 days. They sustained losses of certainly more 
 than 100,000 men killed and wounded, they used 
 up an enormous amount of ammimition and 
 material, arms and animals. The result achieved 
 by them must, therefore, be considered very 
 
THE TRENTINO BATTLES 119 
 
 modest, and absolutely out of proportion to the 
 effort made, and, above al], to the vast objectives, 
 and the decisive aims the offensive proposed to 
 attain." 
 
 Nevertheless, the historiographer of the 
 Comando Supremo thinks it " not out of place " 
 to examine the causes which led to this qualified 
 success, and facilitated the development of the 
 hostile offensive. In a closely reasoned analysis 
 of the tactical situation he discusses the general 
 principles of defensive action in modern' war ; so 
 that his exposition, revised, we may assume, if not 
 actually drawn up, by General Cadorna and his 
 coadjutors, may be regarded as an authoritative 
 contribution to military science. Its interest is by 
 no means limited to the special arena with which it 
 
 deals. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 Modern systems of field tactics are based on the 
 organisation of several lines of defences, of which 
 the business of the more advanced, as being most 
 exposed to the effects of the enemy's artillery fire, 
 is merely to retard the progress of the assailant, to 
 break the first impetus of his attack, and to 
 ascertain the direction of his movement. The 
 real defence a outrance falls upon the main defensive 
 lines farther back. In fighting on even ground, it is 
 possible to construct these successive lines very 
 
120 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 close together, so that the capture of one of them 
 by the attacking force means generally a very 
 restricted gain of ground for him. In mountains the 
 nature of the defences is dictated by the topo- 
 graphical conditions, which must be strictly 
 respected, if an organic and powerful defensive 
 system is to be established. 
 
 In the Trentino the character of the ground 
 prescribed the construction of lines at an appreci- 
 able distance from each other. Thus in the Sugana 
 valley, the principal line passed through Ospeda- 
 letto and along the western slopes of the Cimon 
 Rava group, while the most advanced line was 
 thrown forward ten to twelve kilometres. In other 
 cases it was impossible to avoid constructing the 
 main defensive line a very few kilometres away 
 from the enemy's forts and batteries, though it was 
 thereby exposed to the immediate effects of their 
 flre, because the ground in rear of the line which 
 would otherwise have been chosen, dropped 
 precipitately. It was due to this cause that in the 
 Upper Astico, the Italian line, behind which the 
 ground breaks away into the steep valleys run- 
 ning down to the Astico and Posina, was distant 
 only six or seven kilometres from main positions 
 of the Austrian artillery. 
 
 To retreat from one defensive line to another it 
 may be necessary, as it was in the Sugana valley, 
 to abandon a considerable tract to obtain pos- 
 
THE TRENTINO BATTLES 121 
 
 session of which, in even or even approximately 
 even ground, the enemy would have been obliged to 
 storm numerous defence works and to sacrifice con- 
 siderable numbers of men. In the same way it 
 may be necessary to evacuate without much delay a 
 main line of defence, which, had it been possible to 
 organise it beyond the range of action of the 
 enemy's artillery, could have held out considerably 
 longer. 
 
 The Memorandum notes that another factor 
 favourable to the enemy was the greater facility 
 he enjoyed in moving his reserves. The attacking 
 side, it is pointed out, has the advantage of being 
 able to select the direction in which it will put 
 forth its strength, and to concentrate the forces 
 necessary for the operation at a convenient time 
 and place. The defender, on the other hand, must 
 keep his reserves in position in the rear until the 
 direction of the main attack has become evident. 
 This makes a first victorious rush on the part of the 
 attacking side always possible, despite the watch- 
 fulness and foresight of the defence, and of this we 
 have examples in most of the offensive operations 
 of the present war. 
 
 If this is true of operations on the level, it 
 applies with special force to operations in a moun- 
 tainous country, where, when troops have once 
 been despatched in any direction, it is difficult to 
 get them back again in order to launch them 
 
122 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 on another course. Moreover among mountains, 
 the rugged nature of the ground, the scarcity 
 of roads, and the difficulties of supply, neces- 
 sarily render the march of troops slow and ex- 
 hausting. The Italian command had foreseen 
 these difficulties, and had endeavoured to provide 
 against them by stationing a part of the reserve 
 within reach of the probable front of attack. 
 " But this could only be done to a limited extent. 
 For if we had been obliged to maintain along the 
 whole front of action, and in immediate contact 
 with it, reserves proportionate to the formidable 
 mass of striking energy which the Austrians 
 assembled between the Brenta and the Adige, our 
 military organisation would not have yielded 
 forces sufficient for the undertaking." 
 
 It is suggested that the very errors which the 
 enemy committed helped him in part to the 
 limited successes which he gained. " The con- 
 centration on a narrow sector in oui" Trentino front 
 of such an enormous force in men and gims as that 
 at the disposal of the Austrian command, if at first 
 it enabled him to overrun our defences, was never- 
 theless a gross error on the enemy's part, taking 
 into account the complex situation of the belliger- 
 ents, the imminent general offensive of the Entente, 
 and the exigencies of the separate theatres of war 
 in which the Austrian army was operating. And 
 of this we soon had proof in the result of the mihtary 
 
THE TRENTINO BATTLES 123 
 
 events in the eastern theatre of war, where our 
 enemy discounted at a bitter price the brief illusory 
 success he had scored against us." 
 
 In these sentences the Italian Command explains, 
 if it does not exactly apologise for, its failure to 
 foresee, and provide against, the sudden attack 
 which took it imawares in the spring of 1916. It 
 says that it did not anticipate an Austrian offensive 
 in the Trentino at the time because such a pro- 
 ceeding seemed to be " irrational." The movement, 
 if carried out with means adequate to the sole 
 objective which could be logically assigned to it, 
 that of cutting off from its communications the 
 Italian Army assembled in Upper Venetia, would 
 necessarily render precarious the conditions of the 
 Austrian defensive in the other theatres of war, and 
 especially in the eastern theatre where the Russian 
 menace was gathering strength. If, on the other 
 hand, the enemy had not such means at his disposal, 
 the Austrian offensive, carried into such a field of 
 action as the Trentino, remote and imperfectly 
 linked up with the heart of the Monarchy, would be 
 inevitably condemned to failure. 
 
 * 
 
 Such factors as the Austrians had in their favour 
 (and it will be seen that they were considerable) 
 had to be off-set by the tenacity and the skilful 
 
124 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 handling of the Italian troops. Despite the over- 
 whelming superiority of the enemy's houches defer 
 they succeeded in containing the hostile advance 
 everywhere, and in bringing it to a standstill in 
 the Lagarina and Sugana valleys. The Austrians, 
 who had counted on a rapid disintegration of the 
 defence, found themselves compelled to make 
 much greater efforts than they had contemplated, 
 and even so had to renounce the idea of an advance 
 by the two most important and most practicable 
 road and rail routes, those of the Adige and Brenta 
 valleys. In close fighting they were forced to 
 limit the attacks, at first to the zone between the 
 Vallarsa and the Sugana valley, then to the sector 
 of the Sette Comuni plateau alone, and finally to 
 the southern edge of the Asiago basin. " At last, 
 broken by thirty days of iminterrupted toilsome 
 effort, exhausted by the enormous losses he had 
 suffered, discouraged by the obstinacy and spirit 
 of our defence, the enemy was obliged to abandon 
 the plan, so long meditated and prepared, and on 
 the success of which he counted with insolent 
 confidence." 
 
 The Austrian offensive, having determined itself 
 between the Adige and the Brenta, and its line of 
 greatest intensity having been defined in the zone 
 of the Upper Astico, the Italian Command 
 developed its own defensive scheme, based on the 
 idea of drawing the enemy on to exhaust his forces 
 
THE TRENTJNO BATTLES 125 
 
 in a central advance on a continually more and 
 more restricted front. With this object, while it 
 stiffened its defence in the Lagarina and Sugana 
 valleys, and sent forward into the Upper Astico 
 sufficient forces to impede and wear out, by retir- 
 ing on successive lines, the enemy's offensive, it 
 effected a gradual retirement in the central zone 
 as far as the mountain barrier which rises to the 
 south of the Posina torrent, and on the plateau of 
 the Sette Comuni to the southern and eastern edge 
 of the Asiago basin. Along this line, by means of a 
 rapid concentration of men and material, the final 
 defence d outrance was being arranged. 
 
 Although he relied on the success of this scheme 
 of operations, General Cadorna did not quite 
 ignore the contingency, however remote and im- 
 probable, that the hostile masses might after 
 all succeed in debouching in the Venetian plain, 
 and he made preparations to meet such a move- 
 ment by the enemy, and to drive him back into 
 the mountains. A complete army, many divisions 
 strong, and particularly well provided with cavalry, 
 was rapidly assembled in the plain within reach of 
 the mouths of the passes and ready to attack any 
 hostile forces that might issue from them. 
 
 I have given some account already of the 
 manner in which this army of reserve was as- 
 sembled and organised. The official Memorandum 
 pays a well -deserved tribute to the Transport aixd 
 
126 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 Supply Departments. 1 The transport, we are told 
 worked perfectly, and its achievements were 
 certainly remarkable. In a few days the new and 
 powerful army had been created from the very 
 beginning. It had been supplied with everything 
 necessary for living and fighting, and was ready to 
 go into action in a condition of perfect efficiency, 
 and this without in the slightest degree weakening 
 the offensive capacity of the other units embodied. 
 
 * * 
 
 The new army was soon set to work. By the 
 3rd of June, only nineteen days after the beginning 
 of the Austrian advance, the Italian High Com- 
 mand felt satisfied that the enemy would be unable 
 to get through the mountain barrier, and began to 
 make preparation for resuming the initiative itself. 
 The new contingents were selected to take part in 
 the counter-offensive, which was to develop with 
 vigorous attacks on both flanks of the enemy, 
 supported by energetic pressiire along the entire 
 front. To hold the enemy in the centre, while the 
 flank movements were being developed, meant 
 fine fighting quality and lavish sacrifice on the 
 part of the Italian infantry. One brigade took as 
 its motto " Non passer anno " — ^they shall not 
 pass. They did not pass ; but the brigade kept 
 
 ' And see infra, Chap. XII., and sttpra, Chap. Ill, 
 
THE TRENTINO BATTLES 127 
 
 the gate with their bodies. Those days of bloodshed 
 and skilful combined movement vindicated, once 
 for all, if it needed vindicating, the military 
 capacity of the Italian soldiers, and they reflected 
 credit on the leadership of Gleneral Cadorna, and of 
 his able lieutenant. General Pecori Giraldi, the 
 Commander of the First Italian Army, the Army 
 of the Trentino. 
 
 The Austrians continued to make violent 
 isolated attacks at various points, especially on 
 the Asiago plateau, occasionally capturing Italian 
 positions of some importance. " But the sporadic 
 character of these attacks, the diversity and 
 distance of the objectives they aimed at, the very 
 improvidence and the almost desperate violence of 
 the actions which were followed by periods of 
 exhaustion, clearly showed that these final ex- 
 pressions of the enemy's offensive activity were not 
 guided by any organised scheme. The enemy, who 
 had been informed of our preparations and who 
 feared a vigorous counter-offensive, sought to 
 prevent, or at all events to delay its course. But 
 every effort as it was made merely added to his 
 losses and conversely increased the ilan and 
 gallantry of our valiant troops." 
 
 On June 16 the Italian counter-offensive on 
 both flanks began. A week later the Austrian 
 Staff saw that their offensive game was up, and 
 by the 26th they were in retreat with the Italian 
 
128 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 army following hard upon their traces. The great 
 invasion had failed. Italy breathed again ; and the 
 unspoken fear that lay cold at many hearts for six 
 weeks was lifted. 
 
 The official bulletins of the past fortnight had 
 been laconic and reserved ; they did not say 
 much, though it was known that hard fight- 
 ing was going on at various points in which 
 the Italians were doing well. Then came that 
 memorable Monday morning when the General 
 Staff revealed the news that one after another the 
 tactical points along the eastern line of the salient 
 were being captured. A thrill of ecstasy shot 
 through the country. Instantaneously the import 
 of the official despatch, with its little catalogue of 
 obscure names, was grasped. It was seen, as in a 
 flash of light, that the forward movement of the 
 Austrians had been definitely arrested, and that 
 they were pivoting round from their right while on 
 their left they were in hm'ried retreat, hastening 
 to get away to avoid environment or surrender. 
 
 It was a week of feverish excitement and delight. 
 The great battle went on, with contintiing suc- 
 cesses. Day by day, hour by hour, people pored 
 over the map, tracing out, from the now very 
 ample and informing bulletins, the hills and 
 valleys and villages which were being torn from 
 the defeated foe or released by him in his rush 
 for safety. Arsiero and Asiago and the plateau 
 
THE TRENTINO BATTLES 129 
 
 were reoccupied. The Italians, it was thought, 
 were pushing round where the Austrians were 
 strongest, as well as on their weaker left, and the 
 enemy was on the defence everywhere. Von 
 Conrad's savage scheme to seize Italy by the 
 throat, and squeeze her till she gasped for mercy, 
 had been brought to wreck. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 That prolonged series of engagements and 
 manoeuvres between the Vallarsa and the eastward 
 end of the Val Sugana, opposite Monte Lisser, was 
 Italy's Battle of the Marne. It stayed the forward 
 brutal rush of massed enemy battalions upon their 
 vital centres just as the Marne checked the 
 .tremendous G^erman sweep for Paris. In each case 
 the foe retired only to strong, prepared positions 
 where he could hold on long. But his advance 
 ceased ; he was compelled to undertake a retro- 
 grade movement ; he was definitely on the 
 defensive. And like the Marne it was, to a great 
 €xtent, a battle of manoeuvres, the sort of battle 
 uncommon in modem warfare, in which success is 
 won by scientific combination and the rapid move- 
 ment of brave and well-trained troops ; not the 
 dull, slow, murderous butchery of the position 
 battle where the result is achieved less by general- 
 ship and tactical ability than by pouring out 
 
 5 
 
130 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 torrents of fire and rivers of steel until human 
 nature can endure no longer. Co-operating attacks 
 of widely separated units, advantage cleverly 
 taken of the topographical conditions, a design 
 worked out with a statesmanlike regard to the entire 
 strategical and political situation, and a reliance 
 which proved to be well foimded, on the fighting 
 value of the troops engaged — all these were 
 elements in the success of the series of operations 
 which rolled back the Austrian irruption, and 
 enabled the Italians to reassume the offensive they 
 had temporarily lost. 
 
 It was a battle which in some respects resembled 
 that of the older wars. Artillery played a great 
 part in it ; but it was not merely a pounding of 
 heavy guns, a plastering of trenches with pro- 
 jectiles until men could leap at them from a few 
 yards' distance, with bayonet and grenade. All 
 arms did their share. Infantry moved about 
 freely and charged over long exposed spaces ; 
 cavalry were in action, cavalry in a mountain 
 country, in upland and valleys and table-lands 
 many hundred feet above the sea level ! When 
 the Austrians, after getting back some of their 
 guns, hastily evacuated their trenches, cavalry 
 brought up through the hill paths was in readiness 
 to keep touch with the retiring enemy. Sixty 
 troopers mounted on motor-cycles went ahead as 
 scouts. Behind them galloped the squadrons, 
 
THE TRENTINO BATTLES 131 
 
 pressing hard on the retreating infantry. They 
 did not actually charge on horseback ; but they 
 rode up to within convenient firing distance, and 
 then dismounted and kept the Austrians so 
 busy with rifles and machine guns that they 
 could not disengage until the Italian infantry 
 came up and himg on tenaciously to their rear- 
 guard. 
 
 By this close pursuit the Italians rendered a 
 great service to the whole Allied cause, and to 
 Russia more particularly and immediately. One 
 result of the war will be a new and deeper friend- 
 ship between Italy and Russia. The two nations 
 are drawn together by the bonds of a common 
 effort and a common enmity. Austria is the prime 
 antagonist of both, and every blow that the 
 northern giant delivers at Italy's old oppressor 
 awakens an answering throb in that of the southern 
 people. The operations in the Treiltino and 
 Galicia were regarded as the two sections of 
 a joint plan. Cadorna and Brussiloff were working 
 not only in harmony but in unison. 
 
 Italy owes much to Russia for drawing oft the 
 main Austrian force, and so preventing it from 
 being employed with overwhelming effect on the 
 southern line. Everybody understands that. Per- 
 haps it is not so widely understood that Italy has 
 gone far to repay the debt. Russia is imder heavy 
 obligations to Italy for the way in which she used 
 
132 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 her great Trentino successes not more for her own 
 advantage than for that of her ally. 
 
 Cadorna's victory was planned, timed, and 
 utiUsed with strict regard to the general situation 
 of the Alliance and in particular that of Russia. 
 The Astico battle was fought to check the Austrian 
 invasion and drive the invaders beyond the 
 frontier. That was a prime object, but not the 
 only one. Another purpose was kept in view, which 
 was that of preventing the Archduke Frederick 
 from removing troops away from the Alpine 
 theatre in numbers adequate to oppose a serious 
 obstacle to the Russian march upon the Car- 
 pathians. 
 
 By keeping this conception steadily before him 
 Cadorna showed his sure grasp of the fundamental 
 principles of strategy. He carried it out with that 
 rapidity of decision, and that energy in action, 
 which will assuredly give him his place in history 
 as one of the great soldiers of the great war. He 
 gets at the core of the problem before him with a 
 swift unerring judgment ; and when he has made 
 up his mind he calls upon his capable staff to carry 
 his resolution into effect without hesitation or 
 delay. He has inspired his subordinates and his 
 whole army with his own determination and 
 vigour. A leader who knows his own mind, who 
 has the practical instinct for choosing the right 
 path, and who has gained the absolute confidence 
 
Photo: C. Vaiidyk, Lid.\ 
 
 General Luigi Cadorna 
 chief of the staff of the italian army 
 
THE TRENTINO BATTLES 133 
 
 of his followers, can do great things. And Cadorna 
 has done great things. 
 
 At his word armies have sprung from the ground 
 and have been transported almost through the air. 
 One who knows the general well has told us that 
 on the 21st of May he instructed his Staff to draft 
 the plans for the creation of his new army. At 
 eleven o'clock in the morning of the 22nd the plans 
 were ready. Before midnight the first troops of 
 the new army were on the march. 
 
 The same swift touch was shown in the climax 
 of the counter-offensive. The Austrians' official 
 apology for the retreat is that it was undertaken 
 in order to " shorten their line " and confer greater 
 freedom of movement. That is one part of the 
 story, not the whole. The Austrians certainly were 
 seeking more freedom of movement. Seeing that 
 their Italian coup had failed in its immediate 
 purpose, they wanted to be free to transfer a large 
 part of the army, which had been wasted over that 
 abortive essay, to their eastern front. With this 
 aid it might still be possible to stem that Muscovite 
 inundation of the Hungarian plain which the 
 Vienna Government dreaded because of its political, 
 even more than its military, effect. 
 
 The decision was to take effect from the 19th of 
 Jime. On that day the Austrian Head-quarters 
 Staff had received instructions to begin withdraw- 
 ing nine out of the eighteen divisions of their 
 
134 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 Trentino army, in order that these might be railed 
 through Hungary to the East. Unfortunately for 
 them the Italian Intelligence Department had good 
 information of the whole project. No sooner was 
 the date fixed than Cadorna struck hard. On the 
 night of the 24th and 25th his patrols, in touch 
 with the enemy everywhere, reported a certain 
 slackening in the Austrian resistance. The retreat 
 was beginning. Thereupon Cadorna ordered a 
 general attack. On the night that followed, the 
 assault was delivered with furious energy along the 
 whole line. It was so sudden and so violent that 
 the retirement of the Austrian infantry, which was 
 intended to be an ordered, leisurely, retrograde 
 movement, became extremely hurried. The pro- 
 gramme of delaying the Italian advance with a 
 comparatively thin rearguard, while those two 
 hundred thousand men were being comfortably 
 packed away to Hungary, broke down. The whole 
 Austrian line had to put its weight into the defence, 
 in order to screen the withdrawal of cannon and 
 transport. And the nine selected divisions, instead 
 of going off to fight the Russiaiis, were still kept 
 
 fighting in Italy. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 By forcing back the whole Austrian centre and 
 left on the night of Sunday, June 25, Cadorna 
 had won the victory which brought the hostile 
 
THE TRENTINO BATTLES 185 
 
 offensive to a close. But the greater victory was 
 gained in the following days, during which the 
 Italian general compelled the enemy to give ground 
 at his pace, not their own. The pursuit was unrest- 
 ing, relentless, incessant. The Austrians had got 
 a long start with their heavy guns which they 
 had been drawing back for several days ; but when 
 their infantry turned the Italians were after them, 
 and kept so hot upon their track that they could 
 not disengage. 
 
 In some of the Austrian trenches and billets 
 I saw all the signs of precipitate flight : 
 officers' messes with the dinner half eaten on the 
 tables; camp kitchens with the water still in 
 the kettles ; clothes, boots, personal belongings, 
 private letters, even official documents, lying about. 
 The one preoccupation of the enemy was to save 
 his artillery. In that to a large extent he suc- 
 ceeded. But he succeeded only by using many of 
 the guns to support his infantry wrestling with all 
 their strength against the incoming tide. If the 
 moving barrier had been too sensibly or suddenly 
 weakened the Italians would have broken through 
 it, and the batteries would have been captured. 
 
 To handle in this fashion a retiring army that 
 was or had been four hundred thousand strong the 
 pursuing force must be not only determined but 
 very numerous. And here the Italian Staff again 
 achieved one of its triumphant feats of rapid 
 
186 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 organisation and wholesale transport. In those 
 first few hours after the Austrian retreat had 
 declared itself arrangements had to be made for 
 putting a vast multitude of troops upon the tract 
 of elevated plateau and mountain country on 
 which the enemy was falling back. While the 
 vanguard was already racing, troops from the 
 second line and the rear were being hurried forward 
 in endless columns of motor-cars so far as motor- 
 cars could go, then dumped out, and sent marching 
 forward. 
 
 In brigades, divisions, army corps, they poured 
 out over the hills and up the valleys, pushing their 
 way through woods and tangled undergrowth, 
 climbing among the crags, and rotind the shoulder 
 of the mountains. Night and day the march went 
 on ; for they slumbered not neither did they lay 
 them down to sleep. There were regiments which 
 moved through the whole twenty-four hours for 
 nearly a week, trusting to the folds of the groimd 
 to screen them from the enemy's machine gmis 
 and rifles, halting only now and again for food and 
 brief repose. The mountain mists trailed about 
 them in the dawn, the noonday sun smote them 
 with shafts of fire, the evening wind sighed past 
 them ; many walked like men in a dream only half 
 conscious. The dream would change to fierce 
 wakefulness when the unit fomid itself in contact 
 with the enemy, and there was an interval of rapid 
 
THE TRENTINO BATTLES 187 
 
 musketry and angry bayonet work ; until they 
 would come to rest at last before some strong 
 positions which had to be regularly assaulted, rest 
 in a trench, with the hostile guns hurling death at 
 them from the front, and their own pealing in 
 responsive blasts over their heads. 
 
 Those long streams of grey locusts, as they 
 poured through the^ valleys and palpitated over the 
 hills, had to be fed. They were marching through 
 a desert : much of it a lovely desert, waving green, 
 but yet almost foodless and waterless. The 
 Austrians had sacked the villages, and destroyed 
 the aqueducts which supplied water to the little 
 towns of the plateau : the springs and sources 
 which came down from the higher mountains were 
 in their hands. Nearly all the water, as well as all 
 the food for the advancing army had to be brought 
 up from thousands of feet below. In those days 
 one saw huge camions and lorries laden with casks 
 passing incessantly along the roads to the central 
 dep6ts, whence the fluid was distributed to all the 
 marching and fighting columns by mules and carts. 
 
 The Italian pursuit necessarily slowed down as 
 the Austrians at length reached that hne of forti- 
 fied positions, selected and prepared in advance, 
 where they hoped to maintain themselves with 
 comparatively small numbers. Here they were 
 no doubt in a condition to spare some troops for 
 Galicia. But the manner in which the Austrian 
 
138 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 retirement was clenched and held, and the masterly 
 organisation of the Italian advance, effected their 
 purpose. The rapid transfer, which might have 
 seriously impeded Brussiloft's operations, was 
 prevented : Austria was tied by the leg, while the 
 trusses were being wound about her. 
 
 This great service to Russia, and through Russia 
 to the Allied cause as a whole, was the important 
 indirect effort of the battle. As to its direct 
 results there was a certain tendency to over- 
 estimate them in Italy and elsewhere. Cadorna's 
 plan had probably contemplated, or at least 
 attempted, a more ambitious success than was in 
 fact achieved. He had aimed obviously at a 
 wide enveloping movement, hoping to cut across 
 the Austrian columns by a drive on both their 
 flanks, and so catch thousands of their troops and 
 scores of their guns in his net. But the Austrians 
 did not add to their errors that of excessive 
 obstinacy. They saw that the game was up, and 
 slipped out of the trap just in time. 
 
 The Italian general was not able to deliver 
 an annihilating blow. The hostile army was 
 defeated, but it was not crushed nor even dis- 
 organised. It had lost heavily but it retained 
 its transport and its heavy gims, which are the 
 prime Austrian military asset. It still lay solidly 
 across the route to Trent. It saved itself; but 
 it did not accomplish either of the purposes in- 
 
THE TRENTINO BATTLES 139 
 
 tended by the invasion. Even if it had reached 
 the plain it may be doubted whether it could 
 have effected its primary object of seizing the 
 cities on the main lines of communication ; for the 
 Italian leaders were quite prepared for a manoeuvre 
 battle, in which their superior numbers would have 
 told. 
 
 The secondary purpose of the Austrian offen- 
 sive was to hold up the Isonzo operations, by 
 compelling the Italian General Staff to transfer a 
 large number of divisions to the central arena ; and 
 for the moment this object might seem to have 
 been attained. But the success was transient 
 and, as it turned out, immaterial. Even while the 
 fighting was hottest on the Trentino front the 
 preparations for the advance on the Carso were 
 being quietly and steadily pushed forward. 
 
 The Austrian stroke may have delayed the 
 movement ; but the delay was certainly not worth 
 the price paid for it, seeing that less than three 
 months after the beginning of the Archduke's 
 attack the Italians had made themselves masters 
 of Gorizia. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A MOUNTAIN WALK IN THE TRENTINO 
 
 THE ELUSIVE WAR — STAGES OF INTENSIVE ENERGY 
 — THE FRONTIER GUARD — CORPORAL AND POET 
 — A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE — DIVISIONAL HEAD- 
 QUARTERS — DESPATCH RIDERS IN THE OPEN — 
 
 AN EXPOSED POSITION — THE HILL-TOP FORT. 
 
 TN Italy, as I have pointed out, it is difficult 
 ■^ to find the war, even in the war -zone. And 
 when you have done so it is quite easy to lose it 
 again. At one moment you are in the thick of 
 the operations, with all the bustle of a full division 
 about you. You walk into the next valley, or 
 over the brow of a hill, and the whole atmosphere 
 changes. The campaign has buried itself out of 
 sight in the convolutions of this broken country. 
 You seem to be left with untroubled natm'e, " The 
 silence that is in the lonely hills " is with you once 
 more ; and unless a bombardment is going for- 
 ward, and not always then — for these massive 
 banks of solid earth will sometimes muffle sound 
 as well as sight — ^there is nothing to indicate that 
 
 140 
 
A MOUNTAIN WALK 141 
 
 multitudes of armed men are moving and fighting 
 all round you. 
 
 In passing from the base to the battle front of 
 a modern army in the field you notice a gradual 
 increase of intensive energy, and a steady specialisa- 
 tion of effort on the object of using lethal weapons 
 against the enemy. Activity is incessant and 
 multiform in the wider zones behind the lines, but 
 much of it looks like ordinary civilian activity ; 
 it concentrates itself in a more directly military 
 form as you approach the cutting edge of the 
 immense machine. 
 
 Far away in the rear, leagues and leagues in the 
 rear sometimes, you will find the great standing 
 accumulations of supplies, ammunition, clothing, 
 the permanent repairing and manufacturing 
 stations, offices filled with clerks and storekeepers, 
 aerodromes, aviation schools, training camps, 
 engineering shops, sanitary and medical establish- 
 ments. Move in closer and you come upon mobile 
 factories, piles of stores in transit, injured machinery 
 (and injured men) passed back in streams ; then 
 you reach roads blocked and choked with long 
 transport columns, you get among divisions, 
 brigades, regiments in billet, camp, and barrack, 
 and many detachments, large and small, on the 
 march ; till at length you touch the danger belt 
 where the enemy's shells may range, and where 
 your own batteries are in position ; and finally 
 
142 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 you will see, if you are allowed to get so far, the 
 tunnels and sunken ways and traverses by which 
 the infantry soldier, labouring under his burden 
 of rifle, full field equipment, and cartridge boxes, 
 makes his way into the trenches. 
 
 An army disposed in this fashion covers a wide 
 area. Our own straggles over a large part of 
 Northern France and in addition a good slice of 
 Southern England. You come upon it in the 
 French channel ports. But it really goes further 
 back. In a sense it may be said that the British 
 Front begins at Victoria Station. 
 
 In the Italian arena the rings are not concentric 
 but superimposed. The front ascends in successive 
 strata. The different stages are marked off by 
 changes of altitude. They are separated from one 
 another by an increase of a few feet in the height 
 above the sea-level. The trench line would be 
 fairly close to the base camp if it did not happen 
 to lie some fifteen hundred metres above it. 
 
 4c 
 
 There are some great hill-masses here, beginning 
 in gentle slope and rising meadow and ending in 
 wind-swept upland or rock-strewn summit, where 
 you may pass through all the stages in a climbing 
 walk of a few hours. At the foot, where the 
 mountain stream lisps among the pebbles, all is 
 
A MOUNTAIN WALK 143 
 
 warmth and peace. The peasants are at work in 
 their fruit-gardens ; the girls sing as they bear 
 their baskets through the white dust of the roads ; 
 a few villagers sit drinking thin wine outside the 
 albergo talking, it may be, of the Red Terror which 
 has come upon the earth, but more probably of 
 mules and crops. 
 
 A little higher you begin to see soldiers, loitering 
 singly and in groups, or marching purposefully in 
 small parties. Military automobiles and transport 
 sections pass ; a field battery rumbles by with 
 clink of chain and rattle of hoof. The soft vegeta- 
 tion of the valley give place to groves of chestnut, 
 and then to thickets of larch and fir. Peering into 
 the woods you see that they are in fact an encamp- 
 ment, for everywhere, scattered among the trees, 
 are the tents, shanties, and troops of all arms 
 busy in all sorts of ways. It is like an enchanted 
 forest : alive with things more strange and 
 wonderful than old romance ever imagined. For 
 what audacious myth-maker would have inducted 
 us to a whole stable of flj^ng steeds that can soar 
 over the highest mountain-tops, cleave the air 
 more swiftly than the swiftest storm-wind, and 
 hurl flaming death from above the clouds ? What 
 Eastern tale of magic would have ventured on 
 that thin thread swinging from the branches that 
 brings to this wilderness the lightest whisper from 
 chiefs and rulers in distant cities, and stories of 
 
144 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 battles still raging half a continent or half a world 
 away ? 
 
 As we stroll on we come upon an encampment 
 of a battalion of the Finanziera or Frontier Guard, 
 and are courteously invited by the officers to enter 
 and look round. The Frontier Guard is one of the 
 corps d'ilite of the Italian Army, composed of 
 long service men who enter the ranks not through 
 the conscription but by voluntary enlistment. 
 Its niembers are justly proud of their discipline, 
 and fighting spirit, and their general military 
 aptitude. Though they are stationed on the 
 borders they are not, for the most part, natives 
 of the frontier districts, but are largely drawn 
 from Sicily and Naples, and the rugged miountain 
 country of the Abruzzi. They can climb almost 
 as well as the Alpini, and are fine marchers and 
 marksmen. The officers seemed to me intelligent 
 as well as polite, and full of professional zeal, keen 
 soldiers all. Most of them spoke French, one or 
 two English, and some, I was told, German. 
 
 I had an example here again both of the 
 camaraderie and the artistic sentiment which 
 prevail in the Italian regiments. As we sat and 
 smoked cigarettes and drank coffee in the officer's 
 mess hut, I noticed certain verses inscribed upon 
 the walls, and made inquiry as to their author^ 
 ship. A captain with pride informed me that 
 they were composed by a corporal of his company, 
 
A MOUNTAIN WALK 145 
 
 an excellent poet and musician. Would I like to 
 hear him recite something ? The corporal was 
 sent for, and came, bearing a small guitar with 
 him. (Perhaps after all the German sneer had 
 some basis : it does seem almost an army of 
 mandoline players, who, however, are also toler- 
 ably expert with other instruments.) The artist 
 was a handsome young fellow, very much at his 
 ease, who first gave us a song from Mascagni, and 
 then " by request " regaled us with a poem of 
 his own. It was sentimental and passionate, and 
 delivered with much fervour, and a dramatic 
 abandon that went oddly enough with the reciter's 
 close-cropped hair, bronzed cheeks, and square- 
 shouldered uniformed figure. 
 
 The officers listened gravely and appreciatively, 
 and rewarded the bard with compliments and a 
 glass of wine. British officers play cricket with 
 their men, and Italian officers listen to poetry 
 from theirs ; and in neither case does the disci- 
 pline of the service appear to suffer. A little 
 later I saw the corporal-poet directing a squad 
 of men, who had got into trouble with a hand-cart 
 stuck fast on a greasy bank, and I noted that he 
 was stimulating their efforts with a verbal energy 
 which showed that literary study had not in the 
 least impaired the vigour of his conversational style. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
146 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 In a clearing, a waterfall gushes from the hill- 
 side, a strenuous little torrent. They have 
 harnessed and bridled it to whirl the dynamos 
 of a well -fitted engineering workshop, where they 
 can make or mend most things that an army 
 uses in the field, from the wheel of a bicycle to 
 the armoured shield of a six-inch gtin. The work- 
 men are skilled mechanics, doing their military 
 service in this effective fashion, at the soldier's 
 rate of pay. The captain who directs the establish- 
 ment also receives no more than the moderate 
 stipend of his grade ; though before the war he 
 was a mosl/ prosperous contractor and engineer, 
 who had laid down great works, built railways, 
 installed mining plants in the East and West, 
 and dealt with cosmopolitan financiers on equal 
 terms. 
 
 The woodland grows thin and stunted, and 
 almost dies out as we rise higher in the bleak 
 mountain air. Just past its edge we come upon 
 a village, an aloof and solitary village it used to 
 be, albeit prosperous in its way, now humming 
 with warlike activity. Soldiers are billeted in 
 all its houses, transport wagons and trucks of 
 stores are parked in the little market-place, the 
 miscellaneous impedimenta of an army lie about 
 the streets. In front of the inn, with its rambling 
 untidy barns for pack mules and cattle, a couple 
 of sentries keep guard, with their rifles slung across 
 
A MOUNTAIN WALK 147 
 
 their backs, as is the custom of Italian sentinels ; 
 and at the open door there are two grey-clad and 
 grey cock-hatted carabinieri, polite and imper- 
 turbable as ever. " One does not pass here," 
 they say if you attempt to enter ; for this is the 
 head-quarters of a general of division. 
 
 You would know it, even without the carabinieri 
 and the sentries, because three splashed and mud- 
 dyed motor -bicycles lean against the wall, and 
 three dog-tired despatch riders, also dusty and 
 stained, are on the bench outside, with their 
 heads down on their arms spread over the rough 
 wooden table, snatching at a spell of sleep. 
 
 It must be rough riding up and down these hill 
 paths ; but for the motor-orderly, that light horse- 
 man of modern war, no track is too hard and no 
 road too long. What he has done on this front, 
 and on all the fronts, will hardly be appreciated 
 at its full value till the story of the campaigns is 
 told in detail. In Italy, where units, separated 
 from one another by many natural obstacles, have 
 had to keep touch, these swift messengers have 
 done much to render combined staff-work possible. 
 
 The actual fighting line is a long way above the 
 village, which however does not thereby obtain 
 immunity from attacks. The Austrians probably 
 know that it is the seat of a divisional staff, and 
 they certainly know that it is a forwarding station, 
 with troops all round and in it ; so they bestow 
 
148 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 some attention upon the place, though it is rather 
 far for them to reach. At the actual moment of 
 my visit things were quiet, and the people were 
 busy in their shops chaffering with the soldiers 
 and one another. But there had been a bom- 
 bardment earlier that morning, and just outside 
 the place I was shown a frayed round hole, where 
 a big shell had fallen, a shell that soared right over 
 the summit looming ahead, from an enemy battery 
 far away on the other side of the frontier. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 Up to the heights beyond the village there was 
 nothing before the war but a mule-track or a 
 rude and tenuous footpath. Now there is one of 
 those fine new military roads the engineers are 
 making, roads so graded and ingeniously zig- 
 zagged that they will carry motor-cars and 
 traction engines and heavy ordnance on the 
 steepest ascents. We follow it up the broad back 
 of the mountain, where the rocks are beginning 
 to jut out of the turf, and the coppices grow 
 scant and wispy. In one of them we come upon 
 a battery of our heavy guns with the pieces 
 dressed up like jack-in-the-green, and the dug- 
 outs and magazines covered over with leaves and 
 twigs. Austrian shell holes are pretty thick on 
 the ground ; the enemy is aware that we have a 
 
A MOUNTAIN WALK 149 
 
 battery here ; but he cannot locate it exactly, 
 and in artillery work a miss is as good as a mile. 
 From a bomb that falls fifty yards away you are 
 as safe as if it were in another province. That is 
 why everything is done to elude observation from 
 above, and why even the flashes of the guns are 
 sometimes screened. 
 
 The advanced trenches and forward batteries 
 are higher up still. We pass a whole column of 
 mule-carts loaded with food and ammunition for 
 these. They are halted by the roadside, waiting 
 till nightfall ; for if they turned the next corner 
 by daylight, they would be visible to the enemy 
 and would draw his fire. 
 
 We ourselves, however, pass the turning at an 
 abrupt angle, and of a sudden we fimd ourselves 
 in an empty world again. We are out on the bare 
 mountain-side, and all signs of life have dis- 
 appeared. Armies are hidden about us, but we 
 see nothing of them : only the dark blue crests 
 rising and falling like the waves of a giant sea, 
 with the white clouds sailing over them, and in 
 the distance the towering black wall of the higher 
 Alps, stabbed by shafts of fitful light that streak 
 it with rents of purple and slits of gold. A wild 
 and noble solitude it seems ! But just below the 
 swelling breast of our great hill the ground curves 
 away into a hollow, and rises again ; and on that 
 rise, and at about our own level, there is a belt 
 
150 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 of fir trees, and through it we know the enemy- 
 trenches run, though from where we stand no 
 faintest hint of their presence is given us. 
 
 And are we, on this bare strip of open pathway, 
 also invisible to them ? Is not our own position 
 a little — ahem — exposed ? I make the suggestion 
 with some diffidence to the gallant officer who is 
 my guide and chaperon. He replies cheerfully, " Oh, 
 yes, they can see us quite well here," and strolls 
 calmly on. But as he is a good soldier and a brave, 
 I feel that there is no occasion for apprehen- 
 sion, and that, for some reason or other, we are 
 fairly safe, for the braver and more experienced a 
 soldier is the less likely is he to court useless or 
 unnecessary danger. Only the foolish amateur 
 does that. Perhaps — ^though it did not look so to 
 me — ^the wood was out of range of rifle shot, and 
 shells are not usually wasted on unarmed parties 
 of two ; perhaps we were protected by one of 
 those conventions, tacitly agreed to, and commonly 
 observed, in all the theatres of war, by which 
 certain places at certain times are left immune. 
 
 But it was a strange sensation : to be alone, as it 
 seemed, in this great empty space of air and 
 light, and yet to look across to those silent 
 thickets, and to know that watchful eyes, with 
 deadly weapons at hand, were peering at us 
 through the trees. I was not sorry when we turned 
 the shoulder of the mountain, and shut away the 
 
A MOUNTAIN WALK 161 
 
 sight of that wicked little waiting, listening, 
 wood. 
 
 As we did so the bombardment broke out afresh. 
 We could hear the boom and roar of the heavy 
 cannon, the champagne-cork popping of rifles, the 
 rasp of the mitrailleuses ; we saw the smoke-jets 
 steaming on the hillside as the shells struck. An 
 aeroplane, its wings gleaming in the sunlight, 
 spun up into the air, swooped, and rose, and 
 circled, and passed out of sight. Perhaps it had 
 been giving the range to the batteries behind us, 
 for presently these came into action, and their 
 thunder growled over our heads. 
 
 We were making for a fort on the very crest of 
 the mountain, now pretty close to us ; but to reach 
 it there was another exposed stretch of ground to 
 cross, and we waited in a convenient gully, with a 
 good sloping bank of earth above it, till the firing 
 should have grown less intense. It ceased alto- 
 gether in about an hour, and we then quitted 
 our shelter and went on to our destination. 
 
 This untimely fusillade aimoyed my companion. 
 He was, as I have said, a stout soldier : Austrian 
 shells disturbed him no more than the buzzing of 
 summer bees. But on this occasion they inter- 
 fered with his arrangements. We had started 
 before sunrise, and had driven and walked far. 
 We had made no provision for lunch, relying on 
 the hospitality of the officers at the fort. But 
 
152 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 owing to the unseasonable liveliness of the 
 Austrian gunners it was to be feared that we 
 might arrive too late for the repast, or that when 
 we did arrive there might be other things than 
 lunch to occupy attention. 
 
 And so in fact it fell out. The fort, one of the 
 very few the Italians had constructed in this part 
 of the country before the war, was a substantial 
 low building of solid masonry, with an armoiured 
 cupola : a strong-looking little place, with a battery 
 of long-range guns well posted behind earthwork 
 ramparts. It lay at the top of the highest hill in 
 that sector of the Trentino frontier looking into 
 Austria across the Val Sugana, through which 
 the Brenta runs and the railway from Trent. It 
 was therefore a position of some importance ; and 
 the enemy, from his stations high up on the other 
 side of the broad valley, had brought his heavy 
 pieces to bear on it. The place had been subjected 
 to a severe pounding that morning, and a " 420 " 
 shell had fallen plump on one of the masonry 
 curtains, flaking off a great slice of the massive 
 stonework, and scattering it into a heap of debris. 
 The casualties were comparatively light — a ser- 
 geant killed, and five men injured ; but to sit 
 still, even under roofs of steel and granite, while 
 12 -inch projectiles are bursting upon them, is 
 trying to the strongest nerves. 
 
 The fort had been knocked about a good deal, 
 
z 
 
 o 
 
 
 "£ O 
 
 ■5, 
 
 m 
 
A MOUNTAIN WALK 158 
 
 and the officers, being human, had felt the strain. 
 Besides, the enemy had got the range of one of 
 their outside batteries so closely that they were 
 changing the position of the guns ; and shifting a 
 battery of large-calibre cannon in a hiu-ry — ^with 
 the possibility that a hostile aeroplane may take 
 a hand in the proceedings — ^is anxious and strenuous 
 work. Visitors were clearly de irop just then ; 
 and so, after an interchange of courtesies with 
 these valiant and much-enduring artillerymen, and 
 a cautious walk rotmd the fort, we thought the 
 most tactful thing we could do was to take our- 
 selves away. " I did not dare even to mention 
 lunch to them," said my companion gloomily. 
 
 His dejection arose (quite needlessly) on my 
 account much more than his own, and was due 
 to the fear that he had failed in his duty as a 
 careful host, which was very far from the case, 
 and to a belief that all Britons, unlike his own 
 temperate countrymen, require much bodily sus- 
 tenance at frequent intervals. So he conducted me, 
 impransus, back again through the long descent, 
 until we came to our motor-car, and then in the 
 fulness of time to the quarters of another regiment 
 known to my friend, in a hamlet buried among 
 the fir copses. Here, like the heroes of Homer, we 
 " put outside us the desire of eating and drinking " ; 
 and afterwards we heard stories of deadly combats 
 and desperate hand-to-hand encounters and daring 
 
154 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 stratagems, such as would have made the swift - 
 footed Achilles and the ingenious Ulysses conclude 
 that they had lived about three thousand years 
 too early for the real heroic age. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 A REAR-GUARD ACTION NEAR ASIAGO 
 
 AFTER THE GREAT COUNTER-OFFENSIVE UP TO THE 
 
 ALTIPIANO THE SPIRIT OF THE SOLDIERS 
 
 KING VICTOR EMMANUEL AUSTRIAN PRISONERS 
 
 RACIAL ANTIPATHIES — OFFICERS IN REAR 
 
 AND FRONT GOOD ARTILLERY WORK — AUSTRIAN 
 
 TRENCHES A BUSY WOODLAND — THE BELLS OF 
 
 ASIAGO A FIELD HOSPITAL — THE INVIOLATE 
 
 LAND WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 
 
 AFTER those first few dashing days of the 
 Italian counter-offensive on the Trentino 
 centre, in the last week of June, 1916, when the Aus- 
 trians were being followed up and hunted out of their 
 advanced positions by infantry, mountain troops, 
 motor-cyclists, and even cavalry, the operations 
 conformed more nearly to what may be called the 
 normal conditions of modern warfare. If the last 
 word is with infantry, the first is with the artillery. 
 The Austrians were being driven gradually back 
 to the strongly fortified line of prepared positions, 
 where apparently they meant to stand. From 
 these they could only be forced to retire by a wide 
 
 165 
 
156 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 tiu'ning movement, or from mere inability to hold 
 on with their diminishing numbers. 
 
 In the meantime each stage of the retreat 
 involved an artillery combat, in which the Italians 
 battered at the enemy's trenches till one or other 
 section was in a condition to be carried by a deter- 
 mined assault. The fighting was intense at various 
 points, but it was not spectacular, and its results 
 from day to day could only be appreciated by 
 those who had command of all the facts : neither 
 the soldiers in the field, nor the lookers-on, if 
 there were any lookers-on ; but the experts with 
 drawing-pins and geometric rulers poring over 
 relief maps in distant unobtrusive staff-rooms. 
 The war in this part of the field had become for 
 the time a succession of rear-guard actions, in 
 which the artillery played the chief part. 
 
 It is not easier to see a rear -guard action than any 
 other modern tactical episode, and when you do see 
 it— there may not be much to see though possibly a 
 good deal to hear. 
 
 * * 
 
 In the morning we set out from Vicenza with 
 Asiago as our objective. The far-flung plain of 
 the Veneto was sparkling behind us in the sun- 
 shine, fertile, peaceful, desirable as ever. " A nice 
 country for the Austrians," said the Italian officer, 
 glancing out of the car, and giving half -in voluntary 
 
A REAR-GUARD ACTION 157 
 
 utterance to the thought that haunted Italian 
 hearts all those months, the thought that the 
 enemy had meant to batten upon this promised 
 land, flowing with milk and honey. 
 
 We wound up to the plateau, the altipiano of the 
 Sette Commimi, so often mentioned in the official 
 despatches, through tree-clad slopes, passing 
 marching columns, field batteries, transport trains, 
 all going forward. Water was everywhere, in huge 
 vats and tanks and barrels, moving along in drays 
 and lorries, water for throats dry with marching 
 and fighting on the thirsty upland. Ambulances 
 passed us travelling towards the base, and some- 
 times wounded men, limping along on foot, singly 
 or in small parties. Some had damaged heads, 
 some carried their arms in slings made hastily 
 for them at the field dressing-stations, with torn 
 sleeves soaked in blood. They were tired, dirty, 
 caked with dust and clay, but most cheerful, 
 exulting in the thought that they had been beating 
 the Tedeschi. One man, whose trigger finger had 
 been snipped off, said he had plenty of other fmgers 
 left to shoot with, and that he hoped to get back 
 again to kill some more Austrians. He pointed to 
 the trenches which ran through the wood beside 
 us. " My regiment took those," he said ; " we 
 shall take all the others as well." 
 
 These soldiers were full of confidence. They 
 were quite certain that if they could only get at 
 
158 ITALY IN THj: WAR 
 
 the Austrians they could drive them out of any 
 position. They have not the slightest doubt 
 either, that in this war — " our war " as they call 
 it — ^they will in the end gain the victory. The 
 century-long score is to be paid off at last, and 
 Austria is to be humbled and disarmed, in spite 
 of her big guns and her big ally. Every Itahan 
 soldier feels that. He feels it so deeply that he 
 does not require to stimtdate himself by provoca- 
 tive phrases. There is no " Hymn of Hate " for 
 Italian regiments. Probably there is, all the 
 same, a sufficient sprinkling of that kind of repug- 
 nance and dislike which we may call hatred. 
 Perhaps it will give place to kindlier thoughts 
 when the ancient enemy knows himself beaten. 
 In the meanwhile it seldom comes to the surface. 
 What need to speak of that which everybody 
 imderstands ? So the Italian soldier goes quietly 
 about his business, the least swaggering of warriors, 
 patient, obedient, good-humoured, contented. 
 
 Only when the chance comes to meet the 
 Tedeschi man to man the smouldering fire blazes 
 out. The Austrians are brave enough, and on the 
 average they are bigger and heavier than their 
 opponents. But they cannot face them with the 
 bayonet. Contrary to what one might have 
 expected they dread the Neapolitan and the 
 Sicilian more than the hardier Piedmontese. 
 These lithe, wiry, sunburnt, swift-footed children 
 
A REAR-GUARD ACTION 159 
 
 of the South sprint into the charge with wild 
 shouts, and eyes that flash hke their own knives. 
 They have done terrible work on the Isonzo, and often 
 enough the tiu"bid waters of that stream have swum 
 red with their own and the enemy's blood. None of 
 themotley contingents of Austria, Germans, Slovaks, 
 Croats, Magyars, or Tyrolese has much appetite for 
 a point-to-point struggle with these fierce fighters. 
 
 Some among them there must be who are the 
 sons or the grandsons of the Garibaldians, the men 
 who followed the Savoyard hero in triumph and 
 defeat. They are fighting now for the vision of 
 a Greater Italy under another Victor Emmanuel, 
 a soldier as ardent and as keen as the Re Galan- 
 tuomo, though he is not seen caracoling gloriously, 
 sabre in air, on a high-stepping charger. It is not 
 the way of the most unassuming of monarchs, and 
 one of the bravest. Sometimes, when the fire is 
 thickest, the soldier in the trenches, behind some 
 breastwork splintering under the shell, will see 
 beside him an ofiicer, not of his own regiment, 
 an officer without orders or badges, dressed in the 
 same plain grey uniform as himself. It is the King, 
 who has a habit of finding out the worst danger- 
 points and going to them, unattended and alone. 
 
 One can imagine how some royal personages 
 would have " spread themselves " over the 24th 
 of May, 1915, which was the anniversary of Italy's 
 entry into the war. King Victor Emmanuel issued 
 
160 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 a proclamation of half a dozen terse, virile sen- 
 tences, in which he expressed his gratitude for 
 what his troops had done, and the confidence with 
 which he expected them to encounter the perils 
 and labours still awaiting them. This sober 
 eloquence struck the right note for the soldiers, 
 who have no occasion for flamboyant rhetoric. 
 They have left their homes and fields con V idedle 
 d'ltalia nel cuore, as the King says, and they do 
 not propose to go back until this ideal is realised 
 in a strictly tangible and definite form. There 
 may have been — ^there were — confhcting currents 
 in the nation. But the Italian Army was out for 
 business. 
 
 * 
 
 We met some Austrian prisoners passing under 
 guard to the rear. They looked shabby and 
 depressed ; but most prisoners look like that. A 
 man who has stood for hours in a shambles, and 
 has seen half his comrades killed or writhing in 
 agony about him, and then has had to surrender, 
 is not likely to feel cheerful. It is futile to base 
 conclusions as to the morale of an army on the 
 demeanour of captured men fresh from the firing 
 line. Some of these prisoners, at any rate, seemed 
 in good physical condition, and had apparently 
 been well fed. The Austrian officers, I was told, 
 are apt to sulk and give all the trouble they can, 
 
I- i 
 
 Photo: Russell and Sons.'^ 
 
 H.M. The King of Italy 
 
A REAR-GUARD ACTION 161 
 
 As for the rank and file, some are by no means 
 unwilling to be taken, especially the Slovenes and 
 Serbs and other Slavs, and, of course, the Italians, 
 though of these not many are to be found in this 
 theatre. The Vienna War Office naturally prefers 
 that they should be employed as far from Italy 
 as possible : a number of them have been captured 
 by the Russians in Galicia and sent back to Italy, 
 where they are now fighting joyously in the ranks 
 of the country to which they hope they will 
 soon owe political, as well as sentimental, 
 allegiance. 
 
 Also, as might be expected, the prisoners do 
 not always get on well together. An Italian patrol 
 captured a small party of Austrians, of whom one 
 was bleeding from a bayonet thrust in the stomach. 
 The officer in command ordered the wounded man 
 to be carried by two of the other prisoners. Before 
 they had gone far the bearers calmly set down 
 their bm'den. The Italian officer demanded an 
 explanation. " We are going to leave this fellow 
 here," was the reply. " Why ? " " We are tired 
 of carrying him." " Surely," said the officer, 
 " you want to save your wounded comrade ? " 
 " He is no comrade of ours, he is only a Bosnian." 
 " Ah ! And what may you be ? " " We are 
 Hungarians." These haughty Magyars were in- 
 duced to reconsider the matter by a ciu-t hint 
 that if they did not at once obey the orders given 
 
162 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 them they would speedily find themselves unable 
 to receive or execute any other orders whatsoever. 
 
 One hears many stories of the racial feuds and 
 antipathies in the ranks of the enemy. One hears 
 too that the Austrian officers mistrust their men 
 (or mistrust themselves) too deeply to lead them 
 into action. They prefer to remain behind the 
 rear rank, where, with finger on trigger, they are 
 ready to shoot down any soldier who shows a 
 sign of wavering. Austria, like Prussia, is still in 
 the atmosphere of the eighteenth century, when 
 kings traded away their troops like cattle, and 
 treated them like slaves. " The life the private 
 soldier led was a frightful one to any but men of 
 iron courage and endurance. There was a corporal 
 to every three men, marching behind them and 
 pitilessly using the cane ; so much so that it used 
 to be said that in action there was a front rank 
 of privates and a second rank of sergeants and 
 corporals to drive them on.''^ 
 
 Italy has no such numbing memories. Her 
 wars for the past hundred years have been 
 popular wars, and her soldiers are led — ^not 
 driven — into battle. The behaviour of Italian 
 officers is governed by the same convention, 
 in this matter, as the British, an honourable, 
 though it may be a wasteful and impolitic, con- 
 vention. When peril is to be faced the officers go 
 ' Thackeray : Barry Lyndon, Chap. VI. 
 
A REAR-GUARD ACTION 163 
 
 in front of their men to meet it ; and in consequence 
 the tale of casualties among them has been a long 
 one. I have been told that one of the Austrian 
 army-commanders issued an order of the day, 
 directing that officers should be picked oft by 
 good marksmen whenever possible. He added 
 that there woiild be no difficulty in identifying 
 them ; because, though their uniforms were 
 practically indistinguishable from those of the 
 rank and fi' i, they could always be known by their 
 habit of exposing themselves to the hottest fire. 
 
 It is probably true that the officers who fight 
 under the black-and-yellow flag are much inferior 
 in gallantry and spirit to those who are striking 
 for the tricolour of Italy. Yet some of the Austrian 
 regiments are brave enough, and they can put up 
 a good fight sometimes, even when it comes to 
 close quarters. But as a rule, here as elsewhere, 
 it is a war of artillery. The gun, particularly the 
 big gun, is the controlling factor. And the Austrian 
 gunners can shoot straight, or some of them can. 
 Even the civilian visitor to the front discovers 
 that, in spite of the almost painful solicitude with 
 which courteous Italian staff-officers endeavour to 
 keep him out of harm's way. He may be roUing 
 swiftly along a road, when no actual bombard- 
 ment is going on, and everything seems tranquil. 
 But a keen-eyed Austrian artillery observer in 
 some distant battery, perched up among the clouds, 
 
164 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 may think it worth while to waste a shot on him, 
 and a biirst of shrapnel just over or in front of his 
 car may cause him to tiorn back or seek hasty 
 shelter. Gunners who can snipe a motor-car, 
 running at thirty miles an hour, with a big gun, 
 at a range of five or six kilometres, must be fairly 
 expert at their business. 
 
 It happened that the head-quarters staff of an 
 Italian army were due to arrive in a certain small 
 town, and arrangements had been made for them 
 to pass the night at a house which was painted 
 pink. For some reason the plan was changed at 
 the last moment, and the staff went to a white 
 house in another part of the town. But hardly 
 had they settled themselves in their lodgings 
 when a shell from a long-range gim dropped plump 
 on the pink house and blew it to pieces. This was 
 the only shot fired that night ; and the nearest 
 Austrian heavy battery was four miles distant. 
 So if the hit was not a sheer accident it speaks weU 
 for the efficiency both of the Austrian secret 
 service and the Austrian range-finding. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 We were in a patch of wooded country on the 
 plateau of the Sette Communi in front of Asiago. 
 The Austrians had drawn their trenches through 
 these thickets, and had evacuated them before the 
 
A REAR-GUARD ACTION 165 
 
 advance of Cadorna's divisions barely thirty hours 
 earlier. These abandoned trenches of the enemy 
 showed distinct traces of the pounding they had 
 received from the Italian guns, and were altogether 
 in a poor condition, roughly made, and by no means 
 up to the best modern standard of earthwork. 
 The pioneers and territorials had been busy 
 removing arms and ammunition and other things 
 of value, and there was nothing here for the 
 souvenir hvinter, except occasional fuses and 
 empty shell cases ; but the trenches were still 
 littered with scraps of equipment, torn fragments 
 of clothing, and filth of various kinds, and were 
 not at all inviting. A few red pools stagnating in 
 the trampled clay did not add to their attractive- 
 ness. One had heard a good deal of the Austrian 
 officers' dugouts and sleeping-quarters, sometimes 
 floored and boarded, and provided with tables 
 and mirrors and bedding looted from the occupied 
 villages. Here, however, there was nothing of the 
 sort : only dirt and squalor, and the disagreeable 
 signs of an army, rather careless of sanitation, 
 driven in haste, and with loss, out of its positions. 
 The enemy, forced from this ground, had retired 
 through Asiago, and the Italians were trying to 
 push him from the heights beyond the town to 
 which he had withdrawn his batteries. The rear- 
 guard action was going on, and we were well in 
 the middle of the artillery part of it. No guns 
 
166 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 were to be seen^ — guns in modern warfare are 
 strangely invisible — ^but they were all round us, 
 and sudden bursts of sound seemed to arise from 
 the earth in disturbing proximity and promiscuity. 
 A furious bellow on your left was answered by a 
 thunderclap on the right, or a savage bark ap- 
 parently close behind your head. The trees were 
 shivering and shaking with the crash of the heavy 
 Italian cannon — ^in reality these were a good 
 distance in our rear — and the whine and screech 
 of the flying Austrian shell. 
 
 The most curious part of the affair was the 
 detached and almost uninterested attitude of all 
 around us to this ear-racking interchange of deadly 
 missiles. Nobody seemed to pay any particular 
 attention to the bombardment. Yet it was by 
 no means harmless. Not many minutes before 
 our motor-car passed along the road that inter- 
 sected the wood a shell had fallen near the spot 
 at which we were to alight, killing three men and 
 wounding twenty others. The wounded had been 
 carried away, and the dead covered over with rugs 
 and tarpaulins, for the Italian officers, always con- 
 siderate and polite, had thought that the sight of 
 the bodies might distress us. 
 
 But such incidents did not in the least interfere 
 with the prevailing activity. A lot of work was going 
 on, and everybody was far too much occupied to 
 attend to irrelevant matters. Trenches were being 
 
A REAR-GUARD ACTION 167 
 
 cleared and renovated, waggons unloaded, stores 
 stacked, food cooked, great water barrels rolled up 
 and emptied into tanks. It was a scene of ordered, 
 you might almost think of peaceful industry, to 
 that orchestral accompaniment of drumming 
 cannon bass and the howling treble of the shell. 
 And that is a modern battle again : an odd 
 collection of disconnected interludes, one man 
 dying while another skins potatoes, one battalion 
 locked in a life-and-death struggle with the 
 bayonet, while hard by another in its shirt sleeves, 
 with pipe and jest, is nailing shacks of timber. 
 Just here all this noise and pother of bombard- 
 ment seemed to be regarded as the private affair 
 of the artillerists far away in front and rear. The 
 working colony in the wood had its own business 
 to get on with. 
 
 Later in the day when we passed this place 
 again we fornid that the engineer officers, who 
 had their quarters close at hand, had brought out 
 bottles and glasses in our honour. We drank to 
 the Italian and British armies, and exchanged 
 compliments and polite little speeches, un- 
 concerned by the minor tragedy wrought by 
 the Austrian projectile almost on that very 
 spot. Soldiers are not callous to loss and 
 suffering ; but they acquire the habit of locking 
 off their thoughts in separate compartments, so 
 that they can throw themselves into the occupa- 
 
168 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 tion of the passing moment without being weighed 
 down by what has gone before or what may 
 come after. For if they were perpetually pausing to 
 think of all the horror and misery that wells round 
 their feet they could not endure the strain of 
 war, and keep their health and spring. 
 
 " These deeds must not be thought 
 After these ways ; so, it will make us mad." 
 
 * 
 
 The forest ended abruptly, and there was a 
 clear little run of open road, between high ground, 
 down into Asiago. But it was a little run not 
 " healthy " to take just then. The Austrians had 
 evacuated and set fire to the town ; but from 
 their batteries on Monte Mosciagh and Monte 
 Interrotto, the broad hills rising five thousand 
 feet above the valley, they were still pumping 
 projectiles into it. Just at the entrance to Asiago, 
 from our side, the road crosses a stream ; and 
 every few minutes there would be a splash of 
 flame in front of the bridge, a warning that the 
 right of way was barred. While we were looking on 
 a couple of officers in an automobile tried to run 
 the gauntlet. But the Austrian gunners were too 
 quick for them. Their car had almost reached 
 the bridge when a shell burst, as it seemed to the 
 spectators, clean under it. Presently we saw that 
 
A REAR-GUARD ACTION 169 
 
 the officers had scrambled out, and that the car was 
 still standing on its wheels. Later in the day the 
 chauffeur contrived to bring it back, and we in- 
 spected it and him. The shell had exploded a little 
 to one side, and merely shattered the tonneau, 
 leaving the engine uninjured. The chauffeur had 
 been slightly touched in the cheek by a sphnter 
 of metal. It was one of those narrow escapes 
 that occur every day, and every hour of the day. 
 
 * * 
 
 Asiago being clearly out of bounds for the 
 moment, we made our way by a field-path to a 
 roimded green knoll above the road on the right. 
 Here we could see down into the town about a 
 couple of kilometres away, and we could make 
 out the line of the Itahan trenches which had 
 been carried to Camporovere, the village beyond 
 it. We could also see Mosciagh and the other 
 hills, billowing away to the horizon, on which the 
 enemy still was planted. Asiago had been bm-nt 
 by the Austrians when they marched out, accord- 
 ing to their amiable and civihsed custom. The 
 day before our visit the town was still in flames ; 
 but by this time the fire had died away except 
 for a few wisps of smoke. Surveyed from our 
 eminence the place did not look so badly damaged as 
 in fact it was, and at a little distance the clustered 
 
IM ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 white walls and red-tiled Venetian roofs were 
 pretty enough. The fine old church, with its tall 
 campanile, though gutted and wrecked inside, still 
 stood. 
 
 Of this campanile a strange story is told. 
 Despite the bombardment and the fire the bells 
 hung balanced in their turret frame. The day 
 after the evacuation the fight was hot and eager 
 about Asiago. At its climax an Austrian shell 
 exploded inside the tower, and the blast shook 
 the silent bells and set them chiming again. The 
 sweet and mellow notes quivered over the battle- 
 field, plainly heard, in their soft clearness, through 
 the thud of cannon and the tumult of the rifles : 
 passing bells tolling the knell for the dead, or 
 joy-bells, as the Italian soldiers fiercely said, 
 ringing in the victory of the living. 
 
 it! * 
 
 We did not stay too long on our green knoll, 
 and we were warned to keep pretty close to the 
 ground, and stand apart ; for if the Austrians had 
 seen us in a group using field-glasses they might 
 have thought the Italians were making the place 
 an artillery observation post, and favoured us 
 with a round of shrapnel. " Then they command 
 this point ? " I asked an Itahan officer. " Com- 
 mand this point!" he answered bitterly; "they 
 
A REAR-GUARi) ACl'tON l7l 
 
 command all points. Do you not know, my 
 friend, that they are above us everywhere ? Look 
 there — ^and there — ^and there," and he showed me 
 a pink barrack high up on the top of a great hill, 
 and then one huge bluff or frowning summit after 
 another, all round the northern and western horizon, 
 where the Austrians were, Austrian guns, Austrian 
 posts. For that is the way of this war. 
 
 But though we could not get into Asiago, there 
 were people coming out of it all the time. From 
 the advanced trenches in front a scattered proces- 
 sion trickled thinly through the town, a procession 
 of the stretcher-bearers and the wounded. The 
 ambulances had to wait round the corner in the 
 shelter of the wood ; but the woimded men dragged 
 themselves along the road, and the red-crossed 
 orderlies carried their burdens. Sometimes the 
 burden had died on its way, and lay still and 
 stiff on the stretcher. 
 
 Behind our view-point was a farmhouse turned 
 field hospital, the nearest in this quarter to the firing 
 line. Here the bearers of the wounded and the bearers 
 of the dead set down their loads. A bearded and 
 spectacled captain of the Corpo Sanitario and two 
 subaltern doctors were hard at work. They were 
 haggard from want of rest, and the white blouses 
 they wore over their uniforms were stained and 
 smeared with blood. An operating-table had been 
 made up in the living-room of the farmstead ; 
 
172 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 wounded men were strewn on the floor or propped 
 against the walls of the big barn ; others lay in* 
 the cattle yard ; and in the damp straw were 
 turbid pools of crimson, and red puddles oozing 
 under the dung. It was no place for idle curiosity, 
 and there was nothing incompetent hands could 
 do to help the skilful ones ministering here. 
 
 
 The bombardment gave way to a rattle of 
 musketry, and later we learnt that the Italians 
 had mastered the Austrian fire and captiu'ed 
 some more trenches in an infantry attack. We 
 drove through the wood again, and down the 
 winding hill-paths, and across the plain once 
 more, and so back to Vicenza. And as we passed 
 through the streets of that historic little city, 
 where the genius of the Italian renaissance is so 
 nobly enshrined in palace and loggia, when we 
 saw the people going quietly and cheerfully about 
 their pleasures and their business, we thought of 
 the men lying in their blood out there at the liill- 
 side farm, and we felt that their offering had not 
 been given in vain, since it had kept all this 
 heritage of beauty and ordered prosperity from 
 violation and sacrilege. We remembered Belgium 
 ruined and enslaved, Poland plundered, Serbia 
 given over to rapine and torture, and we shuddered 
 
A REAR-GUARD ACTION 173 
 
 to think of the worse fate that would have befallen 
 this garden -land of Northern Italy if the marauders 
 had been able to work their evil will upon it. 
 And again we blessed the valour of the soldiers, 
 and the wise dispositions of the generals, by which 
 humanity had been spared a tragedy more heart- 
 rending even than that of the Belgians, the Poles, 
 and the Serbs. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 WAR AMID THE ETERNAL SNOWS 
 
 THE ALPINE CAMPAIGN WITH THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 TROOPS THE WIRE-ROPE RAILWAYS — THE 
 
 RIFUGIO CROSSING THE GLACIER A BATTLE 
 
 ON THE ICE THE SUMMIT CAMP — THE LATEST 
 
 NEWS AT TEN THOUSAND FEET — A WONDERFUL 
 ACHIEVEMENT. 
 
 "TTERE," said the subaltern of the Alpine 
 -*~^ Regiment, " I had my bedroom, dressing- 
 room, dining-room, and orderly-room for four 
 months of last winter." 
 
 " Here ? " I gasped ; " but in Heaven's name 
 where ? " 
 
 He pointed to a round hole in the great bank of 
 snow beside us, and invited me to enter. I crawled 
 through and found myself in a square cave, some 
 twelve feet across, walled, floored, and roofed with 
 the dry and beaten snow. In this dug-out the 
 lieutenant lived through those weeks when the 
 Italians had set their first outposts on the frontier 
 ridge. Here my young friend had slept, and eaten 
 his tinned rations, and done office work for the 
 
 174 
 
WAR AMID THE ETERNAL SNOWS 175 
 
 handful of soldiers stranded with him in the Arctic 
 waste. In odd moments he lay on his blankets and 
 gazed out of the entrance-hole to watch the crests 
 turn rose and gold in the wintry dawn, and if the 
 day was clear to look across into Switzerland and 
 catch glimpses of Monte Rosa and the Jungfrau 
 rising in dim pyramids of ghostly silver on the far 
 horizon. About us stretched a superb panorama 
 of blanched peak, and black rock-steeple, and 
 dark purple summit, magnificent in its savage 
 loneliness. Nature, you wotild say, is here in its 
 naked elemental force, and man has no place in 
 this abode of " height and cold, the splendour of 
 the hills." Yet in this wilderness men, for many 
 months, have had their pigmy shelters, and fought 
 their little battles imder the silent eyes of the 
 disdainful peaks, and left the stain of their blood 
 upon the whiteness of the eternal snows. 
 
 *** 
 
 Rugged, broken, and lofty throughout its whole 
 length the frontier touches some of the highest 
 ground in Europe at its north-western corner where 
 Austria and Italy abut upon Switzerland. Here 
 we reach moimtains of ten thousand, eleven 
 thousand, twelve thousand feet in altitude ; here 
 fighting goes on not merely among rocks and 
 precipices but oveT glaciers and ice-slopes ; here 
 
176 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 guns are emplaced and troops stationed above the 
 snow-line ; here, even in the midst of summer, 
 they go swathed in furs, they use skis, and drag 
 sleighs, they move with rifles slung on their backs, 
 and iron-shod poles and ice-axes in their hands. 
 Here the elaborate accessories of modern warfare 
 — shells, grenades, barbed wire, telephone installa- 
 tions, besides bodies of infantry and batteries of 
 artillery — have had to be transported to heights 
 inaccessible before to all save the mountaineering 
 athlete climbing cautiously and slowly with ropes 
 and guides. 
 
 The Stelvio Pass and the Tonale Pass come down 
 into Italy through the mountain masses of the 
 Tyrol, one imder the ice-clad shoulder of the 
 Ortler, the other running between the Cevedale 
 and Adamello groups, giants all, ranking not far 
 below the champions of the Jura and the Oberland. 
 Great armies, with a wide front, could not march 
 down these passes ; but considerable columns, 
 with guns, could do so, and thereby turn the left 
 flank of the Italian defence and reach Verona 
 and perhaps Milan and the trunk line of the 
 main railway that runs from the Fi'ench frontier 
 to the Adriatic. Hence it was necessary for the 
 Italians to keep these back-entries closed, and 
 themselves, if they could, push through them. So 
 a bitter campaign has been carried on amid the 
 mountains that dominate the passes, and the 
 
WAR AMID THE ETERNAL SNOWS 177 
 
 valleys that debouch into them, a campaign which 
 in its circumstances and incidents is unprecedented 
 in the history of war. For neither Hannibal, nor 
 Suwaroff, nor Napoleon, nor any other leader of an 
 Alpine march, had to keep his troops fighting month 
 after month on the mountain-tops, and furnish 
 them in that situation with artillery and ammu- 
 nition. 
 
 Thanks to the courtesy of the general staffs of 
 the First Italian Army, and of one of the Divisions 
 specially engaged in these operations, seconded by 
 the kind attentions of the officers of certain Alpine 
 regiments, I was enabled to see something of these 
 matters at close quarters. I was anxious to go 
 beyond the head of the teleferic railways which 
 has been the bourne of most of the journalistic 
 inquirers, Italian and foreign ; and my friendly 
 guides were good enough to indulge my wish, so 
 that I was able to traverse a glacier lying far 
 beyond the wire-rope terminus, and to spend a day 
 and a night with a body of the Alpini in one of 
 their most advanced posts, on what was formerly 
 Austrian territory, nearly ten thousand feet above 
 the sea-level, and separated only by a narrow 
 strip of ice and snow-covered rock from the enemy's 
 lines. It was an interesting experience since it 
 allowed me to appreciate the difficulties the Italians 
 have overcome in bringing guns and stores to 
 these lofty positions, and to examine the actual 
 
 N 
 
178 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 conditions under which their arduous vigil is 
 maintained. 
 
 * * 
 
 Far, far below that frozen crest which was my 
 
 objective the Regiment of Alpini, with 
 
 sundry details of transport, artillery, and engineers, 
 have their headquarters in a green and pleasant 
 valley. The little town in peace time is a minor 
 tourist centre, with a couple of hotels and a few 
 village shops, and with guides and porters for the 
 climbers who would adventure the ascent of the 
 Adamello and Cevedale peaks. There are no 
 tourists now, for they could not get a pass to come 
 here ; one hotel is a hospital, the other filled with 
 officers ; the guides wear King Victor Emmanuel's 
 uniform and on their hats the eagle badge of the 
 Alpine Corps. The soldiers of these battalions are 
 mostly men of the frontier districts, mountaineers 
 wise -in all the learning of the everlasting hills, or 
 hardy peasants who can carry burdens like their 
 own mules and march all day on tireless feet. 
 
 They are a corps d'&lite, immensely proud of 
 themselves and their traditions, with a profound 
 belief in their ability to go anywhere and do 
 anything : an alert, upstanding, keen-eyed lot, 
 bronzed, tough, and sinewy, with muscular backs 
 and - business-like legs. Better troops for their 
 work are not to be found anywhere, not even 
 
WAR AMID THE ETERNAL SNOWS 179 
 
 among their rivals, the Tyrolese feldjdgers, or in 
 the excellent Alpine battalions of the French Army. 
 Their officers are hard-working men, too : some 
 are regular soldiers, others young fellows of the 
 northern towns, with a taste for open-air life, who 
 prefer to put in their term of service with the local 
 corps rather than with the duller line or the more 
 
 expensive cavalry. Among my hosts at was 
 
 a colonel, who had seen service in Erythraea and 
 Tripoli, a doctor who had been with the British in 
 the Sudan and the Belgians on the Congo, captains 
 and lieutenants who were lawyers and engineers, 
 called up from their offices to take their place with 
 their old regiments on mobilisation. They were 
 essentially middle -class folks — ^the Alpine regiments 
 do not as a rule attract the aristocracy or the 
 wealthy — a vivacious, well-informed, agreeable set, 
 who had made themselves comfortable in the villa 
 requisitioned for their use, and entertained me 
 with a most genial hospitality. 
 
 * * 
 
 I left them with reluctance in the early morning, 
 in company with one of their number, a young 
 sub-lieutenant who had broken off his studies at 
 the university to take a commission in the Alpini. 
 We had also two soldiers of the regiment who bore 
 our heavy overcoats, and v9,rious other belongings. 
 
180 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 besides their own rifles, kit, and accoutrements. 
 We, the lieutenant and myself, were mounted on 
 excellent army mules, which went along the 
 winding road at a smart trot ; the soldiers were on 
 foot, but by taking short cuts across the fields and 
 choosing convenient hill -paths they were always 
 able to keep pace with us. Sometimes we missed 
 them for a quarter of an hour at a time, only to find 
 them waiting for us at some turn of the track. 
 
 We turned out of the valley into a road that 
 wound and twisted its way into the heart of the 
 hills. The giants were before us now and hung over 
 us as we followed the wriggling track, sometimes 
 showing us a great wedge of threatening grey 
 shoulder, sometimes a scarred face of black rock 
 with the ice-fields gleaming in the furrows, some- 
 times a snowy cone rising clear and aloof into the 
 thin sky under its hood of spotless white. At a 
 mountain tarn, set like a blue gem in its basin of 
 brown cliff and dark green fell, the road ended and 
 we left our mules. "Here," said my guide, "we walk 
 a little way and then we go up by the teleferic." 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 I had heard much of these wire-rope railways, 
 which have played a great part in the campaign. 
 The teleferic is the box or basket which runs 
 suspended on grooved wheels from an overhead 
 wire. The sjrstem has been adopted, in one forpi 
 
WAR AMID THE ETERNAL SNOWS 181 
 
 or another, all over the world, for hauling goods 
 up the side of mountains and across chasms. The 
 Italians, and I believe the Austrians, also on their 
 side of the border, have made extensive use of it, 
 and have employed it for the transport of human 
 beings as well as inanimate objects. 
 
 For the former purpose it does not at fcst sight 
 look attractive. The car is an iron tray with metal 
 trellised sides about nine inches high. It is just 
 large enough for two passengers who lie huddled 
 along the floor of the tray, with the boots of one 
 close to the head of the other, and the iron hook 
 from which the cage is hung just above them. As the 
 rope sags a good deal the car gives occasional jolts 
 and jumps which induce a tendency to cling tightly 
 to the flimsy bulwark. 
 
 It is, however, safe enough with ordinary 
 care, though there is an element of risk, as my 
 friend the lieutenant tactfully explained. The 
 wire -rope runs over a drum at each end of the 
 course, and forms a double line of overhead 
 railway, one car going up as the other comes down. 
 If they are properly loaded so that one hangs well 
 clear of the other, and there is not much wind, all 
 is well. But on stormy days the cars are apt to 
 sway, and sometimes come into collision as they 
 pass ; and in that case the heavier of the two might 
 knock the lighter clean off its overhead rail and 
 send it spinning into the depths. For this reason 
 
182 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 human traffic on the hne is supposed to be sus- 
 pended when the wind blows strongly. 
 
 A minor drawback is that the power of the motor 
 which winds the hauling rope sometimes gives out, 
 and the car is held up till it can be restored. 
 This happened to us once and we hung for about 
 ten minutes over a sheer drop of a thousand feet. 
 My young friend cheered me by relating how he had 
 been in a similar situation for two hours, till he 
 was beginning to wonder whether they would leave 
 him to die of hunger or send an aeroplane to his 
 rescue. And of course a rope might break or the 
 overhead runners side-slip, and then ! 
 
 Notwithstanding these possibilities the teleferic, 
 when you get used to it, is rather a fascinating way 
 of travel. Its smooth bird-like motion is pleasant, 
 and it is exhilarating to be swung along in mid-air 
 far above the heads of the tallest pines, with 
 forests, watercourses, valleys, precipices, and fallen 
 avalanches unrolling below you. As the wire- 
 rope has to run unsupported between its terminal 
 pulleys, the teleferic railway is made in short 
 stretches. We had to alight and change carriages 
 at about eight " stations " on our upward journey. 
 By the time we had reached the third or fourth I 
 was quite in love with the system, and came to 
 the conclusion that if it could be made entirely 
 safe and somewhat more comfortable it would 
 be a far pleasanter mode of mountain locomotion 
 
WAR AMID THE ETERNAL SNOWS 188 
 
 than the funicular and the cog-wheel railway, 
 with their smoke, and noise, and friction. 
 
 The teleferics have made this war at high alti- 
 tudes possible and even to a certain extent con- 
 venient. Ammunition, stores, material, moimtain 
 and field gtms, have been brought up the aerial 
 line ; it carries the daily food supplies and medical 
 stores with regularity and despatch ; wounded men, 
 too shattered to walk, are brought down reposing 
 comfortably on rugs in the shallow cars. The 
 teleferic is the vascular and nervous system of the 
 whole organisation, linking all together from the 
 distant base, where there are real railways and 
 good roads, to the distant first-line post, where a 
 few men keep ward above the clouds. 
 
 But these wires are too slight for heavy cannon. 
 As you glide along you see sheer walls of rock and 
 long perilous slopes up which, with rope, and lever, 
 and human muscles, the big pieces were hoisted. 
 You wonder how the thing could ever have been 
 done. But done it was ; as you have audible and 
 ocular evidence, for high above the highest of the 
 teleferics you hear the boom of cannon, and you 
 can see the smoke and flame issuing from some 
 nest of jagged rock jutting through the snow field. 
 
 We are well into the snows before we have done 
 with the teleferics. Long since we have left behind 
 
184 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 us green turf and Alpine flowers, the pines and firs 
 and heather. At the last station but one we are in 
 a bleak and lifeless solitude, where not even the 
 mountain ferns will grow. But the solitude is 
 peopled now, as it has never yet been in all its 
 millenniums of insolent desolation. At this point, 
 2500 metres high, the Alpine Clubs had erected a 
 " Rifugio," a good stone-built hut, where the 
 climber, having spent the day in moimting from 
 the valley, could pass the night before beginning 
 the ascent of the snow-peaks. 
 
 The Rifugio has been turned into a sort of 
 elevated goods station, a rail head for the tele- 
 ferics, and a forwarding and collecting centre 
 for the advanced posts higher up. Wooden 
 shanties and sheds perch among the rocks ; sacks 
 and barrels and cases and many planks are 
 heaped on the small platform of level ground in 
 front of the house ; hundreds of men are encamped 
 about here, and they are all as busy as bees, 
 hiving the stores that come from the distant warm 
 world down below, and passing them on to that 
 other world of emptiness and cold in front. 
 
 Pack mules can reach this point, and we saw 
 them stringed out in long files as they threaded 
 their surefooted way up the steep and narrow 
 trails. Here they discharge their loads, which have 
 to be repacked and distributed among porters who 
 carry the burdens to their ultimate destination on 
 
WAR AMID THE ETERNAL SNOWS 185 
 
 their backs and shoulders, or drag them over the 
 snow in sledges. These porters are mostly terri- 
 torials, middle-aged, ill-kempt soldiers, in shabby 
 uniforms, with not a shred of military swagger 
 about them. They do not enjoy their job hke the 
 Alpini, or take pride in it like the smart mechanics 
 of the Gtenio, the engineers ; they grumble and 
 grunt, and slouch along, with gloomy and reproach- 
 ful eyes peering above their woollen mufflers. But 
 they do their work all the same, they haul and 
 carry and plough through the snow, with the steady 
 inexhaustible patience of the Italian peasant- 
 workman. Italy owes much to these sturdy 
 stubborn fellows, who but for the war might be 
 toiling in their own little vineyards or reaping the 
 harvests of South America. 
 
 It was a hard life in the winter for the handful of 
 officers marooned in the Rifugio, with the mountain 
 paths blocked, so that they could not go down for 
 weeks at a time, and the snow drifting above the 
 windows. They saw nothing but snow and ice 
 and rock all the time, and one of them told me that 
 four months of this dazzling whiteness, this stern 
 black, and iron-grey, so got upon his nerves that he 
 shouted for joy when at last he was sent down and 
 saw green trees and grass and running waters again. 
 
 Matters are easier now. The stone building is 
 used as a store and warehouse ; the officers live 
 in wooden houses, well-warmed with .petrol stoves. 
 
186 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 and not uncomfortable. I lunched at one of their 
 messes, and found my hosts genial, good-humoured, 
 and conversational after the manner of officers in 
 the Alpine regiments. A lieutenant came in 
 muffled in fur cap and cape, his cheeks reddened by 
 the thrashing mountain blast. He had been out 
 since five that morning on skis running round the 
 sentry posts and vedette stations on the higher levels. 
 " It keeps the fellows awake," he said. " They get 
 lonelyupthere and like to see someone occasionally." 
 I suspect that was partly the reason why at 
 these elevated camps and billets I was myself so 
 cordially welcomed. It was a change for these 
 hermits to talk to somebody who had come 
 out of that other plane of being where there 
 are paved streets, and shops, and theatres, and 
 women, a change even to see civilian garb again 
 after the perpetual uniform. I spent a cheerful 
 hour with them and would gladly have lingered 
 longer. But the afternoon was wearing on, and my 
 guide reminded me that we had to cross the glacier 
 before darkness fell. 
 
 Beyond the Rifugio the ground rises shai'ply to a 
 great ridge from which the peaks stand out, with 
 small depressions or passes between them. There 
 was still another teleferic, newly laid, to carry us 
 almost to the opening of one of these passages. 
 
WAR AMID THE ETERNAL SNOWS 187 
 
 Through it we made our way on foot, and halted 
 at the spot which till the end of the spring was the 
 most advanced of the Itahan outposts. Just 
 behind us, and extending in a wide crescent on 
 either hand, was the summit ridge, with its crests 
 thrust skyward, in towers of blackness and horns 
 of ivory. Opposite, some three miles away, was 
 another and similar wall, similarly sentinelled by 
 tall, upstanding peaks. Between the two lay the 
 vedretta, the snow-covered glacier, a level white 
 sheet, looking like the frozen river it is. 
 
 This ice-river marked the boundary between the 
 Empire and the Kingdom, and all through the winter 
 and spring it separated their troops. On the one 
 bank, where I was standing, was the Italian out- 
 post line ; on the other were the Austrians, guarding 
 their own frontier. The vedretta lay between, too 
 broad to be crossed by rifle bullets ; but adventur- 
 ous patrols would sally out and encounter one 
 another in mid channel, and there were fierce 
 combats on the ice, and dead bodies left lying 
 under the snow drifts or tumbled into the 
 crevasses. Somewhere in one of these drifts a 
 whole platoon lies buried, sleeping under that 
 white shroud that will cover their bones till the 
 ^nountains give up their dead. 
 
 Glacier-walking for the unaccustomed is toil- 
 some work. " Let me look at your boots," said the 
 lieutenant. I showed them, a stout pair, shod with 
 
188 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 nails which I had deemed substantial. But the 
 Alpino condemned them as inadequate, and called 
 upon one of our escort to lace over them crampons, 
 the spikiest and most formidable. Even with 
 these aids, and an iron-pointed pole, my progress 
 was not rapid over the frozen surface with its 
 covering of snow, sometimes thin and slippery, 
 sometimes loose, heavy, and clinging. The glacier, 
 like other glaciers, is deceptive. When you look 
 down upon it from above it seems smooth and 
 even ; a nearer acquaintance shows it to be 
 crumpled and furrowed, and broken with little 
 hillocks and hollows, and occasional deep cuts in 
 the ice over which the snow lies treacherously. 
 
 All this makes slow and arduous travelling for the 
 inexperienced. It took us three hours to accom- 
 plish the passage, and as I slipped and stunabled 
 along I envied the transport parties which passed 
 us, moving with easy, certain steps under their 
 burdens, or harnessed like Esquimaux dogs to their 
 sleighs, and keeping a good round pace all the 
 time. 
 
 I was in a fit mood to appreciate the wondrous 
 tale of the conquest of the glacier wherewith the 
 lieutenant of the Alpini beguiled the way. His 
 was first-hand testimony ; for he had himself taken 
 part in the expedition. It was at the end of May 
 that the Italians, who had looked at their enemies 
 across the ice-river for many months, resolved to 
 
WAR AMID THE ETERNAL SNOWS 189 
 
 push forward. Four companies were allotted to 
 the task ; in this region the fighting is not done 
 by army corps and divisions. They started from 
 four different points at the edge of the vedretta, late 
 on a moonless night, amid a snowfall and a shriek- 
 ing wind. The darkness hung upon them like a 
 pall, and swept in black delusive shadows over the 
 gleaming surface of the ice-field. All landmarks 
 were lost, and the columns steered by the luminous 
 compass, counting their steps. Down the bank 
 they stole, heavy laden with great-coats, rifles, 
 ammunition, skis, a couple of machine-guns. 
 
 Very slowly and cautiously, under the bitter cold 
 and the wild hurricane, they crawled across the 
 glacier, crunching the snow softly under their boots, 
 so as not to give premature warning to the Austrian 
 sentries. And they were so far successful that they 
 got nearly to the foot of the hostile ridge before 
 the enemy made out their approach through the 
 dim lights of the coming dawn. 
 
 Even so, I thought as I toiled painfully up 
 that same ridge, it must have been an awkward 
 place to assault for tired and burdened men, 
 in the face of rifles and machine-guns. But 
 the soldiers fixed bayonets and with their 
 battle-cry of " Savoia," went forward at the 
 charge. The Austrians, not waiting to cross steel, 
 threw up their hands and surrendered as the 
 Alpini topped the bank. One body, I was told, 
 
190 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 after giving the token of submission, shot at their 
 opponents as they came up and were bayoneted in 
 stern retribution for their treacherous folly. 
 
 That was a matter of some eight weeks before 
 my visit, and in the interval the Italians had 
 established themselves in this advanced position 
 just beyond the old frontier. The Austrians had 
 fallen back and were well away in front of them on 
 somewhat lower ground, for here the boundary 
 rampart is at its highest. The little post for half 
 a company of men and half a dozen officers is so 
 buried in snow and rock that you are close upon it 
 before you know that it is there. It has not been 
 able to make a clearing for itself in the wilderness 
 like the Rifugio Camp lower down. You are over 
 your knees in snow in walking from one shanty to 
 another ; you lose all trace of the tiny settlement 
 if you move a hundred yards away in any direction. 
 
 But the occupants are proud of their abode, and 
 enlarge upon its amenities, pointing out with 
 complacency that this is no case of burrows and 
 dug-outs and caverns, but an affair of honest 
 wood building, with partitioned cubicles to sleep 
 in for anybody above the rank of sub-lieutenant, 
 and doors, positively doors with hinges, to some 
 of them. It was said that the colonel, when he 
 paid a visit to the post and slept in one of these 
 commodious apartments, hinted darkly at the 
 thirst for luxury which was undermining the 
 
WAR AMID THE ETERNAL SNOWS 191 
 
 spirit of his young men. Undoubtedly it is a great 
 achievement to have made the camp at all at this 
 spot ; for every plank of wood, every iron pipe and 
 nail, every shred of canvas roofing, has had to be 
 brought by wire-rope or mule-back, and by manual 
 haulage, from the valley 7000 feet below. 
 
 It is a rough little place but sound and strong. 
 The officers' hut with its bare wooden walls, deal 
 seats, and trestle tables, does not suggest luxury, 
 but it serves its purpose. There is a small cook- 
 house at one end, with a petrol stove wherewith a 
 soldier-cook, one of those accomplished culinary 
 artists to be found in every Italian platoon, tm-ned 
 us out a quite sufficient dinner. There was soup, 
 with other things, wine, coffee. As we sat round 
 the board, and smoked our cigarettes by the light 
 of candles (petrol is too valuable up here to be used 
 as an illumination) and chatted, while the cloud- 
 wreaths drifted past the tiny square of window, 
 and the night -wind raved and clamoured outside, 
 I felt warm and snug, and drank deep draughts of 
 what R. L. Stevenson calls the pleasure of shelter. 
 
 And there were other pleasures. Somebody 
 looked at his watch. " The postman will be here 
 directly," he said ; and presently the postman 
 came. Every evening does that invaluable official 
 travel up by the teleferic and then tramp across 
 the glacier bringing his budget for this camp and 
 its out-stations. He carries letters, post-cards, 
 
192 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 presents from wives, sisters, sweethearts ; he 
 bi'ings above all newspapers. In a few minutes we 
 were deep in the Corriere and the Secolo of that 
 same morning, we had before us the official 
 bulletins from all the fronts, we knew that the 
 Russians had netted another big catch of prisoners, 
 that the British advance was pushing splendidly 
 on, that more hill-positions were being captured in 
 the Trentino, we read Cadorna's reports, Joffre's, 
 Sir Douglas Haig's, just as people had been doing 
 in Paris and London only a few hours before. We 
 even had our evening paper ; for the colonel kindly 
 called us up by telephone, and read us out the 
 latest official despatch, the one issued at five 
 o'clock that afternoon and circulated from General 
 Headquarters by telegraph. Here we were really 
 ahead of the great world ; for only at its break- 
 fast table the next morning would the general 
 public learn the contents of that message. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 So there are worse places than the Glacier Camp ; 
 much worse places, said the officer who had shown 
 me his winter-quarters in the snow-bank. And 
 there are worse places even than that. Another 
 officer took me to where he had been in charge of an 
 observation-post for some time in the winter. It 
 was high up above the station, on a saw-backed 
 bit of slope, so steep and spiny that the snow would 
 
WAR AMID THE ETERNAL SNOWS 193 
 
 hardly lie on it. Here they raked together a sort 
 of cairn among the rocks and kept watch for a 
 fortnight. Their food was tinned cold meat, for 
 they could not light a fire ; and at night they could 
 not sleep since they had to move about to keep 
 themselves from being frozen to death. There are 
 still sentries out on such stations. In some of 
 the worst posts these men are relieved every half- 
 hour, and a spirit-stove of alcohol is kept biu-ning 
 to put life into them with a hot drink of cocoa or 
 coffee when they come into the guatd-room, chilled 
 and stiff after even that short vigil. 
 
 The soldiers have a wooden barrack, a low shed 
 with a domed timber roof, with bunks in tiers 
 along the walls, and a narrow passage down the 
 middle. I found it warm enough, but very close, 
 dark, and stuffy, not unclean all things con- 
 sidered, though pervaded by "an ancient and 
 fish-like odour " ; which is not to be wondered at 
 seeing that it is dormitory, kitchen, salle-d-manger, 
 and smoking-room for its tenants, who are packed 
 together here by day and night, and come in 
 streaming with perspiration or drenched by rain 
 and mist. 
 
 There is no window in the place, for warmth is 
 more prized than ventilation, and no artificial light ; 
 and in the cold and wind one does nothing that is 
 not absolutely essential out of doors. So when 
 the men come off duty they make for this obscure 
 
194 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 retreat, and snuggle into their berths with all 
 their clothes on, except their overcoats and boots. 
 They are here for three weeks or a month, and 
 during the whole time they do not wash or shave 
 or get a complete change of clothing. 
 
 The officers are a little better off, but it is a hard 
 life for them also, in spite of the alleviations 
 mentioned. Fresh water is too precious to be used 
 for the toilet, and melted snow is bad for the skin. 
 Anything will do for uniform, provided it is warm 
 and weatherproof, and the only point of import- 
 ance is to have good boots and plenty of stockings 
 and thick overcoats and mufflers . Officers are shaggy 
 and unshorn like their men. They are too hard at 
 work for the study of appearances, even if there 
 were facilities for that pursuit. When their spell 
 of duty here is over they go back to billets or the 
 reserve camps, and get out their civilised gar- 
 ments and bathe and shave and become 
 smart, once more. Yet both officers and 
 men are said to be healthy, and they were in 
 excellent spirits. The keen, cold air, the hard 
 exercise, the perpetual tension of the artillery duel 
 which never ceases, the greater excitement of pre- 
 paring an attack or waiting for one, keep them in 
 prime condition, fit and well. 
 
 * 
 
 |c >|c 
 
WAR AMID THE ETERNAL SNOWS 195 
 
 A long day under the mountain breeze makes 
 sleep welcome. After we had finished our dinner 
 and talk, and walked out a little in the moonlight, 
 I went to bed in the private chamber assigned to 
 me, one of the cubicles with doors. The bed was 
 a wooden bunk ; and if there were no blankets and 
 sheets, there was that most excellent substitute for 
 them, a sleeping-bag lined with sheepskin. I took 
 off outer garments, and plunged into this fleecy 
 receptacle, and lay warm and comfortable, till 
 slumber gripped me with an imperative hand, and 
 I slept like all the rest in the sleeping camp, except 
 the sentries, vigilant with fixed bayonet, looking 
 out across the darkness towards Austria and the 
 enemy. 
 
 But it was shivery work to get up in the cold 
 darkness of the dawn, to pull on sodden boots and 
 leggings, and to sally forth upon the snow frozen 
 crisp and hard during the night. The wind had 
 risen and was blowing in fierce gusts, so that the 
 return passage across the glacier was uncomfortable. 
 Indeed the storm was so violent that several of the 
 teleferics were declared dangerous for passengers, 
 and we had to make a good part of the descent on 
 foot. Gtoing down is easier than coming up ; but 
 as we dropped through the mountain paths, and 
 then gradually, by ferny copses, and deep winding 
 glens, to the lakes where the mules awaited us, I 
 saw how long the way really was, and admired 
 
196 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 afresh the forethought, industry, and determination 
 which had so shortened it that all this lofty tract 
 of barren land could be brought within the sphere 
 of military operations. 
 
 It would have been worth a much more fatiguing 
 journey, and a much less interesting one, to gain a 
 perception of the manner in which resolute will 
 and clear-sighted intelligence had triumphed over 
 physical obstacles that might have seemed in- 
 superable. The war, in many of its phases, has 
 brought that lesson home. It has set forward the 
 limits of human endeavour ; it has revealed un- 
 expected depths of courage, capacity, endurance, 
 resourcefulness, in the men of many nations. And 
 in that revelation Italy has had her share. If she 
 has been spared the greater sacrifices of her Allies 
 she has at any rate shown that she, too, is capable 
 of strenuous exertion and high endeavour, that she 
 can carry through a difficult and perilous task with 
 cool forethought and daring energy, that she can 
 rely upon the patriotic ardour of her citizen- 
 soldiers, and the scientific skill and organising 
 ability of their leaders. The more closely this 
 Italian campaign of the high mountains is exam- 
 ined the more remarkable it appears, and the 
 more creditable to those who have taken part 
 in it. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 'IMPRESSIONS OF THE ITALIAN ARMY 
 
 ITALY AND THE WAR SPIRIT NO MILITARISM — AN 
 
 UNOBTRUSIVE ARMY — ^ABSENCE OF SHOW AND 
 SWAGGER A QUIET GENERAL STAFF PLAIN- 
 LIVING AND HARD WORK — ^THE WELL-FED RANK 
 AND FILE — GOOD CLOTHES AND CLEANLINESS 
 ECONOMICAL AND EFFICIENT ADMINISTRA- 
 TION — THE ARMY MEDICAL SERVICE — THE 
 
 ITALIAN SOLDIER A GOOD PATIENT A MODEL 
 
 HOSPITAL — POETRY AND PAINTING IN THE 
 FIELD " NAVVY AND HOUSEMAID " 
 
 rilHE Italians are a brave and spirited people, 
 -*- and during the past hundred years they have 
 done their share of fighting ; but they have not 
 been accustomed to consider themselves a military 
 nation. That is to say, they, like ourselves, look 
 upon war as a disagreeable expedient only to be 
 adopted when national honour and interests can 
 be vindicated in no other way ; and they do not 
 in the least accept it, like some of its recent Teutonic 
 admirers, as a " biological necessity," or as a 
 divinely ordered medicine for the ills of humanity. 
 They think more highly of the artist, the scholar, 
 the poet, and the scientist than they do of the 
 
 197 
 
 / 
 
198 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 soldier, though they admit that his trade is honour- 
 able and useful. 
 
 For the past quarter of a century they have 
 been absorbed, despite their African adventures, 
 in the works of peace. The country has been 
 passing through a period of economic reconstruc- 
 tion, and the energies of many of its most capable 
 citizens have been devoted to commercial, indus- 
 trial, and scientific pursuits. The Triple Alliance, 
 supported by very powerful political groups, was 
 regarded with no enthusiasm,^ but it seemed at 
 least to offer sufficient security against inter- 
 national dangers, and it was thought that Italy 
 was under no immediate obligation to develop 
 her warhke resources to their highest potential 
 capacity. Her most influential statesmen had 
 allotted only a minor share of their attention in 
 recent years to problems of strategy and military 
 organisation, expenditure on the national defences 
 had been rigidly controlled, and the deficiencies 
 revealed in the Tripoli campaign, or caused by 
 that enterprise, had not been made good. When 
 the storm burst in 1914 there was no nation in 
 Europe — ^not excepting our own — which was less 
 prepared for a great war or less desirous of it. 
 Militarism is the last offence of which Italy can 
 be fairly accused. 
 
 * * 
 ' See in/ca, chaps. XIII and \l\. 
 
IMPRESSIONS OF THE ITALIAN ARMY 199 
 
 There is not much of the pomp and circumstance 
 of glorious war in any modern miUtary force when 
 it is embodied for the field. But of such qualities 
 there is less in the Italian army than in almost any 
 other with which I am acquainted. It is the 
 quietest, the most unostentatious, the least swag- 
 gering, of warlike services. In this and in other 
 ways it is characteristic of a nation whose 
 instincts are essentially democratic. 
 
 The Italians have never, at least in modern times, 
 had a miUtary caste, and they do not want one. 
 They adopted national service as a matter of 
 necessity, and they are reconciled to its incidents 
 and burdens. But their attitude towards the 
 soldier is that he is just an ordinary citizen engaged 
 in performing indispensable duties for the state. 
 He deserves proper treatment in peace, and all 
 possible attention and consideration in time of war. 
 The Italians are proud of their army as they are 
 proud of their communal savings banks and their 
 technical schools. It is a creditable national 
 institution. But it does not inspire the kind of 
 mystic adoration which it arouses in Germany, or 
 even the romantic enthusiasm which gathers about 
 it in France and other countries. To fuss over a 
 sub-lieutenant would seem as absurd to most 
 Italians as it would be in England to make an idol 
 of the policeman. 
 
 I suppose this is the reason why Italian soldiers. 
 
•200 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 even in war, do not give themselves airs. Officers 
 and rank and file are unobtrusive and self-effacing. 
 It is hard for the man in uniform not to exhibit, or 
 at any rate to feel in his heart, a certain pitying 
 contempt for the male civilian. If there is any 
 such sentiment in the Italian army it is so care- 
 fully repressed that one doubts whether it exists. 
 The soldier is not encouraged to cut himself off 
 from the rest of the community by accentuating 
 differences in speechy manner, bearing, and habits. 
 In Germany the moment a recruit puts on his 
 uniform he belongs to a nation within a nation. 
 He is expected, and indeed reqtiired, to talk, walk, 
 and act in a distinctive fashion. There is a military 
 dialect, staccato and laconic, which is not the 
 language of ordinary life. But Antonio or Giuseppe 
 with the colours behaves much the same as other 
 folks except when actually engaged upon his 
 military duties. 
 
 Service uniforms are not decorative anywhere. 
 The Italian is one of the least decorative of any. 
 Officers and men are clothed in a dress of plain 
 stout serviceable greenish drab. The Alpini still 
 keep their jaunty mountain hats sometimes 
 adorned with an eagle's feather, and the Bersag- 
 lieri have their dashing black plumes. Otherwise 
 there are hardly any distinctions between the 
 various regiments and arms of the service, except 
 for modest little badges on cap and collar. For the 
 
IMPRESSIONS OF THE ITALIAN ARMY 201 
 
 trenches a helmet has been adopted, very like the 
 French, well modelled and dignified. The alterna- 
 tive headgear is a soft peaked little cap. For leg 
 covering there are drab putties, which were intro- 
 duced some three or four years ago, and are worn 
 by infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineers, and train. 
 They are not always rolled in a manner that wovdd 
 be accepted by a sergeant-major in a British 
 regiment, and the wearers do not seem very 
 comfortable in them. I doubt whether they will 
 survive the present war except for the mountain 
 troops. Already the high boot, lacing over the 
 trousers, is coming in, and the soldiers, I am told, 
 like it better. 
 
 On the march some of the Italian regiments can 
 cover the ground at a very fair pace ; and the 
 Alpine companies will breast the steepest acclivities 
 at the double and have wind enough left ii; them 
 for a bayonet fight at the top. That was how they 
 got \ possession of Monte Magari, on the Asiago 
 plateau. The Austrian commander had spread his 
 force along the sloping side of the mountain, think- 
 ing the main attack would be made there, and left 
 only a weak guard to defend the other, and as it 
 seemed inaccessible, face. But the Alpini took the 
 precipices with a run, made short work of the small 
 detachment of infantry at the summit, and 
 tumbled in among the surprised artillerymen before 
 they had realised that they were in danger from 
 
202 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 this quarter. A whole battery was captured by a 
 frontal attack of infantry, which is a thing that 
 happens very rarely indeed in this war. 
 
 When off duty, however, the soldier conserves 
 his forces. He does not waste his energy by walk- 
 ing fast in hot weather, but moves with a slow 
 dragging step, and with small regard for that 
 squareness of back and shoulder, wherein drill- 
 instructors delight. As he lounges along the 
 street, with his little grey cap, his loosely cut grey 
 jacket, his knickerbocker legs, he might be mistaken 
 for a bicyclist shop-assistant out for a Sunday 
 holiday. 
 
 The ItaUan officer before the war was often a 
 rather dressy warrior. Now his attire is so like 
 that of his men that you wonder how the latter can 
 pick him out quickly enough to render the salute 
 which is given and acknowledged with punctilious 
 formality. His uniform is precisely of the same 
 cut, and apparently of the same material, as that 
 of the rank and file. Compared with him the 
 French officer, in his pretty service suit of sky blue 
 with laced cap, or the English, with his sword- 
 belts and brown leggings, is ornamental. 
 
 The Italian officers, in the war-zone, wear no 
 belts when off duty ; often they wear no shoulder- 
 straps with rank badges, and they too invest their 
 legs for the most part in putties, sometimes even in 
 stockings. Faint reminiscences of the older tradition 
 
IMPRESSIONS OF THE ITALIAN ARMY 203 
 
 still cling to the younger cavalry officers, as they 
 stride along, booted and spurred, with immaculate 
 figures that suggest artificial aid to the inquiring 
 eye. First-rate horsemen and the keenest of 
 soldiers are these cavaliers, and dearly would they 
 love to " take on " the Hungarian hussars in a fair 
 field if modern strategy would give the white arm 
 a chance. As it is some of them are doing infantry 
 work, and doing it with the conscientious industry 
 of their colleagues. 
 
 * 
 
 It is a business-like, hard-working army. Every- 
 body is closely occupied, and the hours of duty are 
 long. This applies to the General Staff as well as to 
 all the rest. General Staffs at the fronts are retiring 
 in their habits. They do not, for obvious reasons, 
 unduly advertise their presence. But on this 
 front self-effacement is carried further than in 
 most others. I am imder the impression that the 
 great majority of the inhabitants of the place 
 where the Comando Supremo is located could not 
 take you to its offices ; I fancy that a good many 
 do not even know that they are entertaining such 
 distinguished visitors. 
 
 There are no " brass hats " in the Italian 
 General Staff, there is no picnic element. The 
 staff-officer wears much the same garb as his 
 regimental comrades, and moves about in similar 
 
204 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 unostentatious fashion. There is not that constant 
 dashing to and fro in motor-cars which one is 
 accustomed to associate with hfe at headquarters, 
 general and other. The Comando Supremo can 
 have all the automobiles it wants, for every car in 
 Italy is at its disposal when and if required. But it 
 discourages their unnecessary use. Officers, even 
 very high officers, are not too proud to go from one 
 bm'eau to another on foot, instead of keeping a car, 
 a chauffeur, and a mechanic hanging about all day 
 to save a ten-minutes' walk. For any military duty, 
 where a car is really requisite, a well-appointed 
 fast vehicle is always to be had. But the officers 
 are instructed that whenever they can travel by 
 railway, without detriment to the interest of the 
 service, they should do so. For the trains are 
 running in any case (they continue to run with 
 astonishing regularity right into the war zone), 
 whereas cars use petrol, and petrol costs money. 
 And Italy does not mean to spend more money 
 than it can help over this very expensive 
 campaign. 
 
 Life at headquarters in the Italian army — ^and 
 for that matter in every other army — is arduous 
 and rather dull. The most important personages 
 are in their offices at seven or eight in the morning, 
 and you will find them there at eight in the 
 evening or later, Sundays as well as week-days. 
 An occasional very early canter, an hour with 
 
IMPRESSIONS OF THE ITALIAN ARMY 205 
 
 friends at the caf6 after dinner, are about their 
 only relaxations. There are no games or sports 
 for the officers, nor, I think, for the men. The only 
 game that is afoot just now is the great game of 
 war, and they are all anxious to get on with that 
 without distraction, and then go back to the 
 occupations and avocations they had to leave 
 when the country called upon them ; for, of course, 
 the larger proportion of the officers are not pro- 
 fessional soldiers but civilians, with other interests 
 in normal times than those of the army. 
 
 Now their sole interest is the campaign, and they 
 are absorbed in it. Some of them have not seen 
 their families for many months, though they could 
 reach them by rail in a few hours. There are no 
 week-end trips home, the home which may be so 
 near, no occasional spells of furlough. Officers in 
 the war-zone are entitled to fifteen days' leave in 
 a year, and that is all that any of them has taken, 
 from General Cadorna downwards. 
 
 They live simply and plainly. If you dine at a 
 mess, even of high staff-officers, with men among 
 them who bear famous names and historic titles, 
 you will be hospitably and sufficiently entertained 
 but with no undue luxury. You will probably note 
 that about half the company are drinking no wine, 
 and that the other half do not smoke. They tell 
 you that alcohol and tobacco interfere with the 
 alertness of body and clearness of thought 
 
206 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 demanded in active service. No doubt they are 
 right. But when you know what his bottle of 
 bianco or rosso, and his cigarette, mean to most 
 Itahans of the well-to-do classes you realise that 
 these men have mastered one of the prime lessons 
 of the craft of war : they have learnt how to make 
 
 a sacrifice. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 The economy with which the Italian campaign 
 is being conducted is not attained, so far as one 
 can judge, at the expense of efficiency. There is a 
 stern objection to wasteful expenditure, and all 
 the costly and superfluous trimmings of an army 
 are ruthlessly cut down. But everything that is 
 necessary to keep the soldier in good health and 
 condition, everything that adds to the effective- 
 ness of the great machine, is supplied with an 
 ungrudging hand. 
 
 The soldier is very well looked after. I doubt 
 whether there is a better -fed fighting man on any 
 of the fronts. Our own may get more solid food, 
 as well as tea, jam, and other things which the 
 Italian soldier does not want. The daily ration of 
 the private in khaki may weigh some oumces 
 heavier than that supplied to the man in grey, but 
 it is not more nourishing nor wholesome. The 
 Itahan of the working classes is a very moderate 
 eater in the ordinary way ; it is more than 
 
IMPRESSIONS OF THE ITALIAN ARMY 207 
 
 probable that the majority of the peasants and 
 labourers now in the ranks have never in their 
 lives been so well fed. They obtain every day a 
 sufficient allowance of meat, bread, flour, coffee, 
 vegetables, and with that they enjoy wholesome and 
 appetising meals. They also receive daily a draught 
 of light red or white wine, which is the national 
 drink of the country. It provides the soldier with 
 the mild stimulant to which he is accustomed, and 
 renders it unnecessary for him to spend his soldi in 
 the village taverns. On the contrary, I am told 
 that he is even saving out of his pay, having every- 
 thing he needs, down to a few cigarettes, provided 
 by the Government, so that he is often able to send 
 something weekly to his wife, who is working away, 
 as these Italian women work, to keep the family 
 farm or the little family shop in going order. 
 
 The quality of the food is excellent. One day 
 I went out to look at one of the gun positions just 
 behind the trenches. It was near a very remote 
 and sequestered hill village in which the battery 
 commander and his staff had their quarters. Our 
 inspection finished, the colonel invited us to lunch 
 with himself and his officers at their mess, whicK* 
 was in the little village school-house. We had a 
 most satisfying repast, soup, meat, macaroni, 
 fruit, coffee, everything of the best. I was the more 
 surprised at this menu when I was informed that 
 it was mainly composed of the army rations. 
 
208 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 The meat, coffee, and bread — ^admirable bread it is, 
 of unbleached wheaten flour — ^were the same as 
 supplied to the soldiers. They could have almost 
 as good a meal themselves every day if they chose. 
 " Not quite so well cooked ? " I suggested. " Quite 
 as well," said the colonel ; " perhaps better. Our 
 fellows are capital cooks and rather particular in 
 their taste. They will go hunting about the 
 cottage gardens for the herbs which give the right 
 flavouring to their soup." 
 
 The clothing and appointments are also good. 
 There is little outward show ; but the things 
 bought for military use if plain are of excellent 
 quality and cannot be cheap. Officers and men 
 wear service uniform of the same cloth, and very 
 sound, strong cloth — much of it comes from 
 English looms — ^it is. The same may be said of the 
 soldiers' boots, blankets, and equipment. In the base 
 camps and temporary barracks they sleep in iron 
 bedsteads with canvas hammock mattresses. The 
 bedstead is a framework of posts and rods, which 
 takes to pieces for transportation, and the 
 hammocks are hung in two or three tiers. This 
 arrangement has superseded the wooden plank bed 
 laid on the floor : it costs more but it is healthier 
 and more comfortable, and it saves space. 
 
 No barracks could be kept cleaner. In this 
 respect the Italian Army is well up to our own 
 standard and possibly above that of the French. 
 
IMPRESSIONS OF THE ITALIAN ARMY 209 
 
 The men are required to take scrupulous care of 
 
 their belongings and their persons. There is 
 
 nothing of the poilu about the Italian ranker, who 
 
 has not been encouraged to think that hairiness 
 
 and untidiness are among the martial virtues. 
 
 They cut their hair short, shave clean, and wash. 
 
 Going over the barracks of an infantry battalion 
 
 I asked the major to let me see a private's kit. The 
 
 officer turned to the man by whose cot we were 
 
 standing and ordered him to exhibit his property. 
 
 The soldier took down his knapsack, great -coat, 
 
 belts, etc., rolled in a neat bundle on his bed, and 
 
 produced everything for our inspection. Nothing 
 
 could have been in better order. There was a 
 
 spare grey cotton shirt, thin slippers, brush, comb, 
 
 razor, soap, cooking tin, a canned emergency 
 
 ration, socks, and long strips of linen rag to enwrap 
 
 the feet for marching, all spotlessly clean. The 
 
 belts are of rather rough leather, not pretty but 
 
 strong. The boots are stout and serviceable ; the 
 
 bayonet a long, business-like looking weapon ; and 
 
 generally the soldier seems well found in everything 
 
 required to enable him to live in reasonable comfort 
 
 and perform his duties. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 The Italian Army Medical Service, the Corpo 
 Sanitario, like most of the others, was not organised 
 on a scale to cope with the exigencies of such a war 
 p 
 
210 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 as this. The International Red Cross has furnished 
 a strong contingent, and the ItaHan Army is 
 gratefully appreciative of the services rendered by 
 Mr. Trevelyan's admirable hospital unit, and the 
 other British ambulances. For the rest the Corpo 
 Sanitario, with its nucleus of exceedingly well trained 
 officers, found itself compelled to draw freely upon 
 the civilian resources of the country. The general 
 practitioner of the Italian villages and provincial 
 towns, a hardworking and earnest professional 
 man as a rule, is a medical officer in the field and 
 base hospitals, with keen young students to assist 
 him, and the most eminent members of the faculty 
 to supervise his proceedings. The duty of tending 
 the sick and wounded is simplified by the habits of 
 the people. The Italian labourer can be content 
 with a very moderate allowance of " medical com- 
 forts," of which he gets a most minute quantity 
 when he falls ill in his own house. 
 
 He makes a good patient, and receives all 
 needful attention, though he is less luxuriously 
 cared for than Mr. Thomas Atkins when disabled. 
 Hardy, contented, and enduring, the invalid 
 Italian soldier can lie quietly in his bed all day, 
 and is neither bored nor irritable if he is not 
 provided with visitors, cigarettes, and books to 
 while away the long hours. There is, however, an 
 excellent voluntary committee, conducted by ladies 
 and gentlemen of the Lombard aristocracy, which 
 
IMPRESSIONS OF THE ITALIAN ARMY 211 
 
 collects books and magazines for the field hospitals. 
 Also in many towns there are wooden boxes, with 
 wide slits, at the street corners, wherein one is 
 invited to deposit newspapers for the wounded. 
 
 I am told that at the beginning of the war some 
 of the hospitals found themselves overwhelmed by 
 the sudden influx of patients, and they had to make 
 such improvised rough-and-ready arrangements as 
 they could. Trained nurses were scarce, but the 
 nuns and sisters of the religious orders rose to the 
 occasion, and noble work they have done for the 
 sick and injured in their quiet, undemonstrative 
 fashion. 
 
 Whatever may have been the case at first, the 
 great base hospitals of the Corpo Sanitario are now 
 magnificent establishments. I saw one which is 
 capable of receiving over three thousand patients, 
 so that when full, with its staff, nurses, and orderlies, 
 it will house some five thousand persons — a little 
 town in itself. Its buildings had formerly been the 
 barracks, riding-school, and stables of a cavalry 
 regiment, and in some of the whitewashed wards 
 you could still see the mangers out of which the 
 horses had fed and the rings to which they were 
 tethered. 
 
 These buildings had been converted into ex- 
 cellent hospital rooms, large, light, and airy ; 
 and all the appurtenances, the X-ray apparatus, 
 bacteriological laboratories, operating chambers, 
 
212 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 and disinfecting plant, were up to the very latest 
 level of modern medical science. Over them at 
 least no expense had been spared. There is no 
 finer hospital, on so large a scale, in any of the war- 
 theatres. If it had a fault it struck me that it was 
 too cold, precise, formal, rigidly perfect, without 
 the touch of homeliness which our cheery Red 
 Cross girls and brisk young army doctors contrive 
 to impart to our own establishments. But, at 
 any rate, these Italian military surgeons, some of 
 them of the regular service, others called up for 
 the war from their practices, were full of profes- 
 sional zeal, and radiating with inteUigence. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 It is indeed an intelligent army in all its sections, 
 the army of a people which has some claim to call 
 itself the most intellectual, as well as the most 
 artistic, in Europe. The artistic quality comes 
 out everywhere and in unexpected places. In an 
 officers' mess I visited in one of the new barracks 
 behind the lines I found the bare timber walls and 
 ceilings covered with pictures, little " bits " from 
 the camp and the trenches, and clever caricatures 
 of the enemy, and of Italy's special butt, the old 
 Austrian Emperor. A couple of young artists, 
 serving in the ranks of the battalion, had done 
 these things in their leisure time, 
 
IMPRESSIONS OF THE ITALIAN ARMY 213 
 
 The men's own sleeping rooms are sometimes 
 similarly ornamented, and even the outside of the 
 huts will be decorated with conventional designs 
 and arabesques or patriotic inscriptions. There is 
 always somebody in an Italian battalion who can 
 paint, and generally somebody who can write 
 poetry. If Kipling were an Italian writer his 
 verses would be recited round every camp-fire, as 
 D'Annunzio's are. In the Isonzo region there is an 
 unusually commodious observation post burrowed 
 out of the earth. It is disused now ; but at the time 
 of the great advance eastward it was the office and 
 directing station of an Army Commander, so that 
 its rooms were walled and floored and furnished 
 with hinged doors. These things one has seen 
 elsewhere ; but not the lines from patriotic poets 
 painted in letters embellished with scrolls and 
 flourishes all round the plank walls. There was one 
 much-quoted sentence by D'Annimzio : " May 
 every blow find its mark, every citizen be a 
 warrior, every warrior a hero." 
 
 The Italian soldier likes adorning his quarters, 
 pulling them about, altering them, and generally 
 working at, and on, them. It is his favourite 
 amusement, and his substitute for the games and 
 recreations which help to pass the time in other 
 armies. Even in the trenches he is always busy, 
 reconstructing, consolidating, making improve- 
 ments, inventing fresh ingenious contrivances for 
 
214 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 his own comfort and the deception of the 
 enemy. 
 
 There is a lot of this kind of work to be done in all 
 trenches and it is not usually popular. " I thought 
 I was to be a soldier," grumbled a disgusted British 
 linesman, " not a blooming combination of a navvy 
 and a housemaid." The combination does not hurt 
 the feelings of the Italian ranker. He is a good 
 navvy, a good housemaid; he likes digging, and 
 building, and cleaning up, and arranging and mov- 
 ing things. And he carries his handy and domes- 
 ticated habits right up to the battle-field, and keeps 
 himself bright and active and cheerful by their aid. 
 
 The officers take much interest in these occupa- 
 tions of their men. The service discipline is strict, 
 and military offences are severely punished. But 
 the social line between the commissioned and non- 
 commissioned grades is not drawn so rigidly as in 
 some other armies. There is a good deal of the 
 camaraderie between ofiicers and men which pre- 
 vails in the French service ; and though the 
 formalities are duly observed the private finds it 
 possible to talk to a lieutenant in a natural tone, 
 and the captain does not behave to a corporal as if 
 he belonged to a different variety of the human 
 species. But then it is an army where, even in 
 peace time, it may happen that the corporal is the 
 son of a duke or a miUionaire and the captain a coun- 
 try lawyer or a bank manager in a provincial town. 
 
o 
 z 
 
 S 
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 Oi 
 
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 n 
 
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CHAPTER XII 
 
 TRANSPORT AND MUNITIONS 
 
 Italy's difficulty — unprepabedness— inade- 
 quate RESOURCES THE MOBILISATION OF IN- 
 DUSTRY THE TRANSPORT PROBLEM : RAILWAYS 
 
 AND ROADS THE FIAT COMPANY OF TURIN 
 
 THE ANSALDO WORKS NEAR GENOA — AN IMPRES- 
 SION OF OVERPOWERING ENERGY — HOME INDUS- 
 TRY : A VISIT TO A SMALL CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 TTALY, like the other Powers of the Anglo - 
 Latin-Slav Alliance, was in no condition for 
 war on the modern Titanic scale, when the European 
 conflict began. Like the rest she had not in the 
 least understood — or at least her statesmen and 
 governing administrators had not understood — 
 that the war would be mainly one of machinery 
 and heavy guns. Like the rest of us she was more 
 or less obsessed by the old traditions. She knew 
 that her troops were brave, and she believed they 
 would be well led. Just as Britain and France 
 supposed that the elan and courage of their men, 
 and the spirit of their officers, would prevail 
 against the harsh disciphne and lavish equipment 
 of the Germans, so Italians hoped that their 
 
 215 
 
216 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 patriotism and determination would overcome the 
 motley hordes of the Hapsburg Monarchy, driven 
 into battle by leaders they distrusted, for a cause 
 many of them disliked. 
 
 In all these calculations the importance of the 
 material element, munitions, guns, mechanical 
 transport, immense supplies of projectiles, was 
 underestimated if not ignored. 
 
 The secret of the Austro-German preparations 
 had been well kept. None of the Allied General 
 Staffs seems to have been aware how large a part 
 in infantry tactics would be played by machine- 
 guns, or how inadequately, in comparison with 
 their enemies, they were furnished with these 
 formidable weapons. None of them knew that 
 the Germans and their partners intended to 
 supplement, and largely supersede, the mobile 
 artillery of the field by long-range ordnance of the 
 heaviest calibres, and that the pieces hitherto 
 regarded as "siege guns " and fortress guns would 
 be the determining factor in every battle. And 
 none knew — perhaps the Germans themselves did 
 not know — how gigantic would be the consump- 
 tion of shrapnel and high explosive shells, and how 
 the whole industrial resources of the greatest 
 nations would be taxed by the devouring greed of 
 the batteries. 
 
 When the time came to make up the deficiencies 
 the situation of Italy was in some respects worse 
 
TRANSPORT AND MUNITIONS 217 
 
 than that of the other chief members of the Entente 
 group. She had allowed her military establish- 
 ment to fall as far below the requisite level, judged 
 by the new standard which the Central Alliance 
 had set, as Britain, even though, unlike Britain, she 
 had the system of national service in good working 
 order. But her statesmen, intent upon internal 
 politics and the rivalries of peace, hypnotised, 
 some of them, by the Teuton magic, had never 
 found time to master the elements of modern mili- 
 tary science. The arsenals were unequal to a sudden 
 and much increased demand ; heavy guns, and 
 machine-guns, and even rifles were utterly in- 
 sufficient ; there were no large reserves of explo- 
 sives and projectiles. The organisation of all the 
 supply services was antiquated and imperfect. 
 In August, 1914, Italy would have had little to 
 oppose to the well -equipped legions of her enemy 
 except plenty of wilHng hearts, strong arms, and 
 energetic brains. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 Fortunately she was not called upon to plunge 
 into war, like England, at a few days' notice. She 
 allowed herself a breathing space of nearly ten 
 months, and those months were well used. But 
 her disadvantages were numerous and severe. 
 Britain, after all, was the first industrial com- 
 munity of the world, with almost unlimited pro- 
 
218 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 ductive resources, that required to be directed 
 rather than enlarged in order to supply the needs 
 of the armies. 
 
 Italy was in a very different position. Her 
 industries had been rapidly increasing diiring 
 the previous three decades, but she was still 
 not in the front rank, or even barely in the 
 second rank, of the great manufacturing nations 
 In metallic and mechanical production in particular 
 she stood far below Great Britain, the United 
 States, Germany, France, and even Russia and 
 Belgium. Busy and active as were the Milanese, 
 Turin, and the Genoese Riviera, there was no 
 Italian " black country," no such tracts seamed 
 with mines, and scarred with foundries and blast 
 furnaces, as Lancashire, Westphalia, the Sarr 
 Valley, or the occupied districts of North-Eastern 
 France and Western Russia. 
 
 Of coal Italy had next to none ; of iron and 
 steel very little ; she had fine workshops and 
 factories but not too many of them. 
 
 For her machinery and hardware generally, she 
 had been largely dependent on Germany. Her 
 engineers are of the best, in some branches of 
 metal work like electric welding and iron casting 
 she has no superiors, her artisans, mechanics are 
 as skilful, laborious, and persevering as any in the 
 world. But her industrial army was still weak and 
 it was cantoned in small portions of the Peninsula. 
 
TRANSPORT AND MUNITIONS 219 
 
 It was necessary both to extend and to mobilise 
 industry for war purposes. This task, after the 
 first period of indecision and dissension had gone 
 by, has been pursued in Italy with a quiet intensity 
 that has borne amazing results. Like all the 
 Latin countries Italy has suffered from over- 
 centralisation and the excessive power of a bureau- 
 cratic hierarchy. Where "the State " does much 
 it is always easier for the State to do more. The 
 Italian administrators, when they set to work in 
 earnest to concentrate national activities on the 
 one indispensable object, did not find themselves 
 brought up at every turn by an inherited distrust 
 of governmental action and a rooted individualism. 
 There was no trouble in Italy about labour dilution, 
 longer hours, or the control and diversion of out- 
 put. That the Government, in the greatest of all 
 emergencies, should dispose of every man's activity 
 and deal at its will with his property did not seem 
 unreasonable to people, trained to obedience by 
 administrative autocracy, and by the conscription. 
 
 The Italian authorities had been given leism'c 
 to see what was being done in England and Prance. 
 They watched the experiments carefully and pro- 
 fited by them. They constituted a Ministry — 
 though it is only called an Under-Secretariate — 
 of Munitions, and they found in General Dall' 
 Olio an administrator of genius whose work, done 
 under the able supervision of General Porro, may 
 
220 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 be compared with that of Mr. Lloyd George 
 and M. Albert Thomas. As in the other allied 
 countries it was found desirable to carry out the 
 provision of war material under local direction. 
 In every district commissions were appointed to 
 co-ordinate the industries and increase the output. 
 Swiftly and smoothly the whole nation was organ- 
 ised for its new functions, and its productive 
 capacity, in the special lines demanded, increased 
 by leaps and bounds. 
 
 It was not merely in the industrial north that 
 this energy was manifested. The mobilisation 
 covered all Italy, and extended to Calabria, Sicily, 
 Apulia, and other provinces, where they had been 
 content to grow silkworms, and export wine and 
 olive-oil, and emigrants. The emigrants stayed at 
 home, and if they were not called up to the regi- 
 ments they went to the mtmition factories which 
 sprang up by hundreds throughout the coimtry. 
 
 There was little friction over exemption and 
 no tribunals were necessary. Employers were per- 
 mitted to retain a certain number of their able- 
 bodied workmen, on the condition that they should 
 be kept to war work and the execution of govern- 
 ment orders. Training-schools were opened for 
 the instruction of the unskilled labourers, of whom 
 Italy possesses an ampler reservoir than most coun- 
 tries, in the use of machinery and mechanical tools. 
 
 If the young fellows were wanted for the fight- 
 
TRANSPORT AND MUNITIONS 221 
 
 ing line the older men were available. One saw 
 them everywhere in the factories, and on the road 
 and field works, grizzled veterans in their forties, 
 and fifties, and even sixties, handling saw and drill, 
 pickaxe and shovel, with something of the ardour, 
 and more than the persistence, of untamed youth. 
 
 All the belligerent nations have had to call upon 
 women to do men's work, and nobly have the 
 women responded. In Italy the summons was 
 issued with reluctance and hesitation. The Italians 
 have retained the Southern and Oriental idea about 
 woman : her place is the home. True the con- 
 tadina works on the land, and helps to gather in 
 the crops and tend the goats ; but that does not 
 violate the rule because, to the Italian peasant, the 
 home includes the farm and the byre. The 
 segregation of women by the hundred in mills and 
 factories is a novelty in Italy which runs counter 
 to much popular feeling and popular prejudice. 
 
 I told an accomplished and open-minded Italian 
 officer of my acquaintance about our girl-typists, 
 and our female bank clerks, mechanics, porters, 
 club attendants, our chauffeuses, lift-girls, post- 
 women, and so forth, and expressed some surprise 
 at seeing so little dilution of male labour in 
 Italy in these and other occupations. He answered 
 rather tartly : " We are a nation of large families, 
 and we think that women have quite enough to do in 
 looking after their children and their households," 
 
222 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 Nevertheless, the prejudice has bent before 
 the pressure of the national exigency. Many 
 women have answered the summons to help the 
 country in its hour of need, and I was told that 
 at least fifty thousand would be found in the muni- 
 tion factories before the summer of 1916 was over. 
 
 Raw material and plant were a more serious 
 difficulty than labour. The German and Austrian 
 supplies of iron ore, steel, and machinery were cut 
 off. Machine tools were scarce and the most 
 indispensable requisite for them, tungsten, was 
 almost a monopoly of the British Empire. On 
 this point and some others, there was a certain 
 amount of friction between the two countries, 
 which it needed all the invaluable tact and ex- 
 cellent judgment of Sir Rennell Rodd to smooth 
 away. Steam-power was costly to raise, -with 
 coal from Cardiff at £6 and £7 a ton ; and loud 
 and bitter were the plaints I heard everywhere 
 on this score. Matters were made easier after 
 Mr. Runciman's visit to Italy. But there is a 
 great warning for the future in what has happened. 
 Italy needs cheap coal and plenty of it ; and she 
 looks to Great Britain and the British Government 
 to arrange that she gets it, not only during the 
 war, but after the war is over. 
 
 But if Italy is short of coal she has plenty of 
 water ; and wonderful work has been accom- 
 plished in the utilisation of the mountain streams 
 
TRANSPORT AND MUNITIONS 223 
 
 and waterfalls for generating electric-power, which 
 is superseding steam, and will render Italy in the 
 future far less dependent on imported fuel to feed 
 her factories. 
 
 By these and other means, and it may be added 
 with the help of substantial contributions from 
 the United Kingdom, France, and America, the 
 shortage of munitions and weapons, which ham- 
 pered Cadorna's operations in the earlier stages 
 of the war, has been made good, and in the 
 attack on Gorizia the Austrian batteries were 
 smothered by the Italian rain of fire. It is said ^ that 
 Italy can now turn out as many cannon in a month 
 as she formerly produced in a year, that her out- 
 put of projectiles of all types is thirty times 
 greater, and her production of rifles two hun- 
 dred times greater than it was at the outbreak of 
 hostilities. And she has given, as well as received, 
 aid. She has supplied Russia, France, and even 
 Great Britain with some valuable and needed war 
 
 material. 
 
 * 
 
 One of the Members of the Russian Parlia- 
 mentary Delegation, which visited Italy in the 
 summer, made an interesting speech on his return 
 to Petrograd. His countrymen, he said, were filled 
 with admiration by the almost superhuman efforts 
 1 Daily Chronicle, Sept. 7, 1916. 
 
224 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 by which the Italians have overcome the natiiral 
 and physical obstacles to their progress. " Then we 
 saw that batteries had been planted where, as 
 it seemed to us, only the eagles could soar, we 
 saw trenches excavated in the solid rock, and 
 from them we knew that the troops had waged 
 bitter war through all the rigours of the winter." 
 It was not merely the courage and endurance of 
 the soldiers that impressed the Russian visitors, 
 but the manner in which the difficulties of transport, 
 supply, and organisation had been surmounted. 
 
 An army, as we know, " marches on its stomach." 
 In these days it may be added that it carries its 
 stomach on wheels . Its chances of filling the hungry 
 mouths of its men, the bigger and more hungry mouths 
 of itscannon, depend upon thenumber of its wheeled 
 vehicles, and its capacity to move them quickly. 
 Somebody has said that six-sevenths of the art 
 of war is the art of carrying heavy things from one 
 place to another. Railways, roads, automobiles, 
 motor-lorries, waggons, are the nervous and 
 muscular system of a modern army in the field. 
 Without them the valotor of the troops is futile, 
 and the skill of the generals wasted, and even 
 the industry of the munition workers ineffective. 
 For shells and cartridges are useless if they are 
 not available at the right time and place for pro- 
 jecting against the enemy, 
 
 Italy had not only to make these weighty 
 
TRANSPORT AND MUNITIONS 225 
 
 articles, but to drag them up a steeply rising 
 country badly provided with facilities for rapid 
 locomotion. There are only two trunk railway lines 
 running northward to the Austrian frontier, one 
 from Verona through the Trentino to Botzen and 
 Innsbruck, the other through Udine and Pontebba 
 to Villach, Klagenfurt, and ultimately Vienna. 
 
 The Austrians had ringed the whole frontier 
 on their side with a railway system that starts 
 from Riva at the head of Lake Garda, passes 
 right round through the valleys of the Tyrol and 
 Carinthia into Carniola, and then down to Trieste 
 and Fiume. This line is connected with the main 
 railway routes of the Empire and Germany, and 
 it is supplemented by a network of roads, whereby 
 the Austrians were enabled to deliver troops and 
 stores rapidly to their southern border. 
 
 Here the communications broke off ; the 
 Italians did not venture to make strategic railways 
 and roads on their own side, for to have done so, 
 as I have pointed out, would have meant war 
 with Austria any time during the past fifteen years, 
 in spite of the Triple Alliance. Thus roads had 
 to be largely dispensed with at the beginning of 
 the operations, until they could be constructed 
 or improved, by almost incredible exertions and 
 an unsparing expenditiu-e of labour, after war was 
 declared. When I see these brown, sun-baked, 
 bare-throated peasants and workmen, hewing, 
 Q 
 
226 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 chipping, digging, hammering, on the mountain- 
 side, with tireless industry, in the dust and heat, 
 I take off my hat to them. I hope their country- 
 men duly appreciate the brave, humble, patient 
 fellows, I hope they will give them also badges 
 and medals to hand down to their children when 
 the victory is won. For they will have done as 
 much to secure it as the adventurous Alpini or 
 the dashing Bersaglieri or any other troops of 
 the fighting first line. 
 
 The transport problem was complicated. Troops 
 and supplies had to be collected from all parts of 
 Italy, and conveyed to the northern corner of the 
 Peninsula ; and they had likewise to be shifted 
 from one part of the long front to another, 
 according to the tactical and strategic exigencies 
 of the moment. Here the railways which inter- 
 lace the plain of the Po, and their feeders from 
 Central and Southern Italy, did their share and 
 did it admirably. General Cadorna issued an 
 Order of the Day, praising the managers and staffs 
 of the railways for the manner in which they met 
 the heavy demands of the military authorities in 
 the first fortnight of June, when the great transfer 
 of troops to the Trentino took place, and when 
 the new 5th Army was embodied and carried to 
 the front. 
 
 The eulogy is thoroughly deserved. The sudden 
 strain cast upon the railways was tremendous, and 
 
TRANSPORT AND MUNITIONS 227 
 
 it says much for their management that they did 
 not break down under it. On the contrary all 
 went rapidly and even smoothly. The new army 
 of five hundred thousand men was assembled from 
 reserves, depots, drafts, and distant stations, 
 formed into brigades and divisions, provided with 
 its equipment and stores, and conveyed to its 
 allotted positions, in little more than a week. 
 
 It adds to our astonishment to learn that, except 
 for a few days, the railways did not find it necessary 
 to exclude civilian traffic altogether. Throughout 
 the campaign the service has been maintained 
 with a quite extraordinary amount of regularity. 
 Railway travelling in Italy goes on, right up to 
 the war-zone itself and into it, almost " as usual," 
 more so I think than in France and England. 
 Some trains are suspended, especially those that 
 used to serve the great tourist routes from Switzer- 
 land and France, for there are no tourists now. 
 But the trains that continue to run arrive and 
 depart with fair punctuality, and except for the 
 numerous military uniforms in the carriages and 
 on the platforms, and the minute inspection of 
 passports, passes, and safe -conducts, the ordinary 
 routine seems to prevail. 
 
 * * 
 
 The railways alone could not have coped with 
 these rapid movements and transfers of troops. 
 
228 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 Italy had another invaluable transport asset, as 
 the Russian visitors noted, in the possession of the 
 finest automobile factory in the world. The work 
 of the Fiat Company of Turin is one of the romances 
 of the war, as the history of the company itself is 
 among the most amazing romances of industry. 
 In Turin I spent many hours traversing these 
 immense ranges of foundries, forges, engine- 
 rooms, and machine shops, these vast sheds of 
 concrete, glass, and iron, which seem to cover 
 whole quarters of the city and suburbs, and house 
 the activity of some eighteen thousand workmen. 
 
 Sixteen years ago there was no Fiat Company ; 
 the Fiat works had not begun to exist. Three 
 gentlemen in Turin, interested in motoring, started 
 a most modest little factory, with a few thousand 
 francs capital, in order to supply themselves and 
 their friends with automobiles of good construc- 
 tion at a reasonable price. One was a lieutenant 
 of cavalry, another a man of business, the third 
 an engineer. They seciired the fine Fiat model, 
 built about the best car then on the market, and 
 by a combination of technical skill and organising 
 ability in a few years they were in the very front 
 of the trade, selling their engines and carriages all 
 the world over. 
 
 To-day they own one of the two largest in- 
 dustrial establishments in Italy, and the largest 
 automobile factory in Europe. There is nothing 
 
TRANSPORT AND MUNITIONS 229 
 
 in Britain, France, or Germany to compare with 
 them. In the United States there are works which 
 employ more men and sell more cars. But these 
 American firms are not as complete and self- 
 contained, they do not themselves make all the 
 parts they assemble. In the Fiat shops they do 
 everything. Nothing comes in from outside but 
 the raw material : they make their own steel, 
 their own bronze and brass, their own plant. The 
 crude iron, aluminium, timber, are brought into 
 the Turin works ; they go out again as cars, 
 lorries, trucks, engines for automobiles, engines for 
 submarines, aeroplanes, all complete to the last 
 film of varnish. 
 
 How many of these complex and finely finished 
 machines they turn out every twenty-four hours, 
 I know but may not tell. If I did perhaps I should 
 not be believed. The number is incredible, or 
 would be so, if incredible things were not happening 
 every day of this wonder-age in which we live. 
 One fact may be mentioned. When the great 
 movement of the troops in the early part of June 
 was being arranged the head of the Army Trans- 
 port Department told the Fiat directors that he 
 required 545 additional motor-vehicles within one 
 week. It was a " large order," even for Fiat. 
 But it was executed. During the specified seven 
 days the carriages were put together, completed, 
 and delivered to the military authorities : 545 
 
230 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 automobiles, or to be correct 546, for an extra car 
 was thrown in " for luck." 
 
 That wild rush of half a million men to the 
 Trentino Front I did not see, but I have heard 
 many stories of it from those who did. To some of 
 these I have referred already. Strange spectacles 
 were witnessed as the long columns raced breath- 
 lessly up the roads that run northward through 
 the hills. There was no speed limit. By night as 
 well as by day the cars tore and bumped, often over 
 half-made tracks with perilous angular turns. 
 Sometimes a machine broke down and the pro- 
 cession was held up till the course was cleared ; 
 sometimes one would fall into a torrent or roll off 
 the dark unfenced road down a steep slope to 
 destruction. 
 
 All kinds of vehicles were impressed and 
 put to odd uses. Upon a street omnibus, licensed 
 to carry twenty-six passengers, a whole platoon 
 of soldiers, with all their kit, would cluster and 
 swarm like bees. The headquarters staff of a 
 division would travel in a tradesman's cart ; and 
 a mountain gun would loll luxiiriously on the 
 silken cushions of a fashionable lady's automobile. 
 But in one way or the other the thing was done. 
 The Army " got there " — in time. 
 
 *** 
 Just as Fiat came to the rescue with transport in 
 
TRANSPORT AND MUNITIONS 231 
 
 the time of deepest need, so the War Department, 
 hard pressed for guns and projectiles, had a most 
 valuable auxiliary in the Ansaldo works near 
 Genoa. This great establishment, which is con- 
 verting a beautiful corner of the Riviera Ponente 
 into a kind of Italian Newcastle or Sheffield, long 
 had close British affinities. It was founded by a 
 couple of English engineers to make and repair 
 locomotives for the Italian railways ; and until 
 a few years ago it worked in association with 
 Armstrong's. Now, entirely under Italian manage- 
 ment and direction — ^the very capable direction of 
 Commendatore Pio Perrone and his brother — it 
 takes rank among the prime shipbuilding and 
 armament firms of the world, in the class of 
 Elswick, Krupp, Creusot, and Vickers. It has its 
 own foundry and steel works (one of the largest, 
 perhaps eventually to be quite the largest, in 
 Europe) ; it builds super -dreadnoughts, de- 
 stroyers, torpedo-boats, motors, petrol engines, 
 twelve-inch guns, field-guns, machine-guns, every 
 instrument required for destruction and slaughter 
 in gross and in detail. 
 
 When the European War broke out the Ansaldo 
 directors rose to the occasion. They did not wait '^ 
 till Italy came in ; they knew she would come in, 
 sooner or later, and they got ready. Without 
 orders from a still hesitating and undecided 
 Ministry they set to work, enlarged their capacity. 
 
232 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 laid down new machinery, engaged and trained 
 fresh labour, and more than doubled the number 
 of their hands. They were the first in Italy to 
 recruit female munition workers, of whom, when 
 I visited them in July, some eight hundred were 
 engaged, not only in filhng shells, but using lathe, 
 cutting tool, and drilling machine, with the energy 
 and skill of our own women operatives, and 
 perhaps with superior physical strength : for they 
 are strong-armed, deep-bosomed maids and 
 matrons, these daughters of the plough, who have 
 been bred to hoe and weed and dig and bear 
 burdens (and many babies), in the maize-fields and 
 fruit gardens of Liguria and Piedmont. 
 
 Ansaldo's built twelve hundred guns during those 
 months while Italy was still neutral. These un- 
 solicited cannon did much to save the situation, 
 when the country at length plimged into war with 
 a Power which, for eight years, had been preparing 
 heavy ordnance of a class and calibre unknown 
 before in operations on land. 
 
 A walk roimd the great machine-shops, gxm- 
 foundries, steelworks, and shipyards at Sam- 
 pierdarena and Sestri Ponente gives you an almost 
 overpowering impression of energy and activity. 
 Here the mammoth installations and monstrous 
 engines of modern metallurgical industry confront 
 you everywhere, and stupefy you with their 
 vastness and superhuman force. You see the 
 
TRANSPORT AND MUNITIONS 233 
 
 immense furnaces and retorts where rivers of 
 white-hot steel run hke water, the yawning pits, dug 
 deep into the earth, where the ingots for the great 
 guns are cast. The guns themselves, huge hulks of 
 grey metal, lie unregarded about the floor or sway 
 from chains overhead. An iron door is thrown 
 open, and you gaze into an inferno of glowing 
 colour, violet, carmine, and blood-red, so fierce 
 and fiery that it would blind you if your eyes were 
 not shielded by a plate of smoked glass. You see 
 the crucible tapped and the molten metal splashing 
 from it like the runlets of a mountain cascade. 
 You watch a workman cutting solid blocks of cold 
 steel, as if they were butter, with the thin sword of 
 flame from an oxy-hydrogen gas burner. You 
 stand amazed once more at the wonder, familiar 
 enough but always marvellous, of the steam- 
 hammer, that miracle of irresistible and obedient 
 strength, which heaves its ponderous ram aloft at 
 the turn of a handle ; and at another tiun brings it 
 down, with a touch so light that it will hardly break 
 an egg, or with a blow that will grind an oaken 
 plank to sawdust. 
 
 It was strange to find oneself in this riot of 
 industrial fury amid the exquisite peace of the 
 Riviera. Outside the sea lay before us, a sheet of 
 deep and motionless azure, asleep under the noon- 
 day sun. The white-sailed boats, the blue flood, 
 the shore set in brown and emerald, the dreaming 
 
234 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 hills — ^this was Italy. But the throbbing factory, 
 with its jarring engines and clattering wheels, its 
 smoke -wreaths and gleams of red fire, this also 
 was Italy, the new, restless Italy of scientific 
 endeavour and practical achievement. 
 
 * 
 
 * * 
 
 I went back into Genoa, and told an English 
 friend who lives in the noble city, that I had seen 
 Ansaldo's. " Come with me," he said, " and I will 
 show you something else likewise worth seeing." 
 
 We turned into a narrow street, and a still 
 narrower alley, pushed at an inconspicuous door, 
 and descended a few steps. I found myself in 
 a tiny basement workshop, just a single room 
 with a lathe, an anvil, and a small furnace. A 
 stout, cheerful, middle-aged mechanic, in shirt- 
 sleeves, busy at the lathe, gave us a courteous 
 greeting, and readily explained his occupation. 
 
 He was making the ring-heads of shells for one of 
 the munition factories, and had been doing nothing 
 else for months, and expected to be doing it for 
 months to come. Under the orders of the (Govern- 
 ment or the local Committee he had specialised at 
 this job, for it was one that a skilled workman, with 
 his own little plant, could perform expeditiously 
 and well. The gauges and models were supplied 
 to him, and his task was to turn out as many of the 
 
TRANSPORT AND MUNITIONS 235 
 
 metal rings as he could. He can deliver 150 of 
 these articles in a week. 
 
 " Do you do it all yourself ? " I asked. " Myself 
 — ^yes ! " he said ; " con questo ragazzo," pointing 
 to a sturdy boy of fourteen blowing the bellows 
 of the furnace. He was working seven days in 
 the week, and earning what would seem a con- 
 temptible wage to our own labour aristocrats in 
 the mimitions district ; but it was more than he 
 usually made, and he was well content. Besides 
 — "it helps la patria," he said, with a smile. 
 
 So here was one phase of that mobilisation of 
 industry which Ansaldo and Fiat represent at the 
 other end of the scale. These small craftsmen, 
 working on their own account, are to be found 
 scattered over Italy, where the factory system is 
 still too new to have absorbed them all ; and any 
 such mechanic who has a few tools for metal 
 cutting, and the requisite skill, has been called 
 upon to make war material, and so to do his own 
 little "bit " towards helping la patria in the hour 
 of its necessity. ^ 
 
 1 " La mobilisation civile a cree une veritable force d'arriere, 
 formee de tous les ouvriers qui travaillent pour I'arinee, et le 
 moindre producteur est devenu, lui aussi, un participant a la 
 guerre, un collaborateur, un soldat." — Chabriaut and Amici- 
 GroesIj L'ltalie en guerre, p. 254. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 WHY ITALY IS FIGHTING 
 
 AN ACT OF VOLITION IDEALISTS AND REALISTS — 
 
 "per LAPIU GRANDE ITALIA" SACRED EGOISM 
 
 INCENTIVES TO PEACE INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS — 
 
 INFLUENCES AGAINST WAR THE POLITICIANS — 
 
 THE PARTY LEADERS SIGNOR GIOLITTI THE 
 
 GREAT BOSS AND HIS MACHINE GERMAN 
 
 FINANCIAL PENETRATION THE BANCA COM- 
 
 MERCIALE AND ITS OFFSHOOTS ITS ALLIANCE 
 
 WITH GIOLITTISM ITALY AND THE TRIPLE 
 
 ALLIANCE GROWING DISLIKE TO IT AUSTRIAN 
 
 AGGRESSIVENESS SERBIAN PROJECT OF 1913 
 
 IDEA OF A " PREVENTIVE " WAR WITH ITALY 
 
 THE TREATY AND THE WAR IN 1914 — ARTICLE 
 
 VII ITALY NOT BOUND OR CALLED UPON TO 
 
 JOIN THE CENTRAL POWERS — NEUTRALITY 
 EXPECTED 
 
 rilHE case of Italy is somewhat different from 
 -■- that of other members of the Anti-German 
 league. Like the rest she is fighting to vindi- 
 cate individual and national liberties against 
 militarist autocracy. But she was not compelled 
 to fight in the vain effort to avert destruction, like 
 ■^Belgium and Serbia ; war was not forced on her 
 
 236 
 
WHY ITALY IS FIGHTING 237 
 
 by the Central Powers, as it was upon France and 
 Russia ; nor had she, hke Britain, such obligations 
 of honour and duty that she could not have stood 
 aside without ignominy. 
 
 It is true that Italy had a good technical case 
 for a breach with Austria ; but the wrong done to 
 her, though serious, was not so overwhelming that 
 she would have been disgraced if she had decUned 
 to go to war over it. She could undoubtedly have 
 remained neutral if she had so chosen ; her present 
 allies put no pressure upon her to draw the sword ; 
 and the Germanic League was extremely anxious 
 to keep her out of the belligerent circle. She came 
 into the conflict of her own volition, after long 
 deliberation, and with full appreciation of all the 
 consequences involved. It must be admitted, 
 then, that she is at war because she wished to 
 be at war, because peace, at this crisis of the 
 world's history, would have meant the abandon- 
 ment of her aspirations, and the neglect of her 
 interests. 
 
 She pursues both aims, the ideal and the material, 
 with equal steadiness of purpose, for the Italians,' 
 more than most people, know how to cherish the 
 one without losing sight of the other. The nation 
 which produced Mazzini as well as Cavour, 
 Petrarch no less than Machiavelli, is able to 
 keep a balance between realism and idealism. 
 M. Barres tells us that even when he is talking with 
 
238 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 D'Annunzio he cannot forget that he is in the 
 country that gave birth to Mazarin. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 Everywhere in Italy just now you see the 
 inscription : Per la piii grande Italia — for the 
 Greater Italy. The soldiers write it on the walls of 
 their barracks, and fall with the words on their 
 lips. It is the thought that nerves them in toil and 
 danger. It means two things : it means an Italy 
 greater in territory, in power, in commerce, in the 
 world's estimation ; and it means also an Italy 
 greater in her own self-consciousness in that she 
 / will have fulfilled the dream of the Bisorgimento 
 and brought all the Italian peoples under one flag 
 and one allegiance. Per la piii grande Italia is the 
 complement to that cry of Italia unita which 
 sent the heroes and martyrs to the battle and the 
 goal in the nineteenth century. 
 
 But if the Italian war — la nostra guerra — ^is one 
 of ideals do not let us forget that the ideal is 
 to be attained by the highly practical method of 
 seizing territory, ports, islands, railways, strips of 
 coast-line, naval bases. There are dreamers whose 
 heads are not in the clouds, poets who will not be 
 content with a diet of the most inspiring phrases, 
 enthusiasts who mean business. 
 
 The combination is not new in Italy. Three- 
 quarters of a century ago Vincenzo Gioberti, the 
 
WHY ITALY IS FIGHTING 289 
 
 philosopher and thinker of Italian Nationalist 
 Liberalism, wrote in his famous Primato civile 
 e morale degli Italiani: — "What great things are 
 we doing, we Italians ? What are our achieve- 
 ments ? Where are our fleets, our colonies ? What 
 place do our envoys hold at foreign courts — ^what 
 authority, what influence do they wield ? What 
 weight does Italy throw into the European scale ? 
 Do foreigners know anything of our peninsula, do 
 they visit it for any other reason but to enjoy the 
 eternal beauty of its skies and gaze upon its ruins ? 
 Who talks of our glory, our riches, our power ? " 
 
 That was in 1843 ; we might be listening to 
 D'Annunzio in 1915. Again there is this haunting^- 
 suggestion of impotence, of futility, of patronage, 
 which so many Italian patriots resent. Perhaps 
 that was implied in the declaration which the 
 Prime Minister, Signor Salandra, emitted during 
 the beginning of the negotiations with Austria, 
 when he said that Italy's policy would be inspired ^ 
 by a "sacred egoism " : self-assertion sanctified by 
 high aims and an elevated patriotism. 
 
 It is then a war of ideals ; but also, in a sense,~~\ 
 a war of aggression, a war of conquest, like that 1 
 which was waged fl,gainst Turkey for the acquisition 
 of Libya and the Dodecanese. For Italy, in some 
 measure, resembles Germany rather than England/ 
 and France. She is not one of the satiated nations, 
 who want only to be left in imdisturbed possession 
 
240 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 of their winnings ; but, on the contrary, politically 
 
 young, hungry, suffering still from growing pains ; 
 
 with adolescent appetites that cannot well be 
 
 satisfied without causing inconvenience somewhere. 
 
 So, like Germany, and like Serbia, she is pricked by 
 
 the fever of "expansion" ; and so she is waging war, 
 
 as Germany is, to enlarge her place in the sun, 
 
 though not with German methods or German 
 
 contempt for the claims and liberties of others. 
 
 Thus, though there is an ideal underlying Italy's 
 
 motives, we need not suppose that her action, 
 
 either in war-making or in peace-making, will on 
 
 this account be unduly swayed by sentiment or a 
 
 visionary altruism. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 Yet when the European War started, in the late 
 summer of 1914, it might have seemed as though 
 Italy were extremely unlikely to be drawn into it. 
 She had declined to join the Central Powers in arms, 
 on the ground that her obligations, under the Triple 
 Alliance, did not cover the case of an aggressive 
 war such as that precipitated by Austria's assault 
 upon Serbia ; but it was a long step from this to 
 participating with the Entente in active hostilities 
 against her former associates. Neutrality was the 
 obvious attitude ; and it was that which probably 
 the great majority of Italians expected and at the 
 time approved. 
 
WHY ITALY IS FIGHTING 241 
 
 Italy was not in a warlike mood ; nor, thou^ it ^ 
 had thrown itself with some animation into the 
 carefully limited contest with Turkey, had war 
 occupied any large share of its attention during 
 the preceding years. In those years the national 
 energies had been concentrating on industrial 
 progress and internal reconstruction. The country . 
 had begun to share in the economic revival which 
 had come in turn to most of the other European 
 states, it was entering upon the process of change 
 that had modified so profoundly the life of 
 Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, and some 
 provinces of Austria and Russia. 
 
 To casual foreign eyes Italy appears so blessed 
 by the boimty of nature that the poverty, which 
 weighs heavily on much of this smiUng land, is not 
 seen. The Italians themselves know that since their 
 cities ceased to be the markets of the world's trade 
 they have had but a scanty share of the world's 
 wealth. They know that the country is in reality 
 still poor. A third of it is mountain and forest, its 
 mineral resources are sniall, its soil is in large districts 
 so thin that a living can only be eked from it by 
 incessant and remorseless labour. But other poor 
 coimtries have become rich by manufactiu:es, trade, 
 financial exploitation. Why not Italy ? 
 
 The intelligence of the country was much 
 inclined to apply itself to this question. And the 
 results were promising. The most capable minds of 
 
242 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 their generation were turning to commerce and 
 industry, and the people generally were absorbed in 
 the works of peace. Internal reconstruction and 
 economic reform were the subjects of discussion in 
 the press and at political meetings. How to 
 relieve the poverty and servile conditions of the 
 masses, how to increase the productive capacity of 
 the nation, were topics of which more was heard 
 than foreign policy. 
 
 Italy's prime wealth lay in her reservoir of cheap 
 and willing labour, and it was asked why this 
 should be drained off year by year to enrich 
 foreign countries. Let us export goods, they said, 
 instead of exporting men. 
 
 Substantial progress had been made in some 
 provinces. In Piedmont and Lombardy, in par- 
 ticular, industry and commerce were moving 
 forward in long strides ; manufactures were 
 growing ; in Milan, Turin, Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, 
 and other large towns, there were all the signs of 
 expanding comfort and rising luxury. 
 
 The mercantile and propertied classes had never 
 been so well off, and they looked with confidence 
 on the future. Nothing could be more distasteful 
 than war, which would interrupt all this peaceful 
 activity, and involve unknown and unwelcome 
 dangers and adventures. The intellectual classes 
 were turning eagerly to scientific and learned study, 
 the traders and manufacturers wished to go on 
 
WHY ITALY IS FIGHTING 243 
 
 money-making, the reformers were intent on 
 social amelioration, the working-classes saw pros- 
 pects of better wages, the peasantry only asked for 
 lighter taxes and larger markets. Nobody wanted 
 war : least of all the politicians. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 Italian politics had suffered from that partial 
 eclipse of parliamentary institutions which had 
 come upon the other nations of the European 
 family. But in Italy there were special causes for 
 the decline. Owing to the clerical boycott of the 
 ballot-boxes many men of education and standing 
 who were professing Catholics, as nearly all Italians 
 are if they are not freethinkers or " freemasons," 
 declined to take part in the elections or to come 
 forward as candidates. 
 
 The wealthy bourgeoisie were immersed in trade 
 and industry ; the aristocracy, disliking the turmoil 
 and trouble of popular election under a wide demo- 
 cratic franchise, had almost fallen out of politics. 
 Some great nobles, like the late Marquis di San 
 Giuliano, still entered the diplomatic service, from 
 which they occasionally passed into the Senate and 
 the Gk)vernment ; but as a rule the dukes and 
 marquises avoided the Chamber and the Cabinet. 
 The members of the famous Italian families, whose 
 very names are a challenge to the imagination, 
 
244 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 Visconti, Colonna, Doria, Pallavicini, and others, 
 were to be found in the cavalry regiments, or hving 
 on their estates, or amusing themselves with the 
 pleasures of Roman society, or sometimes occupied 
 with the new phases of banking and finance ; not 
 many of them were attracted by parliamentary life. 
 
 The advocates, professors, publicists, minor 
 ocal magnates, and semi-professional politicians, 
 who rose to the surface in the Chamber of Deputies, 
 and managed party affairs, were not particularly 
 well known to the bulk of their countrymen. Some 
 of their leaders were men of ability and high 
 character ; but in Italy, as in other states of 
 Western Europe, it had happened that those who 
 controlled public business owed their position to 
 industry, knowledge of affairs, and the respect 
 felt for their integrity and experience, rather than 
 to any magnetic force of personahty or exceptional 
 brilliancy. 
 
 It is singular that the greatest crisis in the 
 history of mankind found Europe scantily provided 
 with great men. Italy, like the other countries, had 
 some talent but little genius. And, as in the other 
 countries, the emergency brought out imsuspected 
 qualities ; firmness, judgment, and patriotism were 
 found sufficient to overcome difficulties before which 
 perhaps genius would have failed. 
 
 There was, however, one outstanding figm-e in 
 Italian politics. For many years past Signer 
 
WHY ITALY IS FIGHTING 246 
 
 Giovanni Giolitti had dominated the legislature 
 and the administration. He had been Finance 
 Minister as long ago as 1889, had been in and out 
 of Cabinets ever since, and had thrice held the 
 premiership. In or out of office his was the con- 
 trolling spirit. He was, as Gladstone once said of 
 himself, an old parliamentary hand, a hand of 
 vigorous grasp and exceeding dexterity. If he was 
 not a great statesman, nor a deep thinker, he was a 
 master of the art of party management, an adept in 
 what the Americans call " machine " politics. He 
 ran the Italian political machine as the bosses of 
 Tammany Hall used to run the municipal business 
 of New York City ; and by much the same devices. 
 
 It is not necessary to impugn his motives or 
 to question his patriotism. He may have 
 thought that the method he adopted was the 
 only way to remove the uncertainty and in- 
 security of government by party in a country 
 where the constitutional system was still raw, and 
 that the best interests of Italy could be served by 
 creating a stable majority of some kind. For the 
 shifting groups, moved by vague cries and depen- 
 dent on popular caprice, he substituted a compact, 
 disciplined body of parUamentary legionaries, 
 dependent on himself. 
 
 The organisation of this well-drilled cohort was 
 carried out with perseverance, adroitness, and a ^ 
 plentiful lack of scruple. All the ai'guments which 
 
246 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 appealed to the weaker, and some also which 
 influence the stronger, side of human natm'e were 
 brought to bear. It was made worth while for a 
 politician with aspirations to enlist under the 
 Giolittian banner. I once asked a famous American 
 boss to tell me how he contrived to retain the 
 fidelity of his miscellaneous following. " Well," he 
 replied ; " the boys trust me. They know that if 
 they look after me I will look after them." 
 
 Signor Giolitti looked after his " boys." The 
 deputy or the elector, who voted straight — or voted 
 crooked — at his bidding, knew that he stood a good 
 chance of getting what he wanted ; those who defied 
 him had to reckon with a relentless antagonism. 
 The spoils of office went to the obedient and were 
 severely withheld from the insubordinate. Indi- 
 viduals, corporations, localities, found that their 
 desires — ^good or bad — could be fulfilled by arrang- 
 ing with the great party manager, and were almost 
 certain to be thwarted if they opposed him. 
 
 " Giolittism " became a recognised factor in 
 Italian public life, and in due course the most 
 potent factor. It prevailed at the ballot-boxes and 
 in Parliament. There was no force in the Chamber 
 that could stand against the trained battalion, 
 which manoeuvred so effectively at the word of 
 command, and was quite ready to attack universal 
 suffrage at one sitting and defend it at the next, 
 if so ordered. It was au accepted axiom that no 
 
WHY ITALY IS FIGHTING 247 
 
 Cabinet could live without the support of Signor 
 Giolitti, or in opposition to him. When he chose 
 he took the premiership himself. When it suited 
 him he would retire in favour of a successor on 
 whom he thought he could rely. When the 
 European conflagration came the " Dictator " was 
 seventy-two ; but age had not lessened his energy 
 nor abated his influence. He was still the power 
 behind the throne in Italian politics. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 There was another power more subtle, per- 
 vasive, and penetrating with which he was closely 
 associated. Few foreigners before the war knew 
 how far the German financial subjugation of Italy 
 had gone ; nor do they see it now in all its signifi- 
 cance unless they read such books as those of 
 Preziosi and Henri Hauser, ^ in which the details 
 of the amazing story are given. These writers and 
 others have shown how Germany, through its 
 financial and mercantile agencies, was throwing 
 its tentacles about Italy. 
 
 The Banca Commerciale, nominally an Italian 
 concern, in reality directed by German nominees 
 intimately connected with great German financial 
 groups, and through them with the (ierman 
 
 ' G. Preziosi, La Germania alia Conquista delT Italia (Florence, 
 1916) ; Henri Hauser, Les methodes allemandes d'expansion 
 economique (Paris, 1916). 
 
248 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 Government, was the nerve-centre of the process. 
 In less than twenty years from the time of its 
 modest and unobtrusive installation it had made 
 itself an unrivalled power in Italian finance, and had 
 its hands upon many of the most important indus- 
 trial enterprises throughout the Peninsula. It owned 
 shares in many joint-stock companies and numer- 
 ous private businesses ; and it took care that in 
 th6ir conduct the interests of German manu- 
 facturers, exporters, and investors were effectively 
 promoted. It achieved successes commensurate 
 with its multifarious activities and limitless versa- 
 tility. Turin, Naples, Genoa, Bari, Catania, above 
 all Milan, were becoming financial colonies of 
 Germany. , 
 
 But it did not confine its energies to business, 
 or rather it mixed business with other matters. 
 It took an active, though unacknowledged, part 
 in social and public affairs. In a poor coimtry, just 
 awakening to the seduction of money-making by 
 short cuts, a great organisation, which had the 
 disposal of cash and shares, found no difficulty in 
 gaining influence. It covild interest Roman and 
 Lombard society by the offer of directorates and 
 speculative facilities ; it had places of various 
 kinds, managerships, clerkships, appointments 
 abroad, for useful clients of a humbler rank ; it 
 could offer more sordid blandishments to those 
 Avho Avould receive them. 
 
WHY ITALY IS FIGHTING 249 
 
 It was keenly interested in the press and is said 
 to have been always open to an arrangement with 
 any journal or journalist prepared to accept its 
 attentions. It maintained a " bureau of commer- 
 cial information " which was in close touch with 
 the German secret service. For the bank was a 
 political as well as a financial organisation, and 
 one of its main functions was to permeate Itahan 
 politics with the Teutophil idea. To this end it 
 directed its subterraneous activities upon muni- 
 cipal and parliamentary pohtics, and was ready to 
 offer its aid to candidates and representatives of 
 known Germanic sympathies. It had its agents, 
 partners, and friends in the municipalities, the 
 Chamber of Deputies, the public offices, some- 
 times in the Cabinet. 
 
 Between " Giolittism " and these Teutonic 
 crusaders there was an excellent understanding. 
 Signor Giolitti was the strongest Italian champion 
 of the Triple Alliance. In internal politics he was 
 something of an expert, and he had carried useful 
 administrative reforms. But of international 
 affairs he knew little, ^ and had hardly given 
 the subject serious attention. He held that the 
 
 1 So little that according to Dr. Dillon lie wanted Signor 
 Salandra to appoint as Foreign Minister a deputy named 
 Schanzer, who was an Austrian hy hirth, a Jew by religion, and 
 entirely destitute of diplomatic experience. But he could speak 
 three languages^ and the Dictator thought that was sufficient 
 qualification. Also — he was an ardent Giolittian in politics. 
 Dillon, Prom the Triple to the Quadruple Alliance, p. 159. 
 
250 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 only safe course for Italy was to work in strict 
 and constant co-operation with Germany, and 
 that the political, as well as the economic, ties 
 between the two nations should be strengthened 
 by all possible means. 
 
 Holding such views he was naturally the prime 
 favourite of the Banca Commerciale group. They 
 were always anxious to do what they could for any 
 follower of the man who was at once the Dictator 
 of Italian politics and the determined supporter of 
 Teutonism. The two powers had contrived to get 
 many of their partisans into the administrative 
 services. A great Italian manufacturer told me 
 that there was hardly an official in any govern- 
 ment department, from the chief secretary to 
 the outdoor messenger, who was not either a 
 Giolittian or a pro-German. This was an exaggera- 
 tion ; but these anti -national bureaucrats were 
 certainly numerous enough to cause serious em- 
 barrassment during the first months of the war. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 Italy had writhed uneasily under the Triple 
 Alliance, The convention had never been popular ; 
 but it had been accepted in May, 1882, and 
 it had been renewed from time to time, as a 
 disagreeable, but necessary, means of relieving 
 Italy from the isolation in which she would other- 
 wise have stood. From France she had become 
 
WHY ITALY IS FIGHTING 251 
 
 estranged by the annexation of Tunis, and by the 
 denunciation of the commercial treaty of 1887, 
 which had inflicted upon her serious economic 
 losses. 1 England was deemed cold and indifferent ; 
 Russian designs in the Balkans and the Eastern 
 Mediterranean exposed her to some suspicion. 
 Italy wanted a powerful friend, and Germany was 
 only too willing to offer for the part. It seemed 
 worth while to accept this influential partnership, 
 even though it involved association with Germany's 
 neighbour and confederate. 
 
 But the Alliance had been viewed of recent years 
 with increasing distrust by Italian statesmen. They 
 saw that it had done little for them and a good 
 deal for their allies. The two Imperial Governments 
 treated the Kingdom with contempt, except when 
 they wanted its assistance, and one of them with 
 scarcely concealed hostility. The compact had 
 been hailed as a league of peace ; but in fact it 
 seemed to be a means for enabling Germany to 
 shake the mailed fist with impunity in the face of 
 
 ' In 1885, two years before the rupture of the Treaty of Com- 
 merce, Italian exports to France had amounted to 613,600,000 
 lire annually. By 1913 they had fallen to 231,500,000. During 
 the same period the exports to Germany had increased from 
 105,200,000 lire to 343,500,000, and German imports into Italy 
 from 120,400,000 to 612,700,000. France, which had been by 
 far the largest market for Italian goods in the former year, stood 
 only fourth on the list in the latter, having been passed by Switzer- 
 land, that economic annexe of Germany, as well as by England. 
 See Charriaut and Amici-Grossi, L'ltalie en Guerre, p. 146. 
 
252 , ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 rivals, and assisting Austria to carry out projects of 
 aggression in the Near East. 
 
 Italy's own efforts at expansion were ignored 
 or thwarted. Her TripoH enterprise not only 
 received no support but was openly discouraged, 
 and secretly obstructed. Austria forbade her to 
 bombard Turkish ports on the mainland, or to 
 occupy Chios and Mitylene ; Gtermany assisted 
 the Turks with arms and money, and long after the 
 war was over was quietly aiding Enver and his 
 gang to stir up disaffection in the new province. 
 
 Meanwhile Austria was herself invoking the 
 Treaty to secure Italian acquiescence in her 
 Balkanic schemes. She disturbed the status quo 
 by incorporating Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 
 then called on her allies to stand by her in the 
 diplomatic campaign which ensued. But she went 
 further. In August, 1913, just before the 
 Bucharest Treaty between the Balkan belligerents 
 was signed, the Austrian Government informed 
 the Italian Foreign Office that it proposed to go to 
 war with Serbia in order to " defend " itself against 
 this formidable state, and that it would expect the 
 military support of its ally. 
 
 This was too much for ItaUan complaisance. 
 The Marquis di San Giuliano, the Italian Foreign 
 Minister, refused to have any concern with so 
 menacing a " defensive " operation, and put the 
 case very plainly at Berlin, with the result that 
 
WHY ITALY IS FIGHTING 258 
 
 the G«rman Government placed its veto upon the 
 Austrian proposals. ^ The "chastisement " of Serbia 
 was postponed for another year, and then it was not 
 thought necessary to consult Italy beforehand.^ 
 
 But Austria knew that the realisation of her 
 south-eastern ambitions would be almost as 
 distasteful to Italy as to the Serbs ; and it seems 
 to have been a question with the extreme militarist 
 party in Vienna whether it might not be wiser to 
 tackle the greater obstacle before the lesser. Dr. 
 Dillon tells us that in 1913, after the failure of the 
 attempt on Serbia, General Konrad von Hoetzen- 
 dorf, with the concurrence of the Archduke Franz 
 Ferdinand, endeavoured to persuade the Emperor 
 to sanction a " preventive war " against Italy, on 
 the plea that sooner or later a quarrel with that 
 state was bound to come, and it might be as well to 
 begin it without further delay. 
 
 This iniquitous suggestion was not liked by Count 
 Aehrenthal, nor by the Emperor, who was then 
 perhaps rather more potens sui than he became in 
 the course of the next twelve months. The Arch- 
 duke was sharply rebuked, and Von Konrad dis- 
 
 ^ These extraordinary transactions were kept private till 
 revealed by Signor Giolitti in the Italian Chamber of Deputies 
 in December, 1914. 
 
 ^ Though, as a matter of fact, the Italian Government knew 
 very well what was coming, and warned the Entente Powers to 
 be on their guard. When the archives of the period are open to 
 examination it will perhaps he found that certain happenings in 
 England in July, 1914, were not unconnected with this Meudl^ 
 intini^tion. 
 
254 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 missed from his post as Chief of the General Staff, 
 only, however, to be reinstated soon afterwards. 
 Possibly some inkling of these transactions had 
 reached Italian ears, and if so that may account for 
 the urgency with which the Alliance was renewed, a 
 year before the prescribed date for its extension. ^ 
 If Austria had tried to drag Italy into a " defen- 
 sive " war in 1913 she seems scarcely to have ex- 
 pected that her ally would Join her in 1914 in a war 
 of pure aggression. Italy, at any rate, took prompt 
 advantage of a clause in the Treaty which was 
 intended to guard her against such a contingency. 
 Article VII of that instrument is in these terms : 
 
 Austria-Hungary and Italy, who aim exclusively at 
 the maintenance of the status quo in the East, bind 
 themselves to employ their influence to prevent every 
 territorial change which may be detrimental to one or 
 other of the contracting Powers. They will give each 
 other all explanations necessary for the elucidation of 
 their respective intentions as well as those of other 
 Powers. If, however, in the course of events the main- 
 tenance of the status quo in the Balkans and on the 
 Ottoman coasts and in the islands of the Adriatic and 
 JEgean seas should become impossible, and if, either in 
 consequence of the acts of a third Power or of other 
 causes, Austria and Italy should be compelled to 
 change the status quo by a temporary or permanent 
 occupation, such occupation shall only take place after 
 
 * Dillon, From the Triple to the Quadruple Alliance, pp. 33-50. 
 Dr. Dillon, who was in Vienna at the time, appears to have derived 
 his information from General Konrad von Hoetzendorf himself. 
 
WHY ITALY IS FIGHTING 255 
 
 previous agreement between the two Powers, based 
 on the principle of a reciprocal arrangement for all the 
 advantages, territorial or other, which one of them 
 may secure outside the status quo, and in such a manner 
 as to satisfy all the legitimate claims of both parties. 
 
 Under this clause it seemed clear that Austria 
 was estopped from calling upon her ally to carry 
 out the obligations which she had herself set at 
 nought. Austria-Hungary, by forcing war upon 
 Serbia, was evidently desirous of changing the 
 status quo in the Near East. She had not given 
 explanations tending to the " elucidation " of her 
 very obscure " intentions," nor any adequate 
 explanation at all. A temporary or permanent 
 occupation of Serbian territory was plainly con- 
 templated; but no "previous agreement" had 
 been made with Italy, nor was any hint given of 
 that " reciprocal arrangement " provided for by 
 Article VII. 
 
 In these circumstances it must have been 
 recognised in Vienna and Berlin that Italian 
 active aid would not be forthcoming. Nor appar- 
 ently was it wanted. The Prussian and Austrian 
 War Staffs believed that they could overcome 
 their foes without further assistance. France, 
 according to the programme, was to be knocked 
 out by one paralysing blow, and Russia would 
 then be compelled to make peace on such terms as 
 were imposed upon her. The Central Powers felt 
 
236 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 themselves strong enough to carry through their 
 tremendous scheme of conquest without the support 
 of the ill -prepared Italian Army, and the unready 
 Italian Fleet. It would be sufficient if Italy would 
 simply maintain a benevolent neutrality. And the 
 two Imperial Foreign Offices, without giving them- 
 selves the pains to treat their ally with even such 
 formal consideration as international etiquette 
 prescribed, assumed that to this extent their 
 wishes would be fulfilled. Italy would keep quiet. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 THE END OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 
 
 THE NEUTRALITY OF ITALY INFLUENCES IN ITS 
 
 FAVOUR — THE CAPITALISTS — THE VATICAN THE 
 
 SOCIALISTS THE ARMY THE POLITICAL 
 
 LEADERS ATTITUDE TOWARDS AUSTRIA THE 
 
 " PARECCHIO " DEATH OF THE MARQUIS DI 
 
 SAN GIULIANO BARON SONNINO — HIS DIPLO- 
 MACY HE STATES ITALY'S CASE UNDER 
 
 ARTICLE VII THE AUSTRIAN NEGATIVE: — 
 
 GERMAN INTERVENTION CESSION OF TERRI- 
 TORY SUGGESTED BARON BURIAn'S OBJECTION 
 
 TO DISCUSS THE SUBJECT GERMANY ADVISES 
 
 CONCESSIONS INADEQUATE AUSTRIAN OFFERS 
 
 BURIAN'S dilatory METHODS A PROPOSAL 
 
 AND A TRAP IMMEDIATE CESSION REQUIRED, 
 
 NOT A PROMISSORY NOTE ITALIAN DEMANDS 
 
 FORMULATED REJECTED AUSTRIA DECLINES 
 
 TO OFFER MORE THAN A CESSION IN THE TREN- 
 
 TINO NEGOTIATIONS BROKEN OFF SONNINO's 
 
 DESPATCH OF MAY 3 THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE AT 
 
 AN END 
 
 IN the autumn of 1914 it seemed probable that 
 the -wishes of the Germanic Power would be 
 fulfilled. The general current of feeling in Italy J 
 ran somewhat strongly against intervention. The 
 8 267 
 
258 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 people, as I have said, were in no warlike mood, and 
 disinclined for unknown and hazardous adventure. 
 The most influential classes in the country were 
 (Jermanophil in their sympathy, or at any rate they 
 had no predilection for the Entente states. The 
 jealousy of France, due to the Tunis affair and the 
 economic rupture, had been softened but not 
 entirely dissipated. For England there was respect, 
 and the tradition of a long-standing amity, but no 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 The European war had not yet been envisaged as 
 a struggle between the forces of liberty and those of 
 despotism. At the outset to most Italians, as indeed 
 to many persons in the other neutral coimtries, it 
 seemed to be the natm-al result of the sustained 
 rivalry between two international associations, each 
 bent on obtaining territorial and other advantages 
 at the expense of the other. Not till later was the 
 ethical significance of the conflict widely appre- 
 ciated in Italy. NeutraUty seemed the safest course, 
 and the one most consistent with Italian interests. 
 
 The neutralists had the support, not only of the 
 great body of quiet folks, but of the most im- 
 portant interests. For reasons already mentioned 
 the idea of a quarrel with Germany was viewed 
 with repugnance in the leading circles of finance 
 and commerce. Roman society, sedulously culti- 
 vated by German diplomatic and other agencies, 
 was Teutophil. The Vatican was flagrantly on the 
 
END OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 259 
 
 same side. If Prussia was Protestant (or pagan), 
 the Hapsburg sovereign was the Most Cathohc" 
 Emperor and Apostolic King, the most august 
 crowned son of the Church. 
 
 Germany had purged itself of the stigma of the 
 Falk Laws and gone to Canossa long since ; and it 
 was keeping up an energetic propaganda at the 
 Curia. Austrian and German cardinals had the ear 
 of Benedict XV, and they induced the perplexed 
 Pontiff to assume an attitude of detachment 
 towards the moral issues involved in the war, 
 which seemed, to outraged Catholics in Belgium 
 and elsewhere, strangely unfitting the Vicar of 
 Christ on earth. But it encouraged the extreme 
 Catholics, the " blacks," who disliked the godless 
 French Republic which patronised socialists and 
 " freemasons " and other foes of the Church. 
 
 The Italian socialists were pacifists, with a rooted 
 objection to international complications which 
 would interfere with domestic reform. Even the 
 Army was averse from quarrelling with the great 
 armed Powers ; for the officers had been trained on 
 the German model, and they regarded the German 
 military system with unqualified admiration. Its 
 chiefs, too, knew that Italy was in no condition 
 for war on the modem scale, and were reluctant 
 to precipitate a contest with a well-equipped and 
 extremely formidable antagonist. 
 
260 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 [The neutralists were strong in political and 
 administrative circles. All Signer Giolitti's great 
 influence was cast into their scale. Signer 
 Salandra, the [Prime Minister, had entered office 
 as a nominee of Giolitti, and was supposed to share 
 
 ■^ his former leader's views on international policy^ 
 The Marquis di San Giuliano, the Foreign Minister, 
 a diplomatist of long experience and high reputation, 
 was understood to be strongly in favour of main- 
 taining the entente with the Central Powers. The 
 War Minister was a Giolittian of so pronounced a 
 tendency that he refused, even after the beginning 
 of the campaign in Europe, to carry out the 
 military reforms demanded by General Cadorna 
 and General Porro ; and it was only after a severe 
 struggle that he was induced to resign and hand 
 over his portfolio to Signer Zupelli, a statesman 
 mere amenable to the counsels of the Chief of the 
 Staff. Of the leading politicians out of office the 
 most conspicuous was Baron Sonnino, who had 
 twice been Prime Minister, and had begun his 
 political career thirty -two years earlier as the most 
 
 J ardent champion of that Triple Alliance to which, 
 by the irony of events, he was destined to deal the 
 coup de grdce. 
 
 * 
 
 )The leading neutralists were anxious to keep the 
 peace with Austria, and they hoped that Austria 
 
END OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 261 
 
 would make the task possible by concessions which 
 would satisfy the popular sentiment. The great 
 majority of Italians had always climg to the Italia 
 Irredenta idea. They believed that sooner or later 
 the unity of the kingdom would be completed by 
 the incorporation of the Trentino, the Trieste 
 district, and the Dalmatic coast and islands ; and 
 many of them were convinced that Italy would 
 eventually regain her primacy in the Adriatic, and 
 secure opportunities for expansion in the Eastern 
 Mediterranean. But there was a general impression 
 that these ends would be reached in due course by 
 negotiation and arrangement, and that it was not 
 worth while to snatch at them by resorting to force. 
 
 The European war was, of course, a great oppor- 
 tunity ; but chiefly, it was held in many quarters, 
 because of the prospect it opened to Italy of gain- 
 ing satisfaction for her demands by dexterously 
 takingadvantage of Austria's desire to avoid further 
 complications. Signor Giolitti gave expression to 
 this opinion when he said that Italy must be ,^. 
 content with a parecchio,^ a something in hand, 
 which could be obtained by diplomatic means, and 
 would at least be sufficient for the time. 
 
 It was not a very inspiring thought, this notion 
 of being put off with a sort of pourboire or gratuity, 
 which Austria might have the generosity to hand 
 
 ' The word is commonly used, especially in Piedmont, for -> 
 something of small account, some trifle. 
 
262 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 over, and Signer Giolitti's parecchio roused no 
 enthusiasm. However, if war, with all its hard- 
 ships, privations, and economic disintegration, 
 could be avoided, so much the better ; and if 
 Austria had been willing to make the parecchio, 
 the " something," a fairly substantial thing, and 
 had said so frankly at the beginning, the rupture 
 would probably have been averted. 
 
 But it was presently seen that the Austrian 
 parecchio was going to be a very small thing 
 indeed, and even that was not to be had without 
 strenuous pressure. The Italian Government went 
 to work very quietly. The first communications of 
 the Marquis di San Giuliano to Count Berchtold 
 were couched in terms so moderate that they may 
 have perhaps only confirmed the Ballplatz in the 
 insolent belief that Italy could be safely ignored. 
 Perhaps it relied upon San Giuliano 's reputation 
 as a confirmed " triplicist," and his belief that a 
 permanent equilibrium could be maintained 
 between the Entente group and the Central Powers. 
 But the Marquis died on October 6th, 1914, after 
 an illness so brief and sudden as to induce that 
 tactful commentator on events, Coimt Reventlow, 
 to suggest that the Italian interventionists had 
 poisoned him ! His death put the portfolio of 
 Foreign Affairs into stronger hands and gave a 
 sharper turn to the negotiations. 
 
 Ba.ron Sidney Sonnino, who emerged from 
 
END OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 268 
 
 temporary retirement to become San Giuliano's 
 successor, was one of the most distinguished public 
 men in Italy. He had sat in Parliament thirty -four 
 years, had been in several cabinets, and had held 
 the premiership twice. He was sixty-seven years 
 of age at this time, born in the city of Pisa, the 
 son of a Jewish father and an English mother. His 
 origin tempts to those racial generalisations which 
 are so facile and often so misleading. One critic, a 
 French one, finds that Signer Sonnino possesses "un 
 flegme tout britannique," being under the mistaken 
 impression that the British are a phlegmatic people. 
 Another observer detects in the Foreign Minister 
 "British steadiness, tenacity, and reserve, com- 
 bined with Jewish penetrative observation, subtle 
 analysis, and a marked tendency to scepticism." 
 ' However this may be Baron Sonnino showed 
 himself a diplomatist of the best quality, calm, 
 even-tempered, acute, and unfalteringly firm. In 
 Parliament he does not shine as an orator ; but 
 his despatches cannot easily be surpassed for 
 lucidity, precision, and argumentative force. These 
 qualities he revealed in the "conversations" he 
 initiated with the chiefs of the Austrian Foreign 
 Office ; who ought to have been speedily convinced 
 (though apparently they were not) that they had 
 to deal with a statesman who had no intention 
 of being put off by subterfuges, or turned from his 
 point by prevarication and delay. 
 
 Count Berchtold and his successor, Baron Burian, 
 
264 ' ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 could not believe that Italy " meant business," 
 or that even in the last resort King Victor 
 Emmanuel's government would go to war. They 
 knew — they had excellent means of knowing — ^the 
 state of opinion in the Peninsula, and they thought 
 that it would be impossible for Signor Sonnino 
 and Signor Salandra to adopt extreme measures. 
 
 But they did not reckon either on the Foreign 
 Minister's cold persistence, or on the change in 
 public sentiment which was developing. The inter- 
 ventionists, headed by a group of " intellectuals," 
 and finding their mouthpiece in Signor Albertini, 
 the editor of the Corriere della Sera, the most in- 
 fluential newspaper in Italy, were making headway. 
 In spite of the German propagandists, the allied 
 cause was beginning«to be better understood. 
 
 The neutralists were already losing groimd, and 
 before the end of the autumn savage caricatures 
 of Signor Giolitti were appearing in the newspapers, 
 and ferocious lampoons in the graffiti or mural 
 inscriptions, by which, according to immemorial 
 custom, the Italian populace expresses its feelings in 
 periods of excitement. 
 
 * * 
 
 The unquestionable infraction of Article VII of 
 the Triple Alliance Treaty had put Italy on strong 
 ground. Her case was succinctly set forth in the 
 despatch which Sonnino adcjressed to the Italian 
 Ambassador at Vienna on December 9th, 1914, 
 
END OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 265 
 
 and in which he laid stress on the manifestations of 
 public opinion which were beginning to make 
 themselves felt. He pointed out that the Austrian 
 Government, " basing its actions precisely on 
 what is set forth in Article VII," prevented Italy 
 in the war with Turkey from carrying out several 
 military operations •which would certainly have 
 shortened the war. He added that the invasion of 
 Serbia had already disturbed the Balkan equi- 
 librium, and had given Italy a claim to compensa- 
 tion, under this same article. Italy's national 
 aspirations must be " taken seriously into account." 
 Therefore in a " friendly spirit " Count Berchtold 
 was urgently invited to state what the Imperial 
 and Royal Government was prepared to do in the 
 matter. ^ 
 
 The Imperial and Royal Government was at the 
 moment not disposed to do anything. The Duke 
 d'Averna, the Italian ambassador at Vienna, was 
 told by Count Berchtold that the war against 
 Serbia " was not aggressive but defensive," so that 
 Austria was really fighting to maintain the status 
 quo ; and that being so he " did not think that 
 this was at present a case calling for an exchange 
 of views with the Royal Italian Government." ^ 
 It was only imder pressure from Berlin that he 
 consented to discuss the subject at all. On 
 
 ' Italian Gh-een Book, No. 1. 
 ^ Italian Green Book, No. 6. 
 
266 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 December 20th he went so far as to say that he 
 would be prepared for an " exchange of views " as 
 to the indemnities which Italy might receive in the 
 event of a temporary or permanent occupation of 
 Balkan territory. 
 
 In the meanwhile Prince von Biilow had arrived 
 in Rome as special envoy frorfl the German Govern- 
 ment. He called on Signor Sonnino to explain that 
 the object of his visit to Italy was to improve the 
 good relations between the two states. Germany 
 was evidently disinclined to take the Italian 
 question so lightly as its partner. It was prepared 
 to admit that Italy had some claim to compensation 
 under Article VII, which it could afford to do the 
 more readily as the compensation would be paid 
 by Austria. The Foreign Minister summed up the 
 situation in Italy in a few sentences : 
 
 The majority of the nation was in favour of the pre- 
 servation of neutrality, and ready to support the 
 Government in this ; but only upon the presuppositioii 
 that by means of neutrality it should be possible to 
 obtain the fulfilment of certain national aspirations. 
 
 Germany was quite ready to consent to a sacrifice 
 — on the part of Germany's friends. " The convic- 
 tion," wrote the Italian ambassador at Berlin on 
 January 6th, 1915, " that it is absolutely necessary 
 for Austria to resign herself to some sacrifice to Italy, 
 if she wishes to avoid disagreeable events, has 
 by now penetrated all governing circles here," 
 
END OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 267 
 
 Austria began to unbend a little. It seemed that 
 she also might be prepared for "sacrifices," pro- 
 vided they were made by other people. There was 
 Albania, for example : how would it suit Italy to 
 have something there — ' ' a country in the neighbour- 
 hood of Italy and easy of access " ? This was like 
 trying to placate a man who complains that you have 
 robbed him by telling him that he can make things 
 even by robbing somebody else. Austria had no 
 power to barter away Albania, and Baron Sonnino 
 drily replied that Italy's chief interest in that region 
 was to keep other people from interfering with it. 
 And he pointed out that it was the Italian element in 
 Austria with which the Roman Government was 
 concerned, an element which must either be " stifled 
 by the pressure of other nationalities, Slav and 
 German," or else must detach itself from the Austro- 
 Hungarian Empire. " It might be more advisable in 
 the interests of the general and international situa- 
 tion for that empire to proceed to such amputation." 
 
 This was plain speaking ; but Germany was also 
 talking " amputation " to her ally. Prince von 
 Billow suggested that perhaps Austria might be 
 induced to cede the Trentino, at any rate if the 
 cession were kept secret till after the war. Sonnino 's 
 answer was that the surrender of this territory 
 would have to be made public ; it must take 
 immediate effect ; and it would not of itself 
 satisfy the " national aspirations," which included 
 
268 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 Trieste as well. To which Prince Biilow could only 
 reply that though he thought he might possibly 
 prevail on Austria to part with Trent he had no 
 hope of persuading her to give up the great port on 
 the Adriatic. 
 
 The Austrian Foreign Minister, Baron Biurian, 
 who had now succeeded Count Berchtold, showed 
 extreme reluctance to enter upon the question of 
 ceding territory, which he would only discuss in 
 very vague terms ; and he continued to wonder 
 " why Italy should not have sought in other 
 territories the compensation to which she was 
 entitled." ^ It was hinted that when the Western 
 Allies were beaten there might be good pickings 
 from them : Corsica, for instance, or Bizerta, 
 possibly Egypt. And Sonnino and Avarna con- 
 tinued to repeat that this was not the way in which 
 their " aspirations " could be gratified, and that 
 the only cession which could be considered must 
 necessarily be that of Austrian territory, not 
 territory belonging to others which Austria was not 
 in a position to give away. Italy was hardly 
 likely to abandon her claims on Austria under 
 Article VII in return for Austria's gracious, per- 
 mission to try if she could not rob France of 
 Corsica or extract Egypt from England. 
 
 Baron Burian, however, remained obstinate and 
 dilatory, and dwelt chiefly upon the difficulties which 
 ■ Italian Green Book, No, 16 (Jan. 28, 1916). 
 
END OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 269 
 
 would arise in the Monarchy if the Italian " point 
 of view " were accepted or even discussed, and on 
 Italy's own alleged laches in occupying Vallona and 
 the iEgean islands. He also persisted that there 
 was no cause for action in regard to Serbia until it 
 was clearly seen whether Austria really intended 
 to " annihilate " that hapless country. Austria 
 must get through her military operations in the 
 Balkans first . Then it might be time to talk of other 
 things. But as to territorial compensation — on 
 this point, the Duke d'Avarna wrote to his chief, 
 " it is idle to entertain illusions. The Imperial and 
 Royal Government will never, under present 
 conditions, consent to the cession of territories 
 belonging to the Monarchy." 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 But Germany again interfered and induced 
 Vienna to give some sign of softening. Berlin was 
 growing nervous. At Potsdam, where they knew 
 a good deal about the Italian Ai'my, they perhaps 
 did not accept the Viennese view of its value as a 
 fighting force. And German interests in Italy 
 were much too important to be sacrificed to the 
 amour-propre of its Imperial ally. Austria would 
 have to see if she could not get rid of the Italian 
 menace by giving up something : not much, of 
 course, but still something. 
 
270 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 But Italy wanted a good deal. She was not 
 going to be content with any parecchio. She 
 wanted such a rectification of frontiers as would 
 put herself, instead of Austria, on the upper side of 
 the precipices and passes, fortified and barricaded 
 against her by Austria, which she has been since 
 winning back by the outpouring of so much 
 Italian blood. She wanted the whole of Italia 
 Irredenta, that of Istria and Gorizia as well as 
 that of Trentino and the Dolomites. She wanted 
 Trieste to be freed from Austrian rule, even if she 
 did not herself incorporate it. She wanted a free 
 hand at Vallona and its hinterland ; and the main 
 group of Southern Dalmatian islands, including 
 Curzola, Lesina, and Lissa. 
 
 Further, in the coming readjustment in the 
 Eastern Mediterranean Italy was looking for a 
 share of the Turkish islands, and some opportunity 
 for expansion and exploitation in Asia Minor. The 
 Dardanelles expedition was beginning. It was 
 supposed that it would succeed. The Allies would 
 force their way to Constantinople and the liqui- 
 dation of the Turkish Empire would soon come. 
 Was Italy to sit still and lose all the fruits of her 
 Mediterranean efforts ? Might it not be advisable 
 to come to a prompt understanding with the 
 Entente Powers ? What Austria, even under 
 German insistence, might be persuaded to offer 
 was a very small instalment of what was sought. 
 
END OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 271 
 
 The negotiations dragged on and the Italian 
 diplomatists were growing weary of Baron Burian's 
 calculated procrastination. " My conversations 
 with him," wrote the Italian ambassador on 
 March 3rd, " might be prolonged everlastingly 
 without leading to any practical result." Sonnino 
 instructed him by telegraph the next day to tell 
 Baron Burian that if Austria-Hungary should 
 undertake any further military action in the 
 Balkans without a previous settlement of the com- 
 pensation question, Italy would consider the 
 alliance at an end and would " resume her full "* 
 liberty of action " ; and that no proposal to dis- 
 cuss compensation would be entertained unless 
 it included the cession of territories actually 
 possessed by Austria-Hungary. 
 
 This direct thrust made some impression. Biilow, 
 " deeply concerned," called on Sonnino ; he was 
 instructed to state that Austria was now pre- 
 pared to negotiate on the proposed basis. But 
 (Germany and Austria would like a preliminary 
 statement in the Italian Parliament which would 
 be " edited in concert with Vienna."^ Fui-ther, it 
 appeared that both Austria and Germany had an 
 invincible objection to the immediate transfer of 
 ceded territory. Would not Italy agree that any 
 arrangement which might be made should not take 
 effect till the conclusion of the European war ? 
 ' Italian Green Book, No. 39. 
 
272 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 These suggestions were a trap into which 
 Sonnino was much too wary to walk. Why had 
 the diplomatists of the two despotisms conceived 
 '- this novel respect for representative assemblies ? 
 The reason was obvious. Prince von Biilow was 
 anxious to transfer the negotiations to the floor of 
 the Chamber of Deputies, where they would be 
 open to the manipulation of Signor Giolitti. 
 
 In Parliament the great political condottiere was 
 still powerful. Whatever might be the feeling out- 
 side his janissaries in the House were faithful to 
 their salt. They could be relied upon to obey their 
 commander and to march at his bidding — ^any- 
 where. One of the principal nationalist news- 
 papers wrote of them in this furious strain : 
 
 These lawmongers had, and have, their chief, their 
 symbol, their self-lord, Giolitti, in whose name they 
 load themselves with infamy and treason. They had 
 and have a common denominator ; they bear a hall- 
 mark by which they are recognised, they possess a 
 business house in"* which to conceal their cynical 
 trading in morality — ^the Parliament. The Parliament 
 is Giolitti ; Giolitti is the Parliament ; the binomial 
 expression of our shame. ^ 
 
 Sonnino and Salandi'a had not the least intention 
 of submitting the negotiations with Vienna to the 
 doubtful censorship of these legislators. 
 
 ' Idea Naxionale, quoted by Dillou, From tlie Tripk to the 
 Quadruple Alliance, p. 132. 
 
END OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 273 
 
 Nor would they accept the post-bellum cxmdition. 
 Burian and Biilow argued plausibly for this. It 
 would be so difficult to give up Austrian territory 
 in the middle of a war ; such a painful blow to his f 
 Imperial Majesty ; so troublesome to arrange all^ 
 the intricate details, surrender of Church lands 
 and Crown property, apportionment of dues 
 and the like, in these stressful times ; so hard 
 on the poor Tyrolese soldiers now fighting 
 bravely for their Kaiser. Why not wait till we 
 have won the war and then we can make the 
 cession effective in a dignified fashion ? To which 
 Sonnino rephed in effect : " But suppose you 
 don't win ? " He knew that if Austria were worsted 
 she would have plenty of " compensations " to 
 make elsewhere, and would be unwilling, perhaps 
 unable, to deal freely with the Italian provinces. 
 On the other hand, if the Germanic Powers gained 
 the victory they would be the masters of Europe, 
 and could tear up as many scraps of paper as they 
 pleased. Italy wanted her claims paid cash down. 
 A promissory note was not worth taking. 
 
 Sonnino was rapidly coming roimd to the conclu- 
 sion that the prospect of an agreement was hope- 
 less, and a rupture inevitable. He consented, how- 
 ever, to listen to the Austrian proposals as to a 
 
274 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 cession of territory and to formulate his own. 
 Baron Burian, a little shaken by the persistence of 
 the Roman Government, announced that Austria 
 would be prepared to make over the town of Trent 
 and some part of the adjacent district, with 
 due regard to the strategical interests of the 
 ^Monarchy. 
 
 This concession looked extremely meagre beside 
 the Italian claims which were set forth in detail by 
 the Foreign Minister in an important despatch on 
 April 8. He proposed that the whole of the 
 Trentino, with the frontiers which were those of 
 the Kingdom of Italy in 1811, should be sur- 
 rendered. The new international boundary would 
 start from Moimt Cevedale near the Swiss frontier, 
 pass between Mefan and Botzen, through the 
 Dolomites on the right bank of the Avisio, and 
 include Cortina and the Ampezzo. Eastwards 
 Italy was to have the Camia summits, the Isonzo 
 line to Tolmino, Gorizia and Gradisca, and the Carso 
 ridge, with Monfalcone, and the sea-board as far 
 ■as Nabresina about ten miles from Trieste. That 
 city itself, with its surrounding district, including 
 Capo d'Istria and Pirano, was to be constituted an 
 independent and autonomous State. Italy was to 
 receive the Dalmatian islands, Lissa, Curzola, Lesina, 
 and several others. Austria would recognise Italy's 
 full sovereignty over Vallona, and such of the 
 hinterland as was required for its secure possession ; 
 
END OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 275 
 
 and she was to " cease completely to interest her- 
 self in Albania." 
 
 The ceded territories were to be delivered im- 
 mediately, and Trieste and its enclave forthwith 
 evacuated by Austro-Himgarian troops. Italy 
 would assmne a quota of the public debts of the 
 surrendered districts, and would pay two himdred 
 million lire in gold as compensation for Imperial 
 property and Crown rights in them. She would 
 undertake to remain neutral during the continu- 
 ance of the European war, and would accept the 
 proposed agreement in full satisfaction of all her 
 claims imder the provisions of Article VII of the 
 Tripartite Treaty. ^ z 
 
 It was an ambitious programme, and was not in 
 the least likely to be accepted by the Austriaris 
 unless they were really convinced that Italy would _ 
 resort to force. So far they were not. Baron 
 Burian refused to believe th^t the danger was 
 imminent. He summarily rejected all the pro- 
 posals in Sonnino's despatch, and replied that the 
 utmost he could promise would be some slight 
 addition to the territory offered in the Trentino. 
 He said plainly to the ambassador that Italy 
 would not fight. " Baron Burian, as he has 
 several times given me to understand, cannot yet 
 realise the necessity in which the Royal ItaUan 
 
 ' Italian Green Book, No. 64. 
 
276 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 Government might find itself, in the event of its 
 demands not being integrally accepted, of going to 
 war with Austria and Germany."^ 
 
 Eight days later, on May 3, the Italian Govern- 
 ment broke off the negotiations . In a final despatch 
 Sonnino pointed out that the Austrian Gk)vernment 
 had ignored the provisions and the intention 
 of the treaty of alliance, which was meant to be 
 a guarantee of peace. " Austria-Hungary, in the 
 summer of 1914, without coming to any agreement 
 with Italy, without even giving her the least 
 intimation, and without taking any notice of the 
 counsels of moderation addressed to her, notified 
 to Serbia the ultimatum of the 23rd of July, which 
 was the cause and the point of departure of the 
 present European conflagration. Austria -Hungary, 
 by disregarding the obligations imposed by the 
 Treaty, profoundly disturbed the Balkan status 
 quo, and created a situation by which she alone 
 should profit to the detriment of interests of the 
 greatest importance which her ally had so often 
 affirmed and proclaimed." 
 
 This breach of the Convention by one of the 
 parties to it released the other from its obligations. 
 
 So flagrant a violation of the letter and the spirit 
 of the treaty not only justified Italy's refusal to place 
 herself on the side of her allies, in a war provoked 
 
 ' The Duke d'Avarna to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, 
 April 26, 1916, Green Book, No. 74. 
 
END OF THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE 277 
 
 without previous notice to her, but at the same time 
 deprived the alliance of its essential character and its 
 raison d^Hre. 
 
 Even the compact of friendly neutrality for which 
 the treaty provides was compromised by this violation. 
 Reason and sentiment alike agree in preventing 
 friendly neutraUty from being maintained when one of 
 the allies has recourse to arms for the purpose of 
 realising a programme diametrically opposed to the 
 vital interests of the other ally, interests the safe- 
 guarding of which constituted the principal reason for 
 the alliance itself.' 
 
 Nevertheless, the Foreign Minister added, Italy 
 had endeavoured to come to an arrangement which 
 might satisfy her " legitimate national aspirations," 
 and " reduce the disparity " in the position of the 
 two states in the Adriatic. Austria had refused 
 everything but " an insufficient concession of terri- 
 tory in the Trentino," only to take effect at a 
 future indeterminate epoch. The Italian (Govern- 
 ment had therefore renounced all hope of coming 
 to an agreement. Italy from that moment would 
 " resume her complete liberty of action " ; and she 
 would regard her treaty with Austria " as cancelled 
 and henceforth without effect," The Triplice had 
 ceased to exist. 
 
 1 Itaiian Green Book, No. 76. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 THE WELDING OF THE NATION 
 
 WAR IN SIGHT PRINCE VON BULOW'S MISSION^ — 
 
 THE VILLA MALTA A NETWORK OF INTRIGUE 
 
 GERMANISTS AND GIOLITTIANS — THE GREAT PAR- 
 LIAMENTARY PLOT — FORGETTING THE PEOPLE 
 
 CHANGE IN POPULAR SENTIMENT REVULSION 
 
 AGAINST GERMAN CRIMES — ^BELGIUM AND THE 
 
 " LUSITANIA " AGITATION IN THE TOWNS — THE 
 
 QUARTO FESTIVAL d'ANNUNZIO — HIS SPEECHES 
 
 AT GENOA — EVENTS IN ROME THE DICTATOR 
 
 AT WORK MAJORITY AGAINST THE GOVERN- 
 MENT ORGANISED — CABINET RESIGNS (MAY 13) 
 
 RETAINED IN OFFICE (mAY 16) — THE GREAT 
 
 'MAY, DAYS IN ROME — d'ANNUNZIO AS TRIBUNE 
 
 OF THE PEOPLE — GROWING EXCITEMENT THE 
 
 GIOLITTIANS COWED — SITTING OF PARLIAMENT 
 
 (may 20) COLLAPSE OF THE NEUTRALIST PLOT 
 
 MINISTERIAL TRIUMPH WAR DECLARED — 
 
 RESIGNATION OF SALANDRA (jUNE 1916) — 
 COALITION CABINET — WHAT THE WAR MAY DO 
 
 FOR ITALY LOCAL AND SECTIONAL DIVISIONS 
 
 ERASED THE PROMISE OF THE FUTURE 
 
 THE despatch of the third of May spelt war ; but 
 in Vienna and Berlin they would not yet 
 believe it. The statesmen of the Ballplatz and the 
 
 278 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 279 
 
 Wilhelmstrasse had been left in no uncertainty as 
 to the views of Signer Salandra and Baron Sonnino ; 
 but they persisted in thinking that Sonnino and 
 Salandra were not in reality masters of the situa- 
 tion. Their confidential agents continued to 
 assure them that the Consulta, the Italian Cabinet, 
 could not carry Parliament with it in going to 
 extremities with Austria, and would not dare to 
 defy it. The boss of Italian politics, in spite of the 
 diatribes of the newspapers and the jeers of the mob, 
 was still alive and still powerful. The Giolittian 
 party could be relied upon to upset the ministry 
 before the crisis reached its final stage ; in which case 
 the administration would again pass into the hands, 
 either of the Dictator himself, or of one of his 
 henchmen who could be trusted to defeat the 
 plans of the interventionists. Baron von Macchio,-V 
 the Austrian ambassador in Rome, wrote to his 
 employers in this sense. So, though with some- 
 what waning confidence, did the special German 
 envoy. Prince von Bulow. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 The story of German diplomacy in the neutral 
 countries, during the war, if it could be written in 
 full, would be one of the strangest contributions 
 ever made to the history of human error. It is a 
 catalogue of amazing adventures, incalcxilable 
 perversities and dark intrigue of plot and 
 
280 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 counterplot, ingenious stratagem, pertinacious 
 effort, and shameless corruption, beyond the 
 imagination of the hardiest romancer. Bernstorff 
 and Dernburg in America, with their Papens and 
 Boy-Eds, their forged documents, their under- 
 ground interviews, their shady agents with 
 false names and false whiskers, Kiihlmann feeding 
 the Dutch journalists with fictitious German 
 victories, Schenk in Athens with his crew of Levan- 
 tine spies and cosmopolitan bravoes — all help to 
 make up a wild combination of melodrama, farce, 
 and tragedy, ending invariably in failure and 
 disgrace. But of all these abortive missions the 
 most striking and resplendent was that of Prince 
 von Biilow in Rome, and of all the failures his 
 was the most conspicuous and dramatic. 
 
 * * 
 
 Bulow was sent to Rome as the special manda- 
 tory, the missus dominicus, of the German Em- 
 peror in December, 1914, when the friction between 
 Austria and Italy was increasing, and it seemed 
 that some Teutonic soothing syrup was required 
 to allay the irritation. The emissary was well 
 chosen. The ex-Chancellor was the most distin- 
 guished public man in the German Empire, its 
 only living statesman who had some European 
 reputation. He was besides a student and a political 
 theorist, who had written books which had been 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 281 
 
 widely read, a diplomatist familiar with all the 
 com-ts of Europe, esteemed and popular in the 
 most exclusive circles of most of the capitals, an 
 admirable linguist who could pay compliments 
 and make speeches in half a dozen languages, a 
 grand seigneur who had the entree to sovereigns 
 and princes, and withal a genial man of the world 
 who knew how to make himself agreeable to 
 serviceable professors and useful journalists as 
 well as to duchesses and cabinet ministers. 
 
 This dignified and cultured personage would 
 naturally be welcomed in Rome ; for he had close 
 relations with the highest aristocratic society in ~ 
 Italy, his wife was an Italian lady of rank, he had 
 passed much of his time in the country since his 
 retirement from the Chancellorship, he was under- 
 stood to be deeply interested in Italian literatm-e 
 and art. Germany could have hardly paid her two 
 allies a higher compliment than by sending this ' 
 great gentleman to mediate between them. 
 
 The Prince, however, did not confine himself to 
 the almost futile task of trying to get Austria to 
 buy off with delusory concessions so clear-sighted 
 and cool-headed a negotiator as Sidney Sonnino. 
 He was a special envoy of a peculiarly special 
 kind ; for his real mission was to stimulate all the 
 Germanic influences in Italy and to focus them ^ 
 upon neutrality. 
 
 He went about the task with a Teutonic 
 
282 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 attention to detail, and an entirely Teutonic 
 unscrupulousness. Every device that ingenuity 
 could suggest was employed to gain over those 
 who could assist the Gtermanic propaganda. At 
 his splendid mansion on the Pincian Hill, the 
 Villa Malta, the ambassador entertained Roman 
 society with sumptuous hospitality. He was him- 
 self rich, and the resom-ces of the Imperial ex- 
 chequer were behind him. The German Emperor, 
 said a nationalist newspaper bitterly, seemed to 
 think with Philip of Macedon that there was no 
 fortress too strong to be breached by an ass laden 
 with gold. The stream flowed bounteously from 
 the ambassadorial palace and fertilised many 
 waste places. 
 
 The Villa Malta became the centre of a whole 
 network of intrigue, woven to counteract the 
 nationalist movement, and to tie the hands of the 
 ministry. All the pro-German forces were mobilised 
 to fight against a rupture with Austria. The 
 Roman nobility, the financiers and manufactiu-ers, 
 the leading Catholics of the " black " tincture, 
 the socialists, the neutralists, were loaded with 
 attentions. Every effort was made to persuade 
 doubting persons of influence that a quarrel with 
 Austria would lead to a quarrel with Germany, 
 and that a quarrel with Germany would plunge 
 Italy into economic ruin. Items of " exclu- 
 sive " information were pressed upon independent 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 283 
 
 journalists who could not have been safely tempted 
 with coarser seductions. The Vatican pro-Glerman 
 wing, and its inspired press, were brought into the 
 firing line under the German agent Erzberger, and 
 the Austrian Monsignor Gerlach ; and the Hotel 
 de Russie, where the daily conclaves of these ton- 
 sured conspirators were held, became an annexe 
 of the Villa Malta. They were no more particular 
 in their methods than their friend from Prussia. 
 The Catholic mob of the Roman piirlieus was^ 
 organised and incited to deeds of violence in case 
 its services might be required. 
 
 Strange scenes were enacted at the palace on 
 the Pincian. In one saloon polite conversation 
 would be held with ladies of fashion ; in another 
 apartment newspaper correspondents might be fed 
 with the copy of confidential documents which 
 had not yet been submitted to the Foreign Office ; 
 in another the magnates of the Banca Commerciale 
 sat in serious discussion with pro-German mayors, 
 political priests, and socialist agitators ; and some- 3 
 where on the premises it was said that pistols and 
 bludgeons were being handed out to those faithful/' 
 sons of the Church who were ready to interrupt 
 neutrahst meetings and break the heads of pat- 
 riotic orators. 
 
 Some of the highest in the land, as well as the 
 lowest, were the objects of the envoy's personal 
 attention. He took advantage of his rank and 
 
284 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 his mission from the Kaiser to go direct to the 
 King and make suggestions and proposals to him 
 without the knowledge of His Majesty's ministers : 
 a gross breach of diplomatic and constitutional 
 etiquette for which in other times he would have 
 been handed his passports. 
 
 And the " special " ambassador went even 
 further. He endeavoured to prejudice the sover- 
 eign himself against his constitutional advisers, 
 and insinuated that no real progress could be 
 made in the negotiations with Austria unless 
 -they were entrusted to more conciliatory hands. 
 He tried to bring influence to bear upon other 
 members of the Royal House, including Qufeen 
 Margherita, the widow of King Humbert. But 
 the Queen Mother was deeply, though as befitted 
 her station, quietly, sympathetic with the national 
 aspirations. Margaret of Savoy is the descendant 
 of a line of soldier -kings, and the daughter of the 
 soldier-prince whose statue on his falling horse in 
 the Piazza Solferino at Turin recalls Novara, that 
 day of unavailing Piedmontese valour and Austrian 
 triumph. If rumour can be trusted, she received 
 Prince von Bulow's approaches in a manner worthy 
 
 of her ancestry. 
 
 * 
 
 Nothing could exceed the cleverness of this 
 Prussian strategy except its stupidity. For it was 
 
THE WELDING OP THE NATION 285 
 
 after all extremely foolish. It was based on that 
 ignorance of human nature, and that colossal mis- 
 understanding of national psychology, which lie 
 at the root of Germany's undoing. The Prussian 
 ruling ring mistook the temper of Italy as they mis- 
 took that of the British Empire, of the United 
 States, of France, of Belgium. Biilow should have 
 known that a high-spirited nation like Italy would 
 not look with patience on the attempts of a foreign 
 government to interfere with its internal politics, 
 and to manipulate its domestic affairs. If the 
 Prince and his associates were gaining over some 
 Italians by intrigue, bribery, and cajolement, 
 they were disgusting many others. 
 
 The German envoy's indecent activity, and his 
 outrageous plotting against the ministry in office, 
 contrasted with the dignified reticence and genuine, 
 though unostentatious, friendliness of the am- 
 bassadors from the Western Powers. Sir Rennell 
 Rodd, with admirable tact and discretion, refrained 
 from any attempt to intrude himself into the criti- 
 cal pourparlers with Austria, though he made it 
 clear that Italy could rely upon the friendship of 
 Britain when the time came to put it to the test. 
 
 England owes much to Sir Rennell for his conduct 
 in those critical months ; as France does to M. 
 Camille Barrere, who has seen the work of a lifetime 
 crowned by a restoration of good relations between 
 the country of his birth and the country which has 
 
286 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 so long been his second home. While the Villa 
 Malta was seething and bubbling, quiet conver- 
 sations were going on between Rome, London, 
 Paris, and Petrograd; and the day after the de- 
 livery of Sonnino's despatch, cancelling the Triple 
 Alliance, an understkftding was arrived at between 
 Italy and the Entente Powers, 
 
 The fact was probably known to Biilow and 
 Macchio ; but still they did not lose all hope. 
 They could always count upon Parliament and the 
 man behind Parliament. The Villa Malta yet 
 believed that it had the majority of the deputies 
 in its pocket. The old Dictator came up to Rome 
 from his country house, and proceeded to arrange 
 his plan of campaign. When Parliament reas- 
 sembled the ministry would be defeated by a 
 vote of the House, and would of course resign. 
 The King might be chagrined ; but His Majesty 
 had been brought up in the straitest school of con- 
 stitutional monarchy, and he would bow to the 
 mandate of the Legislature. No doubt was felt on 
 that point. 
 
 No doubt was entertained either as to the soli- 
 darity of the anti-ministerial bloc. Apart from the 
 Giolittian train-band it was thought that many 
 of the independent members would shrink from 
 the risk of war with Austria ; and measures had 
 been taken to work upon their feelings. It was 
 whispered about that Austria was only too willing 
 
THE WELDING OP THE NATION 287 
 
 to reopen the door which Sonnino had slammed fast. 
 So at this late hour Biilow suddenly came forward 
 with the intimation that Austria was prepared to 
 reopen negotiations, and was ready to offer 
 much more generous terms than those she 
 had previously defined as her ultimate hmit. 
 These would include : (1) Surrender of Trentino . 
 territory so as to comprehend all Italian-speaking 
 districts ; (2) The Isonzo frontier to be so drawn 
 as to give (Jorizia to Italy ; (3) Two Dalmatian 
 islands ; (4) Trieste to be an autonomous adminis- 
 trative district, and itsinhabitants exempted from 
 military service ; (5) Freedom of action in Albania 
 and recognition of Italian occupation of Vallona ; 
 (6) Enlarged commercial and tariff facilities for 
 Italian trade. 
 
 These extensive concessions did not even yet meet 
 the full Italian demand. But they were a striking 
 volte-face after the uncompromising attitude of 
 Burian ; and if they had been honestly tendered 
 some months earlier they would probably have 
 been accepted, and there might have b^Mi no 
 Austro -Italian war. They were not meant to be 
 accepted. They were brought forward merely to 
 embarrass the Cabinet and confuse the deputies. 
 
 This is clear enough from the manner in which 
 they were promulgated. A type-written draft of 
 the proposed treaty, on the basis of these Austrian 
 concessions, was placed in the hands of deputies 
 
288 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 and newspaper correspondents several days before 
 it was communicated to the Italian ministers. ^ 
 The document was not intended for them, but 
 drawn up, as Baron von Macchio afterwards ad- 
 mitted, in order that " the game of MM. Salandra, 
 Sonnino, and Martini could be frustrated." 
 Hesitating patriots could be asked if it were 
 worth while to plunge into war with a Power 
 which was showing itself so reasonable, so eager 
 to come to terms, if only an aggressive and wrong- 
 headed Consulta could be got out of the way. 
 
 So it seemed that after all the pro-Germanists 
 might prevail. Prince von Biilow and his colleague 
 had laboured hard ; they had laid their plans care- 
 fully ; they had undoubtedly a large body of 
 factitious, and some genuine, opinion on their side ; 
 they thought they had won over most of the 
 financiers, much of the aristocracy, the clergy, the 
 Curia, many of the military men, and the control- 
 ling element in politics. They had remembered 
 many important factors in the problem. But in 
 their reckoning they had omitted one. They had 
 forgotten the People. 
 
 Popular opinion in Italy had been passing through 
 a swift evolution in the preceding few months. At 
 first, as I have pointed out, the Italian people were 
 
 * Dillon, From the Triple to the Quadrupk Alliance, p. 216. 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 289 
 
 not profoundly interested in the European War, 
 and were mainly anxious to keep out of it. They 
 did not love Austria ; but they had no strong feel- 
 ing against Germany, and no special sympathy 
 with the Allies ; and they were in an open mind -^ 
 as to the rights and wrongs of the quarrel. But 
 gradually the awakening had come, as the moral 
 consciousness of the nation began to be stirred by 
 the crimes of Germany, and the national aspira- 
 tions were crystallised by the energy of the inter- 
 venti(^st writers. The old passions of theBesorgi-^. 
 mento quickened, and were fanned to fire by the 
 growing anger against the brutality of the Teutonic 
 despotisms. 
 
 The rape and robbery of Belgium roused all that 
 was generous in Italy, and the indignant sjonpathy 
 grew when Maeterlinck, and other eloquent Belgian- 
 missionaries, thrilled Italian ears with the appalling 
 tale of their country's wrongs. As the catalogue 
 of German atrocities lengthened out the popular 
 emotion rose higher. The Lusitania outrage set_ 
 more cheeks aflame in Italy than in Britain itself; 
 for the highway of the Atlantic is more familiar 
 to Italians, whose sons cross it by the half-million 
 every year, than it is to Englishmen. And so it 
 was, in the winter and spring of 1915, while Sonnino^ 
 was coldly arguing out his claim with Vienna on \ 
 the barest juridical and technical grounds, that the I 
 tide was rising out of doors. Many Italians were-^ 
 
290 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 beginning to think it might be worth while to fight, 
 not only that Italy might be rendered greater, but 
 also that the world might be delivered from the 
 barbarians of the North. And the vague sentiment 
 was shaping itself into a desire to avenge the old 
 wrongs and the new wrongs alike on the secular 
 enemy, Austria. 
 
 Excitement took tangible form in the great 
 cities during the spring. There was some serious 
 rioting in Genoa, Milan, and in Rome itself. The 
 Government, determined to hold the balance level, 
 repressed these manifestations sternly. Cavalry 
 was called out, shots were fired, lives were 
 lost. 
 
 But the popular passion did not abate ; and the 
 nationalist newspapers, growing bolder day by 
 day, stimulated it with vehement attacks on the 
 Giolittians, on the pro-Germans, on the syco- 
 phants of Austria. Applausive crowds gathered 
 before the British, French, and Russian embassies, 
 and the police had difficulty in saving the windows 
 of the legations of the Central Powers. 
 
 Prominent Giolittians were mobbed in the 
 streets, and were warned not to show themselves 
 in public places. Soldiers and officers in uniform 
 were cheered, and patriotic sentences mingled in 
 the graffiti with trenchant jests against the Emperor 
 Francis Joseph, and ferocious epigrams upon the 
 peacemongers. ' 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 291 , 
 
 The public did not know exactly how the 
 negotiations were going ; but it suspected the 
 truth, and by the beginning of May the people of 
 the large towns were restless, uneasy, simmering 
 with passion deeply felt though incoherently 
 expressed, only needing a strong word of clear 
 leadership to launch them into action. 
 
 The Cabinet, reticent under its responsibilities, 
 could not give the word. Perhaps the King might 
 have done so ; and it had been thought that he would 
 seize the opportunity which offered itself on the 
 fifth of May. For on that day there was to be a f 
 fete at the Quarto, the rocky cove on the Mediter-i 
 ranean shore near Genoa, whence Garibaldi and 
 his " Thousand " had set out, on May 5, 1860, on 
 the expedition for the liberation of Sicily. The 
 King was to have been present, and many hoped, 
 and a few feared, that the occasion would be chosen 
 for an historic declaration that would have decided 
 Italy's destiny. 
 
 But the crisis was still too grave for such 
 a demonstration ; and at the last moment 
 it was announced that His Majesty would not 
 attend the fetes. He sent instead a letter, in which 
 he recalled the memory of Victor Emmanuel II, 
 and paid a tribute to that of the hero who 
 had set out from the Quarto " with an immortal 
 daring towards an immortal goal." It was ^ 
 a sufficiently clear index to the thoughts 
 
292 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 passing in the royal mind, and its intention was 
 evident. 
 
 * * 
 
 But if the " solving word," for which the 
 country was waiting, could be uttered neither by 
 the monarch nor the ministers, it was not left un- 
 spoken. The hotu- had found the man ; and the 
 man was neither a prince, nor a politician, but a 
 poet. Gabriele d'Annunzio had been invited to 
 take part in the Quarto celebrations. He arrived 
 at Genoa on the 4th of May, and on the same even- 
 ing he delivered the fost of that series of impas- 
 sioned orations in which he poured into words of 
 fire the vague thoughts stirring in so many minds, 
 and set Italian hearts beating with a new resolve, 
 H Italian eyes shining with a clearer purpose. Per 
 la piil grande Italia is the title which D'Annimzio 
 has given to the published collection of his speeches, ^ 
 and the name is rightly chosen. For it was these 
 harangues which vitalised the idea of the Greater 
 Italy, and set moving towards one definite point 
 5^ the tide that washed away the whole web of 
 Germanic intrigue and domestic treachery. 
 
 Strange that it should have been left to a poet, 
 an artist, a worshipper of ideal beauty and literary 
 form, to bring to nought the machinations of the 
 
 ' Per la piil grande Italia: wazioni e messaggi di Gahrkk 
 <!' Antmnzio (Milan, 1915). 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 293 
 
 Biilows and the Giolittis ! Stranger that it should 
 have fallen to D'Annunzio to play the part of the 
 apostle of a national revival ! In Italy, it is true, 
 a poet speaks to a people prepared in advance to 
 listen to him with reverence and attention ; for 
 his art is taken seriously in these Latin countries, 
 where it is not the fashion to treat him with amused 
 tolerance as a being a little lower than the stock- 
 brokers, an eccentric who chooses to spend his 
 time in an unpractical vocation with, as a rule, 
 " no money in it." Poets and literary artists have 
 before now in France and Italy beaten the men of 
 action in their own fields. But D'Annunzio had 
 had no such long experience of affairs as Lamar- 
 tine, when the author of the Meditations was 
 placed at the head of the Provisional Gk)vernment 
 of 1848, nor had he the same popular and authori- 
 tative personality. His appearance in the political ^ 
 arena was almost as surprising as if, let us say. 
 Browning or Swinburne had come forward on the 
 platforms of mid-Victorian England to be the 
 leader of the Tory democracy. 
 
 D'Annunzio, weaving his fancies into delicate 
 and finely wrought verse, had been long away from 
 Italy, wearied of the materialism by which he 
 believed the country was obsessed. But he was 
 the inheritor of the tradition of Carducci, and had 
 been proclaimed many years before by the patriot - 
 poet as destined to receive from him the torch that 
 
294 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 lighted the Italian spirit on its path to nationhood 
 and greatness. Young no longer, his faith in the 
 destiny of Italy was still glowing with the fervour 
 of youth. He had always believed that another War 
 of Liberation must come : he had watched it coming 
 he said in February, 1915, for a quarter of a century. 
 Now that it was hovering close upon the threshold, 
 he saw that it was time to proclaim its advent in 
 clear and certain accents. He set the trimipet to 
 his lips and blew ; and the note rang high and 
 thrilling through the mists that still drifted 
 about the airs of Italy. 
 
 Blessed are those to whom most has been given, for 
 they can give the most and dare the most. 
 
 Blessed are the youths^ the sons of noble mothers, who 
 have come to their manhood, chaste in spirit, sound and 
 temperate in body. 
 
 Blessed are those who in hope and faith have awaited 
 this hour, not wasting their strength but hardening it by 
 soldierly discipline. 
 
 Blessed are those who have spurned from them vain 
 and empty passions, and now, with virgin ardour, can 
 yield themselves to this great love of country, the first 
 love and the last. 
 
 Blessed are they who have plucked from their breasts 
 some rooted rancour, and lay it as an offering on the altar 
 of the nation. 
 
 Blessed are those who, after struggling against the in- 
 evitable event, now bow in silence before the supreme 
 necessity, and are resolved to press forward with the 
 vanguard. 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 295 
 
 Blessed are the young men who hunger and thirst after 
 honour, for their desires shall be fulfilled. 
 
 Blessed are the mercifulj for they shall staunch heroic 
 blood and bind glorious wounds. 
 
 Blessed are the pure in heart, blessed those who will 
 return with victory, for they shall behold the vision of a 
 New Rome, the brow of Dante crowned afresh, the 
 ineffable beauty of triumphant Italy. ^ 
 
 These speeches at the Quarto celebrations gave 
 fierce impetus to the nationalist wave now swelling 
 towards the flood. On May 12 the poet arrived in 
 Rome to carry on the campaign there. Meanwhile 
 events of deep interest had been occurring in the 
 capital, and the pohtical crisis was rapidly ap- 
 proaching its climax. Strongly as all the symptoms 
 pointed to war, the Austro-Glerman agents and 
 their friends did not yet feel themselves beaten. 
 The King might be against them, the People, the 
 Press, the Poet. But the Parliament might still be 
 theirs. Their trump card remained to be played,"" 
 and they proposed to play it. 
 
 * 
 
 The Chamber was to reassemble on the twentieth, 
 of May. During the preceding ten days Signor 
 Giolitti had been busy. The members of hif party 
 had been summoned to Rome, and the days were 
 
 • D'Annunzio, Per la piu grande Italia (speech at Genoa, 
 May 5, 1915). 
 
296 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 filled with the meetings of private conclaves and 
 intimate councils. Lobbying, wire-pulling, con- 
 fidential discussions went on with feverish activity ; 
 automobiles were at the gates of the Villa Malta 
 by night and day ; Macchio's diaft treaty, and 
 other curious documents, were circulating ; the 
 air was mephitic with intrigue. Ministers were 
 in anxious conference with their followers and 
 party experts. They learnt that 320 out of 
 the 508 deputies had left their cards on Signer 
 Giolitti as a token of their fidelity to him. So there 
 was no likelihood of a Government majority. It 
 seemed clear that the Giolittians would carry the 
 day. The bloc was still solid. When ministers 
 met the House they would be defeated. 
 
 Salandra felt that the risk could not be taken. 
 Resignation in the face of an adverse vote in the 
 Chamber would be a victory for Austria and the 
 reactionaries, a rebuff to the Entente Powers, 
 with whom the ministry had just come to an agree- 
 ment, and an undoing of all Sonnino's laborious 
 diplomacy. To remain in office, and to carry on 
 the business of the country with war imminent, 
 under the fetters of a hostile majority in Parlia- 
 ment, would be impossible. A dissolution and 
 general election, in the tempestuous state of public 
 opinion, might lead to danger, perhaps to disaster. 
 Already the cry of " War or Revolution ? " had 
 been heard. The atmosphere was electric, wild 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 297 
 
 words had been uttered, desperate deeds might be 
 done. It was openly said that if the GioHttians j^ 
 came into power D'Annunzio would be arrested 
 and shot. 
 
 What genuine warrant there was for the stories 
 of this kind that were flying about I do not know. 
 But it was certainly believed that the Germanising 
 party was ready to take violent measures against 
 its leading opponents. 
 
 The fact was brought to my notice in a curious 
 fashion. More than a year after the events here 
 narrated, I was driving in his automobile with an 
 Italian friend, who was the head of a great manu-^ 
 facturing firm, and had taken a prominent part 
 on the nationalist side in the spring of 1915. My 
 hand happened to come into contact with something 
 round and hard protruding from a pocket in the 
 side of the car, and I pulled forth a heavy service 
 revolver. 
 
 We were passing through a beautiful and peace- 
 ful country far outside the war area, and I expressed 
 my surprise at the presence of this weapon. My 
 friend with a smile said : " Oh, that is a legacy 
 from May of last year. As you know. Prince von 
 Billow's and Baron von Macchio's friends had good 
 reason not to love me. I was living outside Rome, 
 and had to drive along some lonely roads on 
 my way in and out ; and from what I heard I 
 deemed it as well to be prepared for hostile visita- 
 
298 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 tion. So I bought this httle toy, and got another 
 for my chauffeur." 
 
 " You really think an attempt might have been 
 made on your life ? " 
 
 " Yes," he replied ; "I think so seriously. 
 And I may tell you this : if the Giolittians had 
 come into office on May 20, I should have been 
 over the Swiss frontier the same night. For if I 
 had remained in Italy I am pretty sure that I 
 should have been arrested within four-and-twenty 
 hom-s on some trumped-up charge or other, and in 
 that case " 
 
 " Yes," I said, " in that case ? " 
 
 " In that case I do not think my life would have 
 been worth many days' purchase." 
 
 I tell this tale as 'twas told to me. It is at least 
 an indication of the tension and bitterness of feel- 
 ing which prevailed while the question of peace or 
 war was in the balance. 
 
 Ministers declined to precipitate the issue by 
 meeting Parliament in office, and on May 13 they 
 collectively offered their resignation to the King. 
 
 For a moment it seemed as if the neutralists had 
 triumphed. But they did not reckon either with 
 the King or the People. Victor Emmanuel rose 
 to the emergency, and showed that he had in- 
 herited the spirit and the courage of his grand- 
 father. He sent for Giolitti and asked him what 
 he thought should be done. The Dictator suggested 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 299 
 
 that the task of forming a ministry should be en- 
 trusted to the President of the Chamber, a respect- 
 able member of his own party. The King was dis- 
 inclined for any such experiment. He believed 
 that the resigning ministers responded to the t 
 better feeling of the country and the needs of the 
 hour. He knew that war with Austria was coming, 
 and he determined that it should be conducted by 
 men who could enter upon it with conviction. He 
 declined to accept the resignation of the Salandra 
 Cabinet, and gave its members to understand that 
 they had his full authority to do everything the" 
 necessities of the situation might demand. 
 
 But there was still that adverse Parliamentary 
 majority to be dealt with. Would it not stand 
 firm on May 20 ? Biilow and his friends still 
 hoped that it would. But they had omitted, as I 
 have said, the Roman people from their calcula- 
 tions ; they did not allow for that effervescence of 
 the public spirit which at last brought the anti- 
 nationalist opposition to its knees. 
 
 In those May days, between the 12th and 20th, 
 the Eternal City " found itself," and passed through 
 another memorable phase of its history. On the 
 evening of the twelfth D'Annunzio was to deliver _ 
 his first speech, and a mighty multitude crowded 
 the Forum, and craned their necks from balconies 
 and windows, to hear him. And that night, and 
 for the seven nights that followed, the orator 
 
300 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 poured forth to the listening Romans his torrents 
 of impassioned prose, vibrating with the memories 
 of the past and the promise of the future. 
 
 Those were wondrous days and nights in Rome, 
 when the Romans, under the lucent evening sky, 
 gathered in their tens of thousands to hang upon 
 the words of this new Tribune of the People. Well 
 might onlookers recall immortal and tumultuous 
 scenes set upon the same stage ; it seemed to M. 
 y^ Jacques Bainville^ that another Antony had arisen 
 to incite " the stones of Rome to rise and mutiny." 
 
 When D'Annunzio made his first speech from the 
 balcony of the Hotel Regina, opposite the palace of 
 the Queen-Mother (who, says M. Bainville, heard the 
 oration from her windows), he sought to inspire 
 his hearers by recalling to them the glories of their 
 history, and the great deeds of the heroes who had 
 fought for Italian freedom. But on the 13th, when 
 the plot against the national Gtovernment seemed 
 for a moment to have some prospect of success, he 
 struck a sterner note, and denounced the agents 
 and the clients of the Germanic envoys as traitors 
 to the country. Invective so fiercely barbed, and 
 so directly aimed, can seldom have been heard on 
 a modern platform. The Catiline of the pro- 
 Austrian conspiracy was assailed with Ciceronian 
 eloquence and in terms of startling plainness. 
 
 The harangue of May 14 reads like the address 
 ' Bainville, La gverre et flti^ie, p. 263. 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 301 
 
 to a jury in a trial for treason, and it is almost so 
 styled by the author in its published form ^ — " the 
 public accusation delivered before the Assembly 
 of the People." He arrested the attention of his 
 excited audience at once with words of deep mean- 
 ing and menace. " Lend me your ears," he said ; 
 " I come to tell you terrible things, things you do not 
 know. We are here to pass judgment on a crime 
 of high treason, and tCJ denounce to the scorn and 
 to the vengeance of good citizens the criminal and 
 his confederates. What I am to tell you is no 
 flight of rhetoric, but a clear statement of authen- 
 ticated facts." 
 
 He went on to disclose — ^no doubt from in- 
 formation given him by the Foreign Office — 
 what had been commonly rumoured but had not 
 yet been officially revealed : that the Salandra 
 Cabinet had denounced the Triple Alliance treaty 
 with Austria and had declared it null and void. 
 And thereafter the Government had entered into 
 engagements with " another group of nations," 
 engagements grave and definite, confirmed by an 
 exchange of strategic plans and projects of com- 
 bined military action. That, added the speaker, is 
 the truth beyond contradiction. " I had absolute 
 confirmation of it before I quitted France, where 
 the officers of our General Staff and Admiralty 
 had already arrived and were at work." 
 
 1 L'AcBusa publica prominziata neW adunanza del popolo. 
 
302 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 So, he continued, we have, on the one hand, a 
 treaty abolished ; on the other an agreement 
 established. On the one side, the country's honour 
 vindicated ; on the other the country's honour 
 pledged. The fusion of hearts, inaugurated at the 
 Quarto, was about to be accomplished. Calm re- 
 solve was superseding dissension, excitement, and 
 agitation ; the army was brave and confident ; the 
 country inspired with patriotism and hope. 
 
 Arid now what has happened ? The notable achieve- 
 ment of many months of arduous preparation is to be 
 nullified by a base and sudden attack, conceived, in- 
 spired, directed by the foreigner. Its agents are an 
 Italian politician, Italian members of Parliament, 
 trafficking with the foreigner, placing themselves at 
 the service of the foreigner, to abase, to enslave, to 
 degrade Italy, for the benefit of the foreigner. 
 
 These facts are palpable, undeniable. And now 
 listen. The chief of these malefactors, that man whose 
 very soul is an organ of cold mendacity moved by 
 trickery and cunning, the leader of this \'ile enterprise, 
 knew that the old treaty had been abolished, and that 
 the new engagement had been concluded, and that 
 both acts had been performed with the consent of the 
 King. 
 
 So then he has betrayed the King, he has betrayed 
 the country. 
 
 Against the King, against the country, he is the 
 servant of his alien employers. He is guilty of treason. 
 That is what we must explain to the country, what we 
 must imprint upon the national consciousness. 
 
 The country is in danger. The country is on the 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 303 
 
 brink of ruin. To save it from disaster and irreparable 
 disgrace all of us must give ourselves to its service 
 and gird on our arms. 
 
 A ministry constituted by Prince von Billow is not 
 likely to be approved by the King of Italy. But, come 
 what may, the servitors of Prince von Biilow will not 
 desist from their activity. So long as they are at large 
 and at liberty they will strive to poison the life of 
 Italy, to smirch and befoul all that is best and noblest 
 among us. 
 
 For this reason, I repeat, every good citizen must 
 be a soldier to wage relentless war against the enemy 
 within our household ; for him there must be no truce, 
 no quarter. 
 
 The Parliament of Italy will reopen on the twentieth 
 of May. It is the anniversary of the memorable march 
 of Garibaldi, the march upon Palermo. 
 
 Let us celebrate this anniversary by barring the 
 entrance to the lackeys of the Villa Malta, and hound- 
 ing them back to their master. 
 
 And in the Parliament of Italy free men, released 
 from these ignoble associates, will proclaim the free- 
 dom and the consummated unity of the country. 
 
 The " lackeys of the Villa Malta " should have 
 known that their game was up, when they felt these 
 blasts of winged fire, and saw how the army of 
 listeners rocked with uncontrollable emotion under 
 
 them. 
 
 * 
 
 * * 
 
 In truth their deep-laid scheme flickered out 
 in the flame of the popular passion. The city 
 
304 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 was ablaze in that eventful week. Cavalry 
 patrolled the streets, but they could barely keep 
 order, and were powerless to repress the moving 
 throngs which shouted "Death to Giolitti," and 
 howled defiance at the Tedeschi. The pro-Ger- 
 manists became seriously alarmed. It was not 
 safe for the more prominent of them to be recog- 
 nised in the streets. Erzberger, the Prussian agent 
 at the Vatican, terrified by the crowd about his 
 hotel, fled in a panic to the German Embassy. 
 Well-known Giolittian deputies were advised by 
 the police to remain in their houses, and to make 
 their way to the Parliament House on the 20th as 
 unobtrusively as possible. Some of them spent 
 the preceding night on Montecitorio, and gained 
 access to the Chamber by the side entrances. The 
 whole quarter was under military occupation, and 
 strict precautions were taken against any demon- 
 stration of violence. But Rome was in a tumult of 
 hope and passion. Shops were closed, and Italian 
 and Allied flags, with patriotic inscription, were 
 to be seen everywhere. 
 
 The Giolittians were in a chastened and repen- 
 tant mood. Meetings had been held in many towns 
 as well as Rome. In Milan, Genoa, Turin, Naples, 
 Palermo, Bologna, there had been great crowds, 
 processions, cries of " Down with Austria ! Down 
 with Giolitti ! Evviva Salandra ! Evviva la 
 guerra ! " Showers of letters from their constitu- 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 805 
 
 ents had convinced the deputies that the tide was 
 rising throughout the country. Many of them 
 were themselves borne away by it, and were now 
 genuinely anxious to support the King and the 
 Cabinet. The less reputable were awed or per- 
 suaded into acquiescence. So when at length the 
 fateful sitting began it was seen at once that a 
 startling transformation had occurred. 
 
 In that tense and crowded Chamber there was 
 one familiar figure missing. Signor Giolitti was 
 not in his place ; for he knew already that the 
 machine he had constructed, and manipulated so 
 long, was broken into fragments, and he had no 
 mind to be a witness of the ruin. The bloc had 
 gone to pieces ; the Dictator's party had ceased to 
 exist ; the great parliamentary plot was dead 
 before it had begun to live. 
 
 The House was throbbing with patriotic emotion. 
 Salandra and Sonnino took their seats amid long 
 salvoes of acclamation from the majority that was 
 to have swept them away in humiliation and defeat. 
 Applause in vivid bursts punctuated the statement 
 in which the Premier introduced the Bill conferring 
 discretionary powers upon the (government in case 
 of war, and swelled to a surge at the peroration 
 which called for the fusion of all forces, and all 
 hearts, in the common cause of the nation. Sig- 
 nor Boselli, the doyen of the Chamber, supported 
 the ministerial proposal in impressive sentences. 
 
306 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 *' When the flag of Italy, the flag of Victor Em- 
 manuel, shall wave over all Italian lands, then will 
 all the peoples of Italy have a single heart and a 
 single aim." 
 
 The vote, which in effect authorised the Govern- 
 ment to declare war, was carried by 407 against 
 74, the minority consisting almost entirely of 
 socialists and a few extreme clericals. In the 
 Senate there were only two dissentients in a 
 House of 526. 
 
 The news spread swiftly through Rome and the 
 city was delirious with joy. In the evening an 
 immense torchlight procession, two hundred thou- 
 sand strong, marched through the streets to the 
 Quirinal, with the Syndic of Rome, Prince Colonna, 
 and some of the senators, at their head. The King 
 showed himself to the delighted multitude, his 
 young son beside him with the tricolour in his 
 hand. On May 23 the (Government notified Baron 
 Burian that Italy would consider herself in a state 
 of war on the following day ; and before that day 
 was ended Italian bayonets were wet with Austrian 
 
 blood. ^ 
 
 * * 
 
 The Giolittians and pro -Teutons had been 
 smitten hip and thigh, but they were not quite 
 extinguished. They had lost the battle, but they 
 still tried to fight a rear-guard action. For reasons 
 which ought to be evident from what has been said 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 307 
 
 in these chapters, the formal break with Germany 
 was long delayed ; for amid the difficulties of 
 the opening war with Austria the Government 
 hesitated to face the financial disturbance and 
 economic embarrassment involved in suddenly 
 cutting through the coils of Germanic pene- 
 tration. 
 
 Powerful influences and substantial resources 
 kept some vitality in the anti -national faction even 
 after their ddbdcle of May 20, 1915. More than a 
 year later they got together again and sought their 
 revenge on the high-minded Premier, who had 
 steered Italy through the crisis of her destinies, 
 and had found in the popular emotion the support 
 denied by doubting friends and interested oppo- 
 nents. ^ This time, owing to an unlucky moment of 
 indiscretion on his own part, they succeeded. In 
 June, 1916, the country was disturbed and per- 
 plexed by the apparent success of the smashing"* 
 Austrian drive down the Trentino. Signor Salandra, 
 
 ' "To a modest burgher of the South of Italy, Signor Salandra, 
 who was called but to serve as a stop-gap Premier during the 
 ex-dictator's temporary and strategic retirement, it fell to face 
 a tremendous issue ; with indomitable courage he assumed the 
 burden of a momentous decision. With profound insight and 
 trust in the better self of the Italian people he appealed from 
 the Chambers of timid politicians to the market-place, and' 
 ranged Italy against the Imperial aggressors. It was a great 
 act of faith, and will form his worthy political epitaph. Let us 
 never forget that it was the man-in-the-street in Italy who turned 
 the scale in favour of the Allies.'' — T. Okey, Contemporary 
 Review, July, 1916, p. 38. 
 
 ■A- 
 
308 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 irritated by waspish critics, let fall a sentence which 
 seemed to reflect upon the coiirage and capacity of 
 the army. Instantly the House was in a flame. 
 The remnants of the old bloc, partially reconsti- 
 tuted, combined with the resentful nationalists, 
 angered by what they deemed an ungenerous attack 
 on the soldiers, and with the socialists and the 
 ultra-clericals, to carry a vote against the Glovern- 
 ment ; and the Prime Minister resigned. 
 
 Et jam finis erat. A storm of righteous indigna- 
 tion swept the country at this display of partisan- 
 ship while the foe was at the gates. The news- 
 papers of all shades sternly admonished the place- 
 mongers and faction-fighters of Montecitorio to lay 
 aside their trumpery rivalries till a more convenient 
 season. The country cared nothing for their 
 quarrels and their parties ; it had only one interest, 
 and that was that the war should be waged effec- 
 tively. I was myself with the army at the front 
 at this time ; and — ^though soldiers are not prone 
 to talk politics — ^it was easy to see that to them the 
 Government was Cadorna and the General Staff 
 and the Commander-in-Chief, who is the King; 
 and nothing mattered so long as they were 
 properly supported and supplied with what they 
 needed to carry on the campaign. 
 
 All the more reputable of the parliamentarians 
 were themselves ashamed of their lapse. By 
 common consent a Cabinet of Concentration was 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 309 
 
 formed, uiider the venerable Signer Boselli, and it 
 included politicians of all shades, even high Catho- 
 lics and socialists. The Minister of War remained 
 at his post, and Sonnino retained the portfolio of 
 Foreign Affairs. Later in the year (on August 27, 
 1916) the final step was taken and war was declared 
 against Germany. Italy had now thrown herself, 
 without reserve, into the great Alliance against 
 militarist barbarism, and all her energies were 
 bent upon the triumph of the common cause and 
 the task of self-realisation and self-completion for 
 which she had drawn the sword. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 A good deal was made in England and elsewhere 
 of Signor Salandra's " sacred egoism " sentence, 
 and too much stress laid upon the self-regarding 
 motives which impelled Italy to a rupture with her 
 former partners. Undoubtedly the Italian Govern- 
 ment was closely, and properly, anxious to promote 
 the national interests. But that does not alter the 
 fact that Italy's intervention, coming when it did, 
 was a service of the highest value to the Allied 
 cause as a whole ; and that it was boldly and 
 chivalrously initiated at a moment when that 
 cause seemed at a low ebb of its fortvmes. 
 
 In the spring of 1915 it was the general opinion 
 in the neutral countries that the Germanic Powers 
 were well on their way to victory. In the West 
 X 2 
 
310 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 the French and British armies were stationary, and 
 had made no progress since the battles of the 
 Marne and Aisne. In the East the AlUes had met 
 vdth what looked rather like irretrievable disaster. 
 The Russian offensive had been smashed, the 
 Czar's armies had been swept out of Poland with 
 terrible losses of men and material, an Austro- 
 German advance upon Kieff, Odessa, or even 
 Petrograd, was considered imminent, and in many 
 quarters it was believed that Russia could not 
 recover from the blows inflicted upon her in time 
 to play a further effective part in the war. 
 
 This was apparently the view of the Governments 
 of the Central Powers, for they were taking 
 advantage of Russia's assumed desperate position 
 to approach her with proposals for a separate 
 peace. These tentatives were known to the Italian 
 Foreign Office. On March 29, 1915, the Italian 
 ambassador at Petrograd telegraphed : " I learn 
 from an unimpugnable source that a serious 
 attempt at peace has been addressed to this 
 Government by someone speaking in the name of 
 the Austro-Hungarian Government," ^ Foiu* days 
 later there was a similar despatch from the 
 ambassador at Berlin : " From certain indica- 
 tions, clearly confirmed from an authoritative 
 source, I gather that Germany would not refuse to 
 treat for peace with Russia."* 
 
 1 Italian Green Book, No, 57. ■' Ibid. , No. 61 . 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 311 
 
 It was in the presence of these discouraging 
 symptoms that Italy took the decisive step. 
 She had no certainty that the Allies would win, 
 she faced the risk — ^which could not be ignored at 
 the time — ^that they might be defeated. If 
 Salandra and Sonnino were following the precedent 
 of Cavour in the Crimean War they did so with a 
 difference. For when Cavour sent the Sardinian 
 troops to join those of Great Britain and France he 
 knew that Italy stood in no danger of invasion, 
 even if the campaign should go against the Western 
 Powers, which seemed unlikely. But in May, 1915, 
 Italy had to confront a still unbeaten enemy of 
 formidable strength upon her own frontier. 
 
 Italy did not wait to intervene till victory had 
 declared itself for the side she favovired. She took 
 up arms while the issue still hung in the balance, 
 and when, as many thought, the scale was inclining 
 against her new allies. 
 
 As to the service she rendered by coming in at 
 this juncture, it is sufficient to look back upon the 
 course of events during the months that followed. 
 Serbia and Montenegro were conquered and 
 annexed, Greece was overawed, the expedition to 
 the Dardanelles became a monumental failure, the 
 Western Allies could not advance and were 
 exposed to the tremendous attack at Verdun, 
 Russia was still reorganising. What would have 
 been the position if Austria had been free to , 
 
312 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 direct her entire force upon the Eastern front 
 during this period ? Without the diversion of so 
 large a portion of the Austro-Hungarian armies to 
 the Itahan hne it is conceivable that Russia might 
 have been unable to resume the offensive till too 
 late, and that Roumania could never have come 
 into the war at all. 
 
 * * 
 
 To those who visited Italy in the second year of 
 the conflict there was little sign of the agitations 
 and cross-currents of the beginning. Of all the 
 belligerent nations I have seen Italy seems to me 
 the most tranquil, contented, and serenely confi- 
 dent. She has endured heavy losses, and is called 
 upon to make great sacrifices ; but her people have 
 counted the cost, and they pay it resolutely, cheer- 
 fully, almost, one would say, gaily. They have no 
 love for war, and on this one they entered with 
 hesitating and doubtful steps ; but now, I think, 
 they feel, not only that it was necessary and right, 
 but that it will give them some things which were 
 wanting in the years of peace. 
 
 War is a monstrous evil ; but from its furnace of 
 pain and suffering Italy, with other nations, may 
 emerge hardened and tempered. She will gain a 
 larger unity, and that not merely by annexing the 
 unredeemed territory. The war has gone far to 
 obliterate that division of classes and localities which 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 318 
 
 was the inheritance of her troubled past. Her 
 children have been Sardinians, Venetians, Apulians, 
 Tuscans, Neapolitans, Sicilians, longer than they 
 have been Italians ; they have been apt to set the 
 old province, where their fathers were bom, before 
 the new nation to which they have themselves so 
 lately succeeded. The trench and the battlefield 
 have brought them together. The Piedmontese 
 have learnt that the Southerners too are brave and 
 strong ; the men of the South have fotmd that they 
 exaggerated the harshness and coldness of the 
 Cisalpine peoples. The common effort and the 
 common burden have crowned the edifice which 
 the makers of Italy built up in the nineteenth 
 centiu*y. 
 
 And the war, here as elsewhere, has brought 
 divergent orders and sects together. We may hear 
 less after it of that quarrel between the Church 
 and the State which has caused unhappiness to 
 so many devout and patriotic Italians. For if 
 the Vatican, under the malign statesmanship of its 
 chiefs, has been anti-national, the clergy as a 
 whole have taken a noble part in the war. Every- 
 where at the front I met uniformed priests com- 
 forting and consoling the soldiers in hardship and 
 peril ; at the hospitals and in the ambulances I 
 saw the sisters of the religious orders ministering 
 to the sick and dying. Three of them were killed 
 by an Austrian bomb at one hospital I visited. 
 
814 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 I think these things will go some way to soften 
 sectarian animosities. The " freemasons " and 
 socialists may be less acridly agnostic, the "blacks " 
 less narrowly clerical. Many soldiers in all the 
 armies are thinking more of spiritual values, and 
 the problems of religion, than ever before ; and that 
 is true of the Italians. I found a peasant-soldier 
 from Calabria intent upon a book at a roadside 
 camp, and asked him what he was reading. He 
 showed me the volume, a little paper-covered 
 Life of Christ — Piccolo vita di Gesii per i soldati — 
 with many illustrations drawn from Rafael, Beato 
 Angelico, Carlo Dolci, Tiepolo, and other masters. 
 "Is this new to you?" I said. "Yes," he 
 answered; "the priests did not want us to read 
 it." " And now ? " " Now they do not mind." 
 They do not even mind them reading the Bible, 
 for I have seen also cheap copies of the New 
 Testament which some society or committee has 
 been allowed to circulate among the regiments 
 — surely a new and striking thing in this the most 
 Catholic country but one in Europe ! 
 
 The war is for Italy one of ideas and realities. 
 She means to emerge from it greater, stronger, 
 more self-reUant. I hope that she will be 
 moderate in her victory, and that her statesmen 
 
THE WELDING OF THE NATION 315 
 
 ■will show themselves willing to act cautiously and 
 generously in the solution of that tangled problem 
 of nationalities and jxirisdictions which the re- 
 settlement of South-Eastern Europe must present. 
 It can never be settled on purely national Unes ; 
 for in those border -lands Italians, Germans, Serbs, 
 and Slovenes are too inextricably mixed for 
 political and racial divisions to coincide. The 
 nationality theory may be as perilous, if pushed 
 too far, as the dynastic or the geographical. 
 
 What Italy needs is security sufficient to develop 
 to the full her economic resources and her national 
 individuality ; and that she intends to obtain. She 
 is resolved to be independent of external patronage, 
 protection, and supervision of any kind, and to 
 enjoy all the rights, privileges, ambitions, which 
 belong to the greater nations of the earth. She 
 believes herself capable of excelling, not merely in 
 arts, science, letters, philosophy, laws, but in pro- 
 duction, manufactures, commerce, the exploita- 
 tion of waste and backward countries. She is not 
 content that her people, so intelligent, so indus- 
 trious, so capable, should be packed off year by 
 year in shoals to form the ill-paid labour helots of 
 wealthier communities ; she prefers that they 
 should be kept at home to develop the riches, and 
 intensify the vitality, of their own land. She has 
 watched the rise of Germany from poverty and 
 weakness to strength and industrial magnificence ; 
 
816 ITALY IN THE WAR 
 
 and she believes that the Latin capacity for organi- 
 sation, invention, scientific adaptation and enter- 
 prise, is not inferior to the Teutonic. She thinks 
 she can do many of the things that Germany has 
 done, and some things which Germany will never 
 do : and she means to tryl It is for the great free 
 nations, with which she is now associated, to 
 survey her effort with sympathetic eyes, and 
 extend to it all the aid and encouragement in their 
 power. 
 
 PRINTED BY WIULIAM BRHNDON AND SON, tTD, 
 PLYMOUTH. ENGLAKn