With British Guns in Italy: A Tribute to Italian Achievement
by Baron Hugh Dalton Dalton · English · Gutenberg #10107 · 439,855 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: With British Guns in Italy: A Tribute to Italian Achievement
Author: Baron Hugh Dalton Dalton
Release date: November 1, 2003 [eBook #10107]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITH BRITISH GUNS IN ITALY: A TRIBUTE TO ITALIAN ACHIEVEMENT ***
WITH BRITISH GUNS IN ITALY
A TRIBUTE TO ITALIAN ACHIEVEMENT
BY
HUGH DALTON
SOMETIME LIEUTENANT IN THE ROYAL GARRISON ARTILLERY
WITH 12 ILLUSTRATIONS AND 3 MAPS
_First Published in 1919_
TO THE HIGH CAUSE OF ANGLO-ITALIAN FRIENDSHIP AND UNDERSTANDING
"Nella primavera si combatte e si muore, o soldato."
M. PUCCINI, _Dal Carso al Piave_.
"So they gave their bodies to the commonwealth and received, each for
his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the grandest of
all sepulchres; not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a
home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to
speech or action as the occasion comes by. For the whole earth is the
sepulchre of famous men; and their story is not graven only on stone
over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol,
woven into the stuff of other men's lives."
_Funeral Speech of Pericles_.
"Dying here is not death; it is flying into the dawn."
MEREDITH, _Vittoria_.
PREFACE
So far as I know, no British soldier who served on the Italian Front has
yet published a book about his experiences. Ten British Batteries went
to Italy in the spring of 1917 and passed through memorable days. But
their story has not yet been told. Nor, except in the language of
official dispatches, has that of the British Divisions which went to
Italy six months later, some of which remained and took part in the
final and decisive phases of the war against Austria. Something more
should soon be written concerning the doings of the British troops in
Italy, for they deserve to stand out clearly in the history of the war.
This little book of mine is only an account, more or less in the form of
a Diary, of what one British soldier saw and felt, who served for
eighteen months on the Italian Front as a Subaltern officer in a Siege
Battery. But it was my luck to see a good deal during that time. Mine
had been the first British Battery to come into action and open fire on
the Italian Front. And, as my story will show, it was either the first
or among the first on most other important occasions, except in the
Caporetto retreat, and then it was the last.
I have camouflaged the names of all persons mentioned throughout the
book, except those of Cabinet Ministers, Generals and a few other
notabilities.
For permission to reproduce photographs, I wish to thank the
representatives in London of the Italian State Railways (12 Waterloo
Place, S.W.), and my friend and brother officer, Mr Stuart Osborn.
H. D.
LONDON, _February_ 1919
CONTENTS
PREFACE
PART I
INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER I
THE ANGLO-ITALIAN TRADITION AND ITALY'S PART IN THE WAR
PART II
SOME EARLY IMPRESSIONS
CHAPTER II
FROM FOLKESTONE TO VENICE
CHAPTER III
FROM VENICE TO THE ISONZO FRONT
CHAPTER IV
THE WAR ON THE ISONZO FRONT
CHAPTER V
PALMANOVA
CHAPTER VI
AQUILEIA AND GRADO
CHAPTER VII
A GRAMOPHONE AND A CHAPLAIN ON THE CARSO
CHAPTER VIII
A FRONT LINE RECONNAISSANCE
CHAPTER IX
AN EVENING AT GORIZIA
CHAPTER X
A CEMETERY AT VERSA
CHAPTER XI
UDINE
CHAPTER XII
THE BRITISH AND THE ITALIAN SOLDIER
CHAPTER XIII
I JOIN THE FIRST BRITISH BATTERY IN ITALY
PART III
THE ITALIAN SUMMER OFFENSIVE, 1917
CHAPTER XIV
THE OFFENSIVE OPENS
CHAPTER XV
WE SWITCH OUR GUNS NORTHWARD
CHAPTER XVI
THE FALL OF MONTE SANTO
CHAPTER XVII
THE CONQUEST OF THE BAINSIZZA PLATEAU
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FIGHTING DIES DOWN
CHAPTER XIX
A LULL BETWEEN TWO STORMS
PART IV
THE ITALIAN RETREAT AND RECOVERY
CHAPTER XX
THE BEGINNING OF THE ENEMY OFFENSIVE
CHAPTER XXI
FROM THE VIPPACCO TO SAN GIORGIO DI NOGARA
CHAPTER XXII
FROM SAN GIORGIO TO THE TAGLIAMENTO
CHAPTER XXIII
FROM THE TAGLIAMENTO TO TREVISO
CHAPTER XXIV
THOUGHTS AFTER THE DISASTER
CHAPTER XXV
FERRARA, ARQUATA AND THE CORNICE ROAD
CHAPTER XXVI
REFITTING AT FERRARA
PART V
A YEAR OF RESISTANCE AND OF PREPARATION
CHAPTER XXVII
IN STRATEGIC RESERVE
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE FIRST BRITISH BATTERY UP THE MOUNTAINS
CHAPTER XXIX
THE ASIAGO PLATEAU
CHAPTER XXX
SOME NOTES ON NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS
CHAPTER XXXI
ROME IN THE SPRING
CHAPTER XXXII
THE FIFTEENTH OF JUNE, 1918
CHAPTER XXXIII
IN THE TRENTINO
CHAPTER XXXIV
SIRMIONE AND SOLFERINO
CHAPTER XXXV
THE ASIAGO PLATEAU ONCE MORE
PART VI
THE LAST PHASE
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE MOVE TO THE PIAVE
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE BEGINNING OF THE LAST BATTLE
CHAPTER XXXVIII
ACROSS THE RIVER
CHAPTER XXXIX
LIBERATORI
CHAPTER XL
THE COMPLETENESS OF VICTORY
CHAPTER XLI
IN THE EUGANEAN HILLS
CHAPTER XLII
LAST THOUGHTS ON LEAVING ITALY
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Italian Troops Crossing a Snowfield in the Trentino
Railway Bridge over the Isonzo Wrecked by Austrian Shell Fire
Italian Mule Transport on the Carso
No. 3 Gun of the First British Battery in Italy
Casa Girardi and Italian Huts
Some of Our Battery Huts near Casa Girardi
The Eastern Portion of The Asiago Plateau
Road Behind Our Battery Position Leading to Pria Dell' Acqua
Chapel at San Sisto and Italian Graves
Huts on a Mountain Side in the Trentino
Lorries Leaving Asiago after Its Liberation
Captured Austrian Guns in Val D'Assa
LIST OF MAPS
Map of Northern Italy
Map of the Isonzo Front
Map of Val Brenta and the Asiago Plateau
* * * * *
WITH BRITISH GUNS IN ITALY
PART I
INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER I
THE ANGLO-ITALIAN TRADITION AND ITALY'S PART IN THE WAR
Anglo-Italian friendship has been one of the few unchanging facts in
modern international relations. Since the French Revolution, in the
bellicose whirligig of history and of the old diplomacy's reckless dance
with death, British troops have fought in turn against Frenchmen and
Germans, against Russians and Austrians, against Bulgarians, Turks and
Chinamen, against Boers, and even against Americans, but never, except
for a handful of Napoleonic conscripts, against Italians. British and
Italian troops, on the other hand, fought side by side in the Crimea,
and, in the war which has just ended, have renewed and extended their
comradeship in arms in Austria and Italy, in France and in the Balkans.
During the nineteenth century Italy in her Wars of Liberation gained, in
a degree which this generation can hardly realise, the enthusiastic
sympathy and the moral, and sometimes material, support of all the best
elements in the British nation. There were poets--Byron and Shelley, the
Brownings, Swinburne and Meredith--who were filled with a passionate
devotion to the Italian cause.[1] There were statesmen--Palmerston, Lord
John Russell and Gladstone--who did good work for Italian freedom, and
Italians still remember that in 1861 the British Government was the
first to recognise the new Kingdom of United Italy, while the
Governments of other Powers were intriguing to harass and destroy it.
There were individual, adventurous Englishmen, such as Forbes, the
comrade of Garibaldi, who put their lives and their wealth at the
disposal of Italian patriots. But, beyond all these, it was the great
mass of the British people which stood steadily behind the Italian
people in its long struggle for unity and freedom.
[Footnote 1: Even Tennyson, who was not very susceptible to foreign
influences, invited Garibaldi to plant a tree in his garden.]
Mazzini, Garibaldi and Cavour, "the soul, the sword and the brain,"
which together created Modern Italy, all had close personal relations
with this country. Mazzini, driven from his own land by foreign
oppressors, lived a great part of his life in exile among us, and here
dreamed those dreams, which still inspire generous youth throughout the
world. When Garibaldi visited us in 1864, he was enthusiastically
acclaimed by all sections of the nation, by the Prince of Wales, the
Peerage and the Poet Laureate, no less than by the working classes. It
is recorded that, used as he was, as a soldier, to the roar of battle
and, as a sailor, to the roar of the storm, Garibaldi almost quailed
before the tumultuous roar of welcome which greeted him as he came out
of the railway station at Nine Elms. Cavour was a deep student and a
great admirer of British institutions, both political and economic, and
in a large measure founded Italian institutions upon them. And the first
public speech he ever made was made in London in the English tongue.
These great men passed in time from the stage of Italian public life,
and others took their places, but amid all the shifting complexities of
recent international politics, no shadow has ever fallen across the path
of Anglo-Italian friendship. And indeed during the Boer War Italy was
the only friend we had left in Europe.
Italy's membership of the Triple Alliance was always subject to two
conditions, first, that the Alliance was to be purely defensive, and
second, that Italy would never support either of her partners in war
against England. Thus, under the first condition, when Austria proposed
in 1913 that the Triple Alliance should combine to crush Serbia,
victorious but exhausted after the Balkan Wars, Italy at once rejected
the proposal. And, under the second condition, as German naval expansion
became more and more provocative and threatening to Britain, we were
able to transfer nearly all our Mediterranean Fleet to the North Sea,
secure in the knowledge that, whatever might befall, we should never
find Italy among our enemies.
* * * * *
The part which Italy has played during the war just ended, the great
value of her contribution to the Allied cause, and the great sacrifices
which that contribution has involved for her, have been often and
admirably stated. But I doubt whether, even yet, these things are fully
realised outside Italy, and I will, therefore, very shortly state them
again.
When war broke out in August 1914, Italy declared her neutrality, on the
ground that the war was aggressive on the part of the Central Powers,
and that, therefore, the Triple Alliance no longer bound her. By her
declaration of neutrality, she liberated the whole French Army to fight
in Belgium and North-Eastern France, and rendered our sea communications
with the East substantially secure. Bismarck used to say that, under the
Triple Alliance, an Italian bugler and drummer boy posted on the
Franco-Italian frontier would immobilise four French Army Corps. The
Alliance disappointed the expectations of Bismarck's successors.
But if Italy had come in at this time on the German side, she might well
have tilted swiftly and irremediably against us that awful equipoise of
forces which, once established, lasted for more than four years. There
would have been small hope that France, supported only by our small
Expeditionary Force and faced with an Italian invasion in the
South-East, in addition to a German invasion in the North-East, could
have prevented the fall of Paris and the Channel Ports, while Austria,
freed from all fear on the Italian frontier, perhaps even reinforced by
part of the Italian Army, could have turned all her forces against
Russia. Or alternatively, part of the Italian Army might have attacked
Serbia through Austrian territory, with the probable result that Rumania
and Greece, as well as Bulgaria and Turkey, would have been brought in
against us in the first month of the war.
At sea our naval supremacy would have been strained to breaking point by
the many heavy tasks imposed upon it simultaneously in widely-separated
seas. Our communications through the Mediterranean would, indeed, have
been almost impossible to maintain.
Many bribes were offered to Italy at this time by the Central Powers in
the hope of inducing her to join them--Corsica, Savoy and Nice, Tunis,
Malta, and probably even larger rewards. But Italy remained neutral.
In May 1915 she entered the war on our side, in the first place to free
those men of Italian race who still lived outside her frontiers, under
grievous oppression, and whom Austria refused to give up to their Mother
Country, and, in the second place, because already many Italians
realised, as Americans also realised later, that the defeat of the
Central Powers was a necessary first step towards the liberation of
oppressed peoples everywhere and the building of a better world. Italy
entered the war at a time when things were going badly for us in Russia,
and looked very menacing in France, and when she herself was still
ill-prepared for a long, expensive and exhausting struggle. The first
effect of her entry was to pin down along the Alps and the Isonzo large
Austrian forces, which would otherwise have been available for use
elsewhere.
She entered the war nine months after the British Empire, but her
losses, when the war ended, had been proportionately heavier than ours.
According to the latest published information the total of Italian dead
was 460,000 out of a population of 35 millions. The total of British
dead for the whole British Empire, including Dominion, Colonial and
Indian troops, was 670,000, and for the United Kingdom alone 500,000.
The white population of the British Empire is 62 millions and of the
United Kingdom 46 millions. Thus the Italian dead amount to more than 13
for every thousand of the population, and the British, whether
calculated for the United Kingdom alone or for the whole white
population of the Empire, to less than 11 for every thousand of the
population. The long series of Battles of the Isonzo,--the journalists
counted up to twelve of them in the first twenty-seven months in which
Italy was at war,--the succession of offensives "from Tolmino to the
sea," which were only dimly realised in England and France, cost Italy
the flower of her youth. The Italian Army was continually on the
offensive during those months against the strongest natural defences to
be found in any of the theatres of war. On countless occasions Italian
heroes went forth on forlorn hopes to scale and capture impossible
precipices, and sometimes they succeeded. Through that bloody series of
offensives the Italians slowly but steadily gained ground, and drew ever
nearer to Trento and Trieste. Only those who went out to the Italian
Front before Caporetto, and saw with their own eyes what the Italian
Army had accomplished on the Carso and among the Julian Alps, can fully
realise the greatness of the Italian effort.
It must never be forgotten that Italy is both the youngest and the
poorest of the Great Powers of Europe. Barely half a century has passed
since United Italy was born, and the political and economic difficulties
of her national childhood were enormous. For many years, as one of her
own historians says, she was "not a state, but only the outward
appearance of a state." Her natural resources are poor and limited. She
possesses neither coal nor iron, and is still partially dependent on
imported food and foreign shipping. She is still very poor in
accumulated capital, and the burden of her taxation is very heavy.
From the moment of her entry into the war her economic problems became
very difficult, especially that of the provision of guns and munitions
in sufficient quantities, and the extent to which she solved this last
problem is deserving of the greatest admiration. Her position grew even
more difficult in 1917. After the military collapse of Russia she had to
face practically the whole Austrian Army, instead of only a part of it,
and a greatly increased weight of guns. The Austrians had 53 millions of
population to draw from, the Italians only 35. Moreover, just before
Caporetto, a number of German Divisions, with a powerful mass of
artillery and aircraft, were thrown into the Austrian scale, while from
the Italian was withdrawn the majority of that tiny handful of French
and British Batteries, which were all the armed support which, up to
that time, her Allies had ever lent her. Only five British Batteries and
a few French were left on the Italian Front. By the defeat of Caporetto
she lost a great quantity of guns and stores and practically the whole
of her Second Army, while half of Venetia fell into the hands of the
enemy, and remained in his possession for a year. The inferiority of the
Italian Army to its enemies, both in numbers and in material, was thus
sharply increased.
But the Italians held grimly on; they turned at bay on the Piave and in
the mountains, and checked the onrush of Austrians and Germans. Then,
supported by French and British reinforcements, but still inferior in
numbers, they continued for a year longer to hold up almost the whole
strength of Austria. That winter the poor were very near starvation in
the cities of Italy, and the peasants had to cut down their olive groves
for fuel. The following spring part of the French and British
reinforcements were withdrawn to France, together with an Italian
contingent which numerically balanced the French and British who
remained in Italy.
The Austrians also lost their German support and sent some of their own
troops to France, but they retained their numerical superiority on the
Italian Front. In June they launched a great attack on a seventy-mile
front, which was to have made an end of Italy; but the Italians beat
them back. Then four months later, after an intense effort of
preparation, Italy, still inferior in numbers and material, struck for
the last time and utterly destroyed the Austrian Army in the great
battle which will be known to history as Vittorio Veneto. The Austrians
lost twice as many prisoners and four times as many guns at Vittorio
Veneto as they had taken at Caporetto.
The war on the Italian Front was over, the Austrian Army was broken
beyond recovery, the Austrian State was dissolving into its national
elements, which only tradition, corruption and brute force had for so
long held together. Italy, heroic and constant, had endured to the end,
and with her last great gesture had both completed her own freedom, and
given their freedom to those who had been the instruments of her
enemies.
PART II
SOME EARLY IMPRESSIONS
CHAPTER II
FROM FOLKESTONE TO VENICE
On the 6th July, 1917, I arrived at Folkestone armed with a War Office
letter ordering my "passage to France for reinforcements for Siege
Artillery Batteries in Italy." I had a millpond crossing in the
afternoon, and that evening left Boulogne for Modane.
Next morning at 2 a.m. I was awakened from frowsy sleep by a French
soldier, laden with baggage, who stumbled headlong into the railway
carriage which I was sharing with three other British officers. We were
at Amiens. I was last here ten months before, when my Division was
coming back from rest to fight a second time upon the Somme. I did not
sleep again, but watched the sunrise behind an avenue of poplars, as we
passed through Creil, and the woods of Chantilly shining wonderfully in
the early morning light. I spent that day in Paris and left again in the
evening.
Next morning, the 8th, I awoke at Bourg in High Savoy. Here too the
poplar dominates in the valleys. We ran along the shores of Lake Bourget
and up the beautiful valley of the Arc in misty rain. We arrived at
Modane at 10 a.m., and I was booked through to Palmanova, a new name to
me at that time. The train left an hour later and, as we lunched, we
passed through the Mont Cenis tunnel and slid rapidly downwards through
Alpine valleys, charming enough but less beautiful than those on the
French side of the frontier. Very soon it became perceptibly warmer,
electric fans were set in motion and ice was served with the wine.
I found that I had six hours to wait at Turin before the train left for
Milan. My fleeting impression of Turin was of a very well-planned city,
its Corsi spacious and well shaded with trees, its trams multitudinous,
its many distant vistas of wooded hills and of the Superga Palace beyond
the Po a delight to the eye. But I found less animation there than I had
expected, except in a church, where a priest was ferociously declaiming
and gesticulating at a perspiring crowd, mostly women, who were
patiently fanning themselves in the stifling, unventilated heat. I was
an object of interest in the streets, where the British uniform was not
yet well known. Some took me for a Russian and some little boys ran
after me and asked for a rouble. A group of women agreed that I was
Spanish.
The train for Milan goes right through to Venice, so, being momentarily
independent of the British military authorities, I decided to spend a
few hours there on my way to the Front.
The carriage was full of Italian officers, chiefly Cavalry, Flying Corps
and Infantry. It is their custom on meeting an unknown officer of their
own or of an Allied Army to stand stiffly upright, to shake hands and
introduce themselves by name. This little ceremony breaks the ice. I
saw many of them also on the platforms and in the corridor of the train.
The majority, especially of their mounted officers, are very elegant and
many very handsome, and they have those charming easy manners which are
everywhere characteristic of the Latin peoples.
Nearly all Italian officers speak French. In their Regular Army French
and either English or German are compulsory studies, and a good standard
of fluent conversation is required. In these early days my Italian was
rather broken, so we talked mostly French. At Milan all my companions
except one got out, and a new lot got in. But I was growing sleepy, and
after the formal introductions I began to drowse.
* * * * *
I woke several times in the night and early morning, and, half asleep,
looked out through the carriage window upon wonderful sights. A railway
platform like a terrace in a typical Italian garden, ornate with a row
of carved stone vases of perfect form, and vines in festoons from vase
to vase, and dark trees behind, and then a downward slope and little
white houses asleep in the distance. This I think was close to Brescia.
Then Desenzano, and what I took to be the distant glimmer of Lake Garda
under the stars. Verona I passed in my sleep, having now crossed the
boundary of Lombardy into Venetia, and Vicenza and Padua are nothing
from the train. At Mestre, the junction for the Front, all the Italian
officers got out, and I went on to Venice.
Except for three British Naval officers I was, I think, the only
foreigner there, and a priest, whom I met, took me for an American.
Everything of value in Venice, that could be, was sandbagged now for
fear of bombs, and much that was movable had been taken away. I spent
three hours in a gondola on the Grand Canal and up and down the Rii,
filled with a dreamy amazement at the superb harmonies of form and
colour of things both far away and close at hand. And even as seen in
war-time, with all the accustomed life of Venice broken and spoiled, the
spaciousness of the Piazza S. Marco, and the beauty of the buildings
that stand around it, and at night the summer lightnings, and a
rainstorm, and a café under the colonnade, where music was being played,
will linger always in my memory. All the big hotels were closed now, or
taken over by the Government as offices or hospitals, and the gondolas
lay moored in solitary lines along the Grand Canal, and even the motor
boats were few and, as a waiter said to me, "no one has been here for
three years, but the people are very quiet and no one complains."
CHAPTER III
FROM VENICE TO THE ISONZO FRONT
I left Venice next morning by the 5.55 train, and reached Palmanova at
half-past ten. As one goes eastward by this railway, there is a grand
panorama of hills, circling the whole horizon; to the north and
north-east the Carnic Alps and Cadore, their highest summits crowned
with snow even in the full heat of summer; eastward the Julian Alps,
beyond the Isonzo, stretching from a point north of Tolmino, down
behind the Carso, almost to Fiume in the south-east; and yet further
round the circle to the southward the mountains of Istria, running
behind Trieste and its wide blue gulf, whose waters are invisible from
this railway across the plain.
Of Palmanova I will write again. This was the Railhead and the
Ammunition Dump for the British Batteries. I stayed there that day
scarcely an hour, and then went on by motor lorry to Gradisca, the
Headquarters of "British Heavy Artillery, Italy." Here I lunched and was
well received by the Staff, who were expecting no reinforcements and
were astonished at my coming. It was decided, after some discussion, to
attach me temporarily to a Battery which had one officer in hospital,
slightly wounded by shrapnel. I continued my journey in another motor
lorry after lunch. Gradisca lies on the western bank of the Isonzo,
which is crossed close by at Peteano by a magnificent broad wooden
bridge, the work of Italian engineers. Gradisca had not been badly
damaged, the Austrians having made no great resistance here against the
Italian advance in May 1915, but Peteano had been laid absolutely flat
by Austrian twelve-inch guns. It had been utterly destroyed in half an
hour's intense bombardment some months before, and many Italian hutments
in the neighbourhood had been destroyed at the same time.
Within sight of this bridge, at a distance of a quarter of a mile, is
the confluence of the Vippacco with the Isonzo. From this point the road
follows the Vippacco to Rubbia, the Headquarters of Colonel Raven, who
commanded the Northern Group of British Batteries. which I was now
joining. The five Batteries of this Group, known as "B2," were all in
positions on or near the Vippacco, firing on the northern edge of the
Carso, and eastward along the river valley. The southern Group, "B1,"
were on the Carso itself and operating chiefly against the famous
Hermada, a position of tremendous natural strength, directly covering
Trieste. B2 had the more comfortable and better-shaded positions, but
B1, though their guns were among the rocks and in the full heat of the
sun, were in easy reach of the sea, and had a Rest Camp at Grado among
the lagoons.
Raven's Group, B2, formed part of an Italian Raggruppamento, or
collection of Groups, under the command of a certain Sicilian Colonel
named Canale, a dapper little man who generally wore white gloves, even
in the front line. He was a fearless and capable officer and did all in
his power for the comfort of our Batteries.
From Rubbia I drove in a car to the Battery. As I left the Group
Headquarters, a number of wooden huts at the foot of the wooded slopes
of Monte San Michele, which rise upwards from the road, I went under the
railway which in peace-time connects Gorizia with Trieste. It is useless
now, being within easy range of the Austrian guns, which have, moreover,
broken down the high stone bridge on which the line crosses the
Vippacco. A young Sicilian Sergeant accompanied me as a guide and
pointed out Gorizia, some six miles away to the north, a
widely-scattered town, very white in the sunlight, lying at the foot of
high hills famous in the history of the war on this Front, Monte
Sabotino, Monte Santo, Monte San Gabriele, of which there will be more
for me to say hereafter.
The gun positions of my new Battery were situated just outside the
little village of Pec, inhabited mostly by Slovene peasantry before the
war, now all vanished. The village had been much shelled, first by
Italian and then by Austrian guns, and there was not a house remaining
undamaged, though several had been patched up as billets and cookhouses
by British troops. Another of our Batteries had their guns actually in
the ruins of the village, but ours were alongside a sunken road, leading
down to the Vippacco. The guns themselves were concealed in thick bowers
of acacias, the branches of which had been clipped here and there within
our arc of fire. I doubt if anywhere, on any Front, a British Battery
occupied a position of greater natural beauty. The officers' Mess and
sleeping huts were a few hundred yards from the guns, right on the bank
of the Vippacco, likewise hidden from view and shaded from the sun by a
great mass of acacias, a luxuriant soft roof of fresh green leaves. Our
Mess, indeed, had no other roof than this, for there was seldom any
rain, and, as we sat at meals, we faced a broad waterfall, a curving
wall of white foam, stretching right across the stream, which was at
this point about seventy or eighty yards wide. Innumerable blue
dragon-flies flitted backwards and forwards in the sunlight. Though the
weather was warm, it was less hot than usual at this time of year, and
the surroundings of our Mess reminded me vividly of Kerry. In the first
days that followed I could often imagine myself back in beautiful and
familiar places in the south-west corner of Ireland. Only Italian
gunners coming and going, for several of their Battery positions were
close to ours, and the Castello di Rubbia across the water, slightly but
not greatly damaged, broke this occasional illusion.
These Italians took us quite for granted now, and that evening I began
to learn about their Front. Things were pretty quiet at present on both
sides, but greater activity was expected soon. I made the acquaintance
of Venosta, an Italian Artillery officer attached to the Battery. He was
from Milan, a member of a well-known Lombard family, and had a soft and
quiet way with him and a certain supple charm. At ordinary times he
preferred to take things easily, and was imperturbable by anything which
he thought unimportant. But in crises, as I learned later on, he could
show much calm resource and energy.
* * * * *
I woke next morning to the sound of the Vippacco waterfall, and the
following day I got my first real impression of this part of the Italian
Front. The Battery was doing a registration shoot and I went up in the
afternoon with our Second-in-Command to an O.P. on the top of the Nad
Logem to observe and correct our fire. It was a great climb, up a stony
watercourse, now dry, and then through old Austrian trenches,
elaborately blasted in the Carso rock and captured a year ago. The Nad
Logem is part of the northern edge of the Carso, and from our O.P. a
great panorama spread out north, east and west, with the sinuous
Vippacco in the foreground, fringed with trees. From here I had pointed
out to me the various features of the country. The play of light and
shade in the distance was very wonderful. Our target that afternoon was
a point in the Austrian front line on a long, low, brown hill lying
right below us, known officially as Hill 126. The Austrians some days
before had sent us an ironical wireless message, "We have evacuated Hill
94 and Hill 126 for a week so that the British Batteries may register on
them." They evidently knew something of our whereabouts and our plans!
Coming back we stopped at the foot of a hill on which stands the
shell-wrecked monastery of San Grado di Merna, a white ruin gaunt
against the darker background of the Nad Logem. Here a new Battery
position was being prepared for us, only three hundred yards behind the
Austrian front line, but admirably protected by the configuration of the
ground from enemy fire. An Italian drilling machine was at work here,
operated by compressed air, drilling holes in the rock for the insertion
of dynamite charges, and, by means of gradual blasting, gun pits and
cartridge recesses and dug-outs were being created in the stubborn rock.
Here a heavy thunderstorm broke and we sheltered in the Headquarters of
an Italian Field Artillery Brigade, likewise blasted out of the mountain
side. I returned with Venosta. I asked him to show me the famous
Bersagliere trot, and by way of illustration we doubled along the road
for about half a mile. On the British Front the spectacle of two
officers thus disporting themselves for no apparent reason would have
caused much remark and amusement. But the Italians, whom we passed,
seemed to see nothing remarkable in our behaviour. They are, perhaps,
more tolerant of eccentricity than we are.
It may be of interest at this point to say a few words about some of
the special characteristics of the Italian Army. Every modern Army has
adopted a distinctive colour for its war-time uniform, chosen with a
view to minimising visibility. Thus we wear khaki, the French
horizon-blue, the Germans field-grey. The Italians have adopted an olive
colour, commonly spoken of as "grigio-verde," or grey-green.
The various Italian Corps, Regiments and Brigades wear distinctively
coloured collars on their tunics which, except in the case of the
Arditi, fit closely round the neck. For example, the Granatieri, or
Grenadiers, who both in their high physical standards and military
prestige resemble our own Guards Battalions, wear a collar of crimson
and white. The colour of the Artillery is black with a yellow border,
that of the Engineers black with a red border. Of the Infantry, the
Alpini collars are green and the Bersaglieri crimson, the bands of
colour being shaped in each case like sharp-pointed flames turning
outwards. For this reason the Alpini are often called the "fiamme
verdi," or green flames, and the Bersaglieri "fiamme rosse," or red
flames. The Infantry Brigades of the line, who bear local names,--the
Avellino Brigade, the Como Brigade, the Lecce Brigade and so
forth,--have each their distinctively coloured collars.
These local names mean very little, for, as a matter of policy, men from
all parts of Italy are mixed indiscriminately together in each Brigade.
The Parma Brigade, for example, will contain only a few men from Parma,
and them by chance. One of the objects of this policy is to help to
break down those regional barriers, which still linger owing to
historical causes, between different districts of Italy. It is often
remarked that men from many parts of Italy know more of foreign
countries than of other parts of their own country, and most of the
numerous local dialects are hardly intelligible to men who live far from
the districts where they are spoken. Ordinary Italian, which is in fact
the local dialect of Rome, is, as it were, the _lingua franca_ of the
whole country, but the great majority of Italians speak not only Italian
but one, or sometimes several, local dialects, and the latter are used
by all classes in their own homes. Some of these dialects differ widely
from Italian. In many remote districts some of the peasants cannot speak
Italian at all.
The Alpini and the two Sardinian Brigades, Cagliari and Sassari, are
exceptions to the rule mentioned above. The Alpini are in peace-time
recruited entirely from the men who dwell in the Alps, though I believe
that during the present war a certain number of men from the Apennines
have also been included in Alpini Battalions. The Alpini are specially
used for warfare in the mountains. They wear in their hats a single long
feather. Closely attached to the Alpini are the Mountain Artillery,
armed with light guns of about the same calibre as our own
twelve-pounders. They too are recruited from the mountaineers and wear
the Alpino hat and single feather. The Alpini have a magnificent
regimental spirit and, in my judgment, are the equals of any troops in
the world.
The Cagliari and Sassari Brigades, two of the best in the Italian Army,
are composed entirely of Sardinians. When in the front line they use the
Sardinian dialect on the telephone. Even if the Austrians succeed, by
means of "listening sets," in overhearing them, it hardly matters, for
it is not likely that anyone in the Austrian front line will understand!
The Bersaglieri, another famous Italian Regiment, are recruited from all
parts of Italy, but only from men of high physical fitness. They
correspond roughly to the Light Infantry of other Armies, and always
drill and march to a very quick step, even when carrying machine guns on
their shoulders. Their hats decked with a mass of green cocks' feathers
are familiar in illustrations. The Bersagliere Cyclist Companies, used
for scouting purposes, form part of the Regiment. The Bersagliere
undress cap is a red fez with a blue tassel.
The Arditi, or Assault Detachments, correspond to the German
Sturmtruppen. They were instituted in the Italian Army in 1917. They
also consist of picked men, and undergo a special training to accustom
them to bomb-throwing at close quarters and to other incidents of the
assault. In the course of this training casualties often occur. Only
young unmarried men of exceptionally good physique can become Arditi.
They are only used in actual attacks and never for the purpose of merely
holding trenches. They therefore spend a large part of their time behind
the lines and receive, I believe, extra pay and rations. They are armed
with rifles and _pugnali_, or small daggers, and wear a low-cut tunic,
with a black knottie and a black fez. On each lapel of their tunic they
wear two black flames, similar to the crimson flames on the collars of
the Bersaglieri. They are, therefore, known as "fiamme nere," or black
flames.
A large proportion of Arditi are Sicilians, and their fighting quality
is very high. Certain detachments of Bersaglieri are also classified as
Assault Detachments and wear low-cut tunics like the Arditi.
The Italian Mountain and Field Artillery are excellent; their Heavy
Artillery is handicapped, in comparison with ours, by its smaller
ammunition supply and fewer opportunities for prolonged practice, but
its methods are scientific and its personnel very keen and capable. The
Italian Engineers have done much wonderful work, to which I shall refer
later.
CHAPTER IV
THE WAR ON THE ISONZO FRONT
From Monte Nero to the Adriatic the distance is, in a straight line,
some 35 miles. Allowing for the curves of the actual line, the length of
Front is between 40 and 50 miles. This portion of the Italian and
Austrian lines is commonly spoken of as the Isonzo Front. It is not like
the Front in the higher Alps, where, as on the Adamello, trenches are
cut in the solid ice, where the firing of a single gun may precipitate
an avalanche, where more Italians are killed by avalanches than by
Austrians, where guns have to be dragged up precipices and perched on
ledges fit only, one might think, for an eagle's nest, where food,
ammunition, reinforcements, wounded and sick have all to travel in small
cages attached to wire ropes, slung from peak to peak above sheer drops
of many thousand feet, where sentries have to stand rigidly stationary,
so as to remain invisible, and have to be changed every ten minutes
owing to the intense cold, where Battalions of Alpini charge down snow
slopes on skis at the rate of thirty miles an hour, where refraction and
the deceiving glare of the snow make accurate rifle fire impossible even
for crack shots,--the Isonzo Front is not so astounding and impossible a
Front as this, but it is yet a very different Front from any on which
British troops are elsewhere fighting in this war.
It is a country with a strange beauty of its own; it is, in its own
measure, rough and mountainous, and it is within sight of other and
loftier mountains to the north-west. At my first view of it I remembered
a speech of Carlo, the hero of Meredith's _Vittoria_, concerning Lombard
cities away on the other side of the Trentino, "Brescia under the big
Eastern hill which throws a cloak on it at sunrise! Brescia is always
the eagle's nest that looks over Lombardy! And Bergamo! You know the
terraces of Bergamo. Aren't they like a morning sky? Dying there is not
death; it's flying into the dawn. You Romans envy us. You have no Alps,
no crimson hills, nothing but old walls to look on while you fight.
Farewell, Merthyr Powys...." To me those words were always recurring on
the Italian Front. "Dying here is not death; it's flying into the dawn."
I would have liked to have them engraved on my tombstone, if Fate had
set one up for me in this land, whose beauty casts a spell on all one's
senses.
* * * * *
The Isonzo Front is divided into two parts by the Vippacco river, which
flows roughly from east to west and joins the Isonzo at Peteano. Of
these two parts the northern is three times as long as the southern. The
northern part was held by the Italian Second Army, under General
Capello, the southern by the Italian Third Army, under the Duke of
Aosta. In the north the Isonzo runs through a deep ravine, with Monte
Nero rising on its eastern side. Monte Nero is some 6800 feet high. The
Alpini took it by a marvellous feat of mountain warfare in the first
year of the war. South of Monte Nero, also on the east bank of the
river, lies the town of Tolmino, the object of many fierce Italian
assaults, but not yet taken. Here the Isonzo bends south-westward and
continues to flow through a deep ravine past Canale and Plava, with the
Bainsizza Plateau rising on its eastern bank. This Plateau is of a
general height of about 2400 feet, and is continued south-eastward by
the Ternova Plateau, rising to a general height of about 2200 feet.
Bending again towards the south-east, the Isonzo flows out into the
Plain of Gorizia. Here stand Monte Sabotino and Monte Santo, the western
and eastern pillars of this gateway leading into the lower lands. East
of Monte Santo, along the southern edge of the Plateau, stand Monte San
Gabriele and Monte San Daniele. Here the Plateau falls precipitously
down to the Vippacco valley, only the long brown foothill of San Marco
breaking the drop.
Gorizia has scattered suburbs: Salcano to the north, in the very mouth
of the gorge, the fashionable suburb in days before the war; Podgora to
the west, on the other side of the Isonzo, industrial. The Isonzo Front
was the only possible field for an Italian offensive on a great scale,
and the possession of the Carso, of the Bainsizza and Ternova Plateaus
and of Monte Nero are as essential to the future security of the
Venetian Plain as the possession of the Trentino itself. The frontiers
of northern and north-eastern Italy were drawn according to the methods
of the old diplomacy after the war of 1866, when Bismarck, seeking to
keep Austria neutral in the next war on his schedule, that with France,
willingly sacrificed the interests of his Italian Allies. For half a
century Lombardy and Venetia have lived under the continual threat of an
Austrian descent from the mountains, both from the Trentino, thrust like
a wedge into the heart of Northern Italy, and across the Isonzo from the
east. Nor has this threat been remote. When Italy was plunged in grief
at the time of the Messina earthquake, the Austrian General Staff almost
persuaded their Government that the moment had come to strike her down
into the dust, and recover Lombardy and Venetia for Francis Joseph and
Rome for the Pope. And so to-day an Italian Army fighting on the Isonzo
Front fights in continual danger of having its line of communications
cut by an Austrian offensive from the Trentino.
The population of the Trentino is indisputably Italian. East of the
Isonzo the people are mainly Italian in the towns and mainly Slovene in
the country districts. It has been the deliberate policy of the Austrian
Government to plant new Slovene colonies here from time to time and to
render life intolerable for Italians. But, even so, the population is
still sparse, and all the country is infertile, except for the Vippacco
Valley, which, though wretchedly cultivated hitherto, would richly repay
the application of capital and modern methods. Here, I think, is a clear
case where strategic considerations, which are definite, must prevail
over racial considerations, which are dubious. These lands must be
Italian after the war, if, with even the dimmest possibility of war
remaining, Italians are to have peace of mind. Nor does a strong
defensive frontier for Italy here imply a weak defensive frontier for
her eastern neighbours. For the tangle of mountains continues for many
miles further east.
* * * * *
Venosta told me that, when they took San Michele in July 1916, the
Italians lost 7000 in killed alone, seasoned soldiers of their old Army,
whom it has been hard to replace. But when San Michele fell, they swept
on and took Gorizia and all the surrounding plain at one bound, and, in
the same offensive, Monte Sabotino. This victory has a special
significance in modern Italian history, for it was the first time that
an Army composed of men from all parts of United Italy fought a pitched
battle against a great Army of Austria, Italy's secular enemy and
oppressor. Monte Cucco and Monte Vodice were taken in the offensive of
May 1917, and here, as at Monte Nero, the Alpini performed feats of arms
which, to soldiers accustomed to fighting on the flat, must seem all but
incredible. In one case twenty Alpini climbed up a sheer rock face at
night by means of ropes, and leaping upon the Austrian sentries killed
and threw them over the cliff without a sound, so that, when the main
body of Alpini, climbing by hardly less difficult paths, reached the
summit, they took the Austrian garrison in the rear and by surprise, and
the heights were theirs.
Monte Santo was still Austrian when I came, though the Italians held
trenches half-way up. On the summit the white ruins of a famous convent
were clearly visible. Here some of the bloodiest Infantry fighting of
the whole war took place in May 1917. The Italians were on the top once
in the full flood of that offensive, but could not hold it. Four gallant
Battalions charged up those steep slopes only to find that the Artillery
preparation had been insufficient and that the convent wall had not been
destroyed. Austrians poured out from deep caverns in the rock, where
they had taken refuge during the bombardment, and threw down bombs from
the top of the wall upon the Italians below. For these there was no way
round and no question of retreat, so they all died where they stood,
struggling to climb a wall thirty feet high, clambering upon one
another's shoulders.
South of the Vippacco we held the Volconiac and Dosso Faiti, but not
Hill 464, though this had been taken and lost again, nor yet the hills
further east, nor any of the northern foothills of the Carso, except
Hill 123. To the south again the Hermada had proved a great and bloody
obstacle.
* * * * *
Three striking characteristics of the warfare on this Front impressed
themselves upon my mind--first, the shortage of ammunition; second, the
enormous natural strength of all the Austrian positions; third, the
work of the Italian Engineers.
Judged by the standards of warfare in France and Flanders, both Italians
and Austrians were very short of ammunition. For Italy, a young and poor
country, possessing neither coal nor iron and thrown largely on her own
resources for manufacturing munitions of war, this was no matter of
surprise. It was astonishing that the Italian Artillery was so well
supplied as it was. But, to bring out the contrast, one may note that,
whereas in Italy "fuoco normale" for Siege Artillery was six rounds per
gun per hour, in France at this time a British Siege Battery's
"ordinary" was thirty rounds per gun per hour. And one may note further
that the number of Siege Batteries on a given length of Front in France
was, even at this time, more than four times as great as the
corresponding number on the Italian Front. The Austrians to some extent
made up for their small quantity of guns and shells by a high proportion
of guns of large calibre. Their twelve-inch howitzers were disagreeably
numerous. It resulted, however, that neither Italians nor Austrians
could afford to indulge in continuous heavy bombardments, such as were
the rule in France. There was here on neither side a surplus of shell to
fire away at targets of secondary importance, and therefore there was
less destruction than in France of towns and villages near the lines.
Ammunition had to be accumulated for important occasions and important
targets. Thus battles were still separate and distinct in Italy, with
perceptible intervals of lull, less apt than in France to become one
blurred series of gigantic actions. So too counter-battery work on a
great scale was not practised on either side out here, partly for
reasons of ammunition supply, and partly for technical reasons connected
with the nature of the ground. For in a good _caverna_ one was perfectly
safe, though outside high explosive produced not only its own natural
effect, but also a shower of pieces of rock, thus combining the
unpleasant characteristics of high explosive and shrapnel. One of our
gunners had his ribs broken by a blow from a large piece of rock, though
standing three hundred yards away from where the shell burst. But often
after a heavy bombardment it was found that the enemy had been sitting
quietly in _caverne_, ready to emerge with his machine guns when the
attacking Infantry advanced. Aeroplanes also were less numerous than in
France. And, when I arrived, gas was not much employed on either side.
In the second place, I was deeply impressed with the natural strength of
the Austrians' positions. Almost everywhere they held high ground. On no
other Front in this war have stronger positions been carried by assault
than San Michele, Sabotino, Cucco, Vodice, Monte Nero, and, in the end,
Monte Santo. No one who has not seen with his own eyes the heights which
Italian Infantry have conquered, backed by no great Artillery support,
can realise the astounding things which the Italians have performed. The
Italian Infantry have died in masses, with high hearts and in the
exaltation of delirium, crumpled, rent and agonised, achieving the
impossible.
And in the third place I would say something of the work of their
Engineers. Italian Engineers are famous all the world over, but they
have done nothing more magnificent than their swift building of
innumerable roads, broad and well-laid and with marvellously easy
gradients, both in these inhospitable and undeveloped border lands
beside the Isonzo, and along the whole mountain Front. They have made
possible troop movements and a regular system of supply under the most
difficult conditions. It is a work worthy of the descendants of the old
Romans, who by their road building laid the foundations of civilisation
throughout Western Europe. And only second to their road making, I would
place the work of the Italian Engineers in blasting _caverne_ and gun
positions and trenches in the rock, an invaluable and unending labour.
We British Gunners spent our first Italian summer in khaki drill tunics
and shorts[1] and Australian "smasher hats." When these hats were first
issued, one Battery Commander declared them to be "unsoldierly" in
appearance and asked for permission to return them to the Ordnance. But
this was not allowed. The men stood the heat well, though at the
beginning, before they had got accustomed to the change of climate,
there was some dysentery. I myself, a few days after my arrival and
before I had a smasher hat, had a touch of the sun and lay about all day
cursing the flies. But next day I was all right again.
[Footnote 1: Next summer the introduction of mustard gas made it unsafe
to leave our knees uncovered.]
Our rations at this time were a special Anglo-Italian blend; less meat,
bacon, cheese and tea than in the British ration, but macaroni, rice,
coffee, wine and lemons from the Italian. It was a good ration and no
one suffered from eating a little less meat than at home. In order to
check the spread of dysentery, it was ordered by the medical authorities
that no meat was to be eaten at midday.
We were not doing a great deal of firing when I came, though we had
always to be prepared to come suddenly and quickly into action,
especially at night. Most of our prearranged daylight shoots were
observed from an O.P. in a ruined house at S. Andrea, on the plain just
outside Gorizia, where one had a fine view southwards of the Tamburo and
of the whole boundary ridge of the Carso from Dosso Faiti to the Stoll.
Observation was beautifully easy on these high hills and in this clear
air. What worlds away is this country with its wonderful cloudless
sunshine from the dismal flat lands of the Western Front! Said one
enthusiast of ours, "This is a gunner's heaven!" The Austrians fancied,
I think, that we had our O.P. in Vertoiba, which is north of S. Andrea,
for they shelled this frequently, but S. Andrea seldom. They shelled
Vertoiba heavily, I remember, all one afternoon, while I was on duty at
S. Andrea and while the Italian Staff were present in large numbers for
two hours to watch our shooting. I remember thinking what a fine bag
they would have got if they had lifted about four hundred yards! The
Italian Staff were always most complimentary and enthusiastic over the
work of our Batteries.
We had taken part in the Italian May offensive, the results of which had
been claimed by the _Daily Mail,_ with characteristic good taste and
sense of proportion, as a "great Anglo-Italian victory." Our part had
been more justly described by General Cadorna, who in a special Order of
the Day had said that "amid the roar of battle was clearly heard the
voice of British guns," and in his summary of the results of this
offensive, which lasted from May 12th to May 30th, after remarking that
the number of Austrians taken prisoners was 23,681 men and 604 officers,
and that, in addition, at least 100,000 Austrians had been put out of
action, continued as follows, "Our brave Infantry fought indefatigably
for eighteen days, without pause and without proper food supplies, on
difficult ground, in almost mid-summer heat, impetuous in attack and
tenacious in defence. Most effective at all times was the fraternal
co-operation of the Artillery, Siege, Field or Mountain, one Field
Battery not hesitating to push right up to the firing line. Excellent
help, too, was lent by ten Batteries of medium calibre of the British
Army and by the guns of the Italian Navy."
Cadorna had inspected our Batteries soon after their arrival in Italy,
and we had been visited and officially welcomed on behalf of the Italian
Government by the Minister Bissolati, perhaps the most vivid and vital
personality in Italian politics, and a wise counsellor, whose advice has
more than once been disastrously ignored.[1]
[Footnote 1: From the outbreak of war in August 1914, Bissolati strongly
advocated Italian intervention on the side of the Allies. When Italy
declared war, he enlisted in the ranks of the Alpini, although over
military age, was decorated for valour and seriously wounded. He then
became Minister for Military Supplies, and acted as a connecting link
between the Cabinet at Rome and the High Command.]
Addressing at Pec detachments from a number of British Batteries on the
29th of May, Bissolati had said: "Officers and men of the British Force,
I bring you the greetings of the Italian Government and the thanks of
the Italian people. I greet you not only as an Italian Minister, but as
a comrade in arms, for I consider it the greatest privilege of my life
to have been in this war a soldier like yourselves. Our hearts beat with
joy to see you here, because there is no Italian, however humble his
station, who does not know how great is the debt of Italy to Britain for
the brotherly help afforded her during the tragic vicissitudes of the
glorious story of her Resurrection. We all remember how your fathers
helped to create the Italian nation.... To-day we find ourselves
fighting side by side in the same campaign, we to redeem this territory
from the Austrian yoke, you to maintain the liberty of your national
existence from the German menace, both of us, moreover, to set the whole
world free from the peril of falling under the dominion of that race,
hard in temper as a granite rock, which finds in the Austro-Hungarian
Empire a willing ally in its rapes and aggressions. I am here, then, to
thank you, not only as an Italian, but as a man, and I am filled with
joy at the thought that the British, even as the Italians, are showing
themselves to be, now as always, the champions of justice, and the
defenders of liberty and right. The sacrifices which we are making
together, the mingling of our blood upon the battlefield, will render
even stronger the agelong, traditional friendship between our two
nations.
"Viva l'Inghilterra! Viva l'Italia!"
CHAPTER V
PALMANOVA
During my first month in Italy I lived a nomadic life. I was only
"attached" to a Battery, and really nobody's child. July 17th to 22nd I
spent at Palmanova in charge of an Artillery fatigue party which was
helping the Ordnance to load and unload ammunition, and from August 2nd
to 10th I was in charge of another working party of gunners at Versa, a
fly-bitten, dusty little village, which our medical authorities had
stupidly selected as a site for a Hospital, though there were many
suitable villas in more accessible and agreeable places not far away.
But in this first month I was lucky in being able to multiply and vary
my impressions of the Eastern Veneto.
* * * * *
I rode down to Palmanova from Gradisca on a motor lorry. What a country!
The white houses, the white roads, the masses of fresh green foliage,
chiefly acacias, the tall dark cypresses, the cool blue water of the
Isonzo, the blue-grey mountains in the distance, and on their summits
the sunshine on the snow, which is hardly distinguishable from the
low-lying cloud banks in an otherwise cloudless sky.
Italian troops, dusty columns marching along the road, throw up at me an
occasional greeting as the lorry goes by. Long lines of transport pass
continually. "Sempre Avanti Savoia!" "Sempre Avanti Italia!" I find my
eyes wet with tears, for the beauty and the glory and the insidious
danger of that intoxicating war-cry; for the blindness and the
wickedness and the selfish greed that lurk behind it, exploiting the
generous emotions of the young and brave; for the irony and bitter
fatuity of _any_ war-cry in a world that should be purged of war.
* * * * *
And so I came to Palmanova to supervise the loading of shell, in the
company of Captain Shield and another Ordnance officer. Shield had
travelled much and mixed with Italians on the borders of Abyssinia. He
told me that with no other European race were our relations in remote
frontier lands more harmonious. They and we have, he said, a perfect
code of written and unwritten rules to prevent all friction. He told me,
too, of a young Englishman out there, quite an unimportant person, who
had a bad attack of sun-stroke and whose life was in great danger. The
only hope was to get him through quickly to the coast, and the shortest
road lay through Italian territory. So application was made to the
Italian authorities for a right of passage, which they not only granted,
but mapped out his route for him, for it was difficult country and
unfamiliar to our people, and sent a guide, and had a mule with a load
of ice waiting for him at every halting-place along the road, and so
saved his life, treating him with as much consideration and tenderness
as they could have been expected to show to a member of their own Royal
Family.
* * * * *
Palmanova lies just within the old Italian frontier, a little white town
surrounded by a moat, which in summer is quite dry, and by grassy
ramparts shaped like a star. It was first fortified by the Venetian
Republic four hundred years ago, and again by Napoleon. It can be
entered only through one of three gates, approached by bridges across
the moat, from the north, south-east and south,--the Udine Gate, the
Gradisca Gate and the Maritime Gate. Each gate is double, so that you
pass through a small square court, almost like a well, and at each gate
you can see the remains of an old portcullis and drawbridge. Each is
topped by two slender towers, and is wide enough to allow only one
vehicle to pass at a time, and at each there is a guard of Carabinieri
in their grey lantern-hats, to stop and examine all questionable
traffic.
From the ramparts you can see the Carnic and the Julian Alps, sweeping
round the Venetian plain in a great half circle. To the north the
mountains seem to rise sheer out of green orchards and maize fields, but
to the east there is a gradual slope of less fertile uplands, where the
Austrians in the first days of war on this Front would not face the
onrush of the Italians in the open, but fell back hurriedly to the more
difficult country behind. At night all the inhabitants sit out on the
ramparts, talking of the hot weather and the war, and watching the
searchlights winking on the hills.
In the centre of the town is a large Piazza, planted round with myrtles
which smell strong and sweet in the sun, and at midday an old woman sets
up a stall here and sells the newspapers of Rome and Milan, Bologna and
Venetia. In one corner of this Piazza is a restaurant, where one can
play billiards and dine well and cheaply. A youth serves here who has
been rejected for the Army because of defective eyesight. He speaks a
little French and a little German and a very little English, and in
moments of excitement words from all these languages come tumbling out
together, mixed up with Italian. He has, I am sure, an Italian-English
phrase book, which he consults hurriedly in the kitchen, for, whenever
he sets a new course before one, he shoots out some carefully prepared
and usually quite irrelevant sentence, and watches eagerly to see if one
understands. In another corner of the Piazza stands a campanile with a
peal of those absurd little jangling bells, which are among the most
characteristic charms of Italy. Down a side street is the Albergo Rosa
d'Oro, where for a week I was billeted. The padrone, a little round man,
is always smiling. He thinks the war will last three years more and
seems pleased at the prospect, for the town and the district round are
full of soldiers, and he must be making great profits. But his wife,
when one speaks of the war, says "it _must_ end soon; we must go on
hoping that it will end soon."
The station, where my fatigue party worked, lies outside the town. When
the Austrians provoked war in 1914, they had special trains waiting here
to carry away the Italian troops who, they hoped, would go and fight for
them against the Russians,--a poor fool's dream! In normal times it must
be a quiet place with little traffic. But now there is continual
movement, Infantry going up to the front line and often waiting for
hours at the station, and other Infantry coming back to rest, goods
trains of enormous length passing through, motor lorries loading and
discharging, driven very skilfully though sometimes very recklessly,
horse and mule transport in great variety, both military and civilian,
some of the horses wearing straw hats with two holes for the ears, and
carts drawn by stolid, slow-moving oxen. With all this coming and going,
and with a temperature of over a hundred degrees in the shade, the
Albergo della Stazione does a great trade in iced drinks!
I made the acquaintance of two families in this town. At Signor
Lazzari's any British officer was always welcome after dinner for music
and talk and light refreshments. An Italian General was billeted there
and two or three Italian officers of junior rank. A Corporal with a
magnificent voice, an operatic singer before the war, came in to sing
one night, and a Private from his Battalion played his accompaniment. In
Italy, as in France, the art of conversation and a keen joy in it, are
still alive, perhaps because Bridge is still almost unknown. Signor
Lazzari's handsome and charming daughter was an admirable hostess.
At Signor Burini's I was also most hospitably received and drank some
very excellent champagne. I used to talk to his three little girls in
the evenings on the ramparts. Signor Burini's mother remembered
Garibaldi's visit to Palmanova in 1867, the year after Venetia was
liberated from the Austrian yoke and added to United Italy. She was
speaking of this one evening to Shield and he said, "It rained very
heavily that day, didn't it?" Whereat the old lady, much astonished and
evidently suspecting him of some uncanny gift of second sight, replied
that indeed it did. But the truth was that he had been reading an
account of this historic occasion in a local guide book, which related
that, just as Garibaldi came out on a balcony to address the crowd, a
heavy thunderstorm broke and the Hero of the Two Worlds only said, "You
had all better go home out of the rain."
* * * * *
It can still rain at Palmanova.
One day while I was there the temperature rose to 105 degrees in the
shade, but in the evening a cool breeze stirred the dust and I sat
outside the Albergo Rosa d'Oro, talking with various passers-by. About
nine o'clock bright lightning began to fill the sky, but, as yet, no
rain. And then about eleven, just after I had gone to bed, came a
tremendous drenching thunderstorm and a great whirlwind. And then, very
suddenly, all became quiet again, save for the rain-water pouring off
the roofs into the street below.
CHAPTER VI
AQUILEIA AND GRADO
On July 22nd, the day before I returned from Palmanova to my Battery,
Shield and I and two lorryloads of men made an expedition in the
afternoon to Aquileia and Grado. Aquileia, at the height of the old
Roman power, was a great and important city, on the main road eastwards
from the North Italian plain. It was destroyed and sacked by Attila and
his Huns in the year 452, and again in 568 by Alboin and his Lombards.
It was the fugitives from Aquileia and the neighbouring towns, who,
taking refuge in the lagoons along the coast, founded upon certain
mudbanks in the fifth century the city which was destined to be Venice.
And it was at Grado in the year 466 that the foundations of Venetian
constitutional history were laid by the election of tribunes to govern
the affairs of the community inhabiting the lagoons.
The two chief features of Aquileia to-day are a museum of Roman
antiquities, which I had not time to visit, and a large church, with a
bare interior, but with a magnificent eleventh century mosaic floor, one
of the best examples of its kind in Italy. The interior of the church
was decorated with flowers in shell cases, to signify its reconquest by
the Italians, who intend to make here a great national memorial when the
war is over. Beside the church, at its eastern end, stood a glorious
group of very tall cypresses, one of the best groups I have ever seen,
and opposite the western entrance was a charming little avenue of young
cypresses, planted since the reconquest. We stayed for half an hour at
Aquileia and then went on to Grado.
* * * * *
On the way Shield told me the story of how the British Batteries came to
Italy. Our own War Office, as the habit of the tribe is, had wrapped the
whole thing up in mystery, and the Batteries were christened "the
British Mission" to a destination secret and unnamed. Passing through
the South of France and up the Arc Valley to the frontier, with the
gunners sitting on their guns in open trucks in the sunshine, the
trains were loudly cheered by the French who, in that part of the
country, had seen few of the sights of war. Once in Italy the official
attempts at mystification mystified nobody. The engine-drivers at Modane
hoisted Union Jacks on their engines and kept them flying all the way.
Everyone knew who we were and where we were going, and at every station
where the trains stopped there were official welcomes and immense crowds
cheering like mad. At Turin our guns were wreathed in flowers and at
Verona the station staff presented a bouquet to the General, on whose
behalf Shield made a suitable reply in Italian.
* * * * *
Grado lies on several islands, in its own lagoons. The Austrians were
developing it, in a haphazard way, as a watering-place before the war,
and there are several large hotels and the beginnings of a Sea Front.
The canals are filled with fishing boats with brown sails, which seldom
put to sea now for fear of mines.
One approaches Grado by a steamer which starts from a little cluster of
houses on the mainland known as Belvedere, and takes one down a long
channel through a maze of 'wooded islands, one of which is now the
Headquarters of an Italian Seaplane Squadron. The islands are thickly
clothed with tamarisks and pollarded acacias and stone pines, and are
reputed to be somewhat malarial. There is a long beach at Grado, where
all the world bathes, and the water is deliciously warm, with a bottom
of hard sand. Lying in the water, I could see right round the Gulf of
Trieste as far as Capodistria, and straight opposite to me lay Trieste,
the Unredeemed City of Italy's Desire, very clear against a background
of hills. Through glasses I could even distinguish the trams running in
her streets. I could easily fancy her scarcely a mile away across that
sheet of blue sunlit sea. Thus must she often have appeared to Italians
fighting and dying by sea and land to reach her, who remained ever just
out of reach.
CHAPTER VII
A GRAMOPHONE AND A CHAPLAIN ON THE CARSO
The Battery moved up to its new position on the edge of the Carso on the
night of July 25th. The guns were drawn by Italian tractors. It was a
long business getting the guns out of their gun pits, as we had not much
room for turning, and a still longer one getting them into the new pits,
after unhooking the tractors, down a steep slope and round two
right-angle turns. Owing to our nearness to the front line no lights
could be used and the night was darker than usual. For hours the gun
detachments were at work with drag ropes, lowering, guiding and hauling,
and the monotonous cry, that every Siege Gunner knows so well, "On the
ropes--together--heave!" went echoing round those rocks till 2 a.m. next
morning.
* * * * *
This new position of ours was only three hundred yards from the
Austrians, though we had between us and them the river Vippacco and a
high hill, a spur of that on which the ruined monastery of S. Grado di
Merna stood. The trenches here ran on either side of the Vippacco. An
Italian Trench Mortar Battery had been here before us and, it was said,
had been shelled out. But our gun pits, blasted out of the hillside,
were almost completely protected against hostile fire, except perhaps
from guns on S. Marco, which might, with a combination of good luck and
good shooting, have got us in enfilade. Only howitzers capable of
employing high-angle fire could usefully occupy such a position, and, as
it was, our shells could not clear the crest except at pretty large
elevations. It resulted that we could not hit any targets within a
considerable distance of the Austrian front line, but this, we were
told, did not matter. We were here, we were informed, "for a special
purpose" and for action against distant targets only. There was an
orchard on the flat just behind our guns, a little oasis of fertility in
that barren land, and wooden crosses marking the graves of some of the
Italian Trench Mortar Gunners, who had preceded us.
Italian Field Artillery were in position all around us, and were firing
a good deal by night. For the first few nights, with their guns popping
off all round, and with blasting operations in full swing, an almost
continuous echo travelled round and round the stony hillsides and made
me dream that I was sleeping beside a stormy sea breaking in endless
waves on a rocky coast. Blasting was going on all day and all night in
this neighbourhood. One of our officers was walking one morning on the
back of the Carso, out of view of the enemy and anticipating no danger,
save the stray shell which is always and everywhere a possibility in the
war zone, when suddenly the face of an Italian bobbed up from behind a
rock with the warning, in English, "Now shoots the mine!" and
disappeared again. The Englishman ran for his life and took shelter
behind the same rock, and a few seconds later there was a heavy
explosion, filling the air with flying fragments, unpleasantly jagged.
Our officers' Mess and sleeping huts were about two hundred yards from
the guns and a little higher up the hill, just above one of the
magnificent newly-made Italian war roads, along which supplies went up
to Hills 123 and 126 and the Volconiac and Dosso Faiti. Just outside our
huts and opening on to the road was a broad, natural terrace, with a
fine view backwards over the plain. Several times, during our first week
in this position, the Austrians shelled a British Battery at Rupa about
a mile in rear of us and an Italian Battery alongside it. It was very
hot and dry and they had been given away by the huge clouds of dust
raised by the blast of their guns firing. The Austrians shelled them
with twelve-inch and nine-four-fives, getting magnificent shell bursts,
which some of us photographed, great columns of brown-black smoke,
rising mountains high, in the shape of Prince of Wales' feathers, and
hanging for about ten minutes in the still air. But very little damage
was done, and after a short interval both Batteries opened fire again.
From this terrace of ours we had fine views of fighting in the air. On
August 2nd we saw an Austrian plane brought down by two Italians, who
dived down upon him from above, firing at him with machine guns as they
swept past him. The Austrian, who was flying high, gradually seemed to
lose his head and hesitate in what direction to fly, then he began to
turn over and over, recovered for a moment, but finally lost all control
and came down nose first into his own trenches, just across the river.
Another evening, about ten o'clock, a whole squadron of Austrian planes
came over, flying in regular formation and signalling to one another
with Morse lamps. They were going, it appeared, to bomb Gradisca. They
were heavily shelled by the "archies" as they came over us, and several
fragments of shell fell on our terrace. The night sky was full of starry
shell-bursts, and a dozen of our searchlights fussily got busy. Then
suddenly all our artillery, as it seemed, began to go off, and for about
five minutes there was a deafening burst of fire from guns of all
calibres. And then all grew suddenly quiet again. Perhaps it was a raid,
perhaps only the fear of one.
One day an Italian plane dropped some booklets into the Austrian
trenches, and some were blown back into our own lines. They contained
photographs of Austrian prisoners of war in Italian camps, very
contented apparently, and explanations in German, Magyar and various
Slav tongues, showing "men who yesterday were living from hour to hour
in peril of death, now waiting happily and calmly in perfect safety for
the war to end, when they shall return to their homes to embrace once
more their wives and little children. Here you will be able to recognise
many of your friends." A good propaganda to induce desertions and
surrenders! The Italians generally had the mastery over the Austrians
in the air. Their machines, and especially their Capronis, could always
be distinguished from the Austrians' by the deeper hum of their engines.
Venosta had a gramophone, which played most evenings after dinner on the
terrace, chiefly marches and martial music and Italian opera. Italy's
Libyan war, whatever else may be said of it, has produced one
magnificent marching song, "A Tripoli," which deserves to live for ever.
Fine, too, even on the gramophone, are the "March of the Alpini," the
"March of the Bersaglieri" and the famous "Garibaldi's Hymn." I met an
English doctor once, who had heard this last played in Rome on some
great occasion with some of the old Garibaldian veterans in their red
shirts marching in front of the band. He had felt a lump in his throat
that day, he said. When Venosta's gramophone played, the Italians
encamped near by clustered round the edge of the terrace in obvious
enjoyment, and sometimes one or two would dash indignantly down the road
to stop limbers and carts, which were making a rattle on the stones.
* * * * *
Our Mess was a great centre for visitors, both English and Italian, we
being at this time the British Battery in the most advanced and
interesting position. Among our visitors, especially on Sundays, was a
Chaplain, whom I will call Littleton, who used to conduct our Church
Parades. In the British Army, and I believe in most others, the
principle of compulsory religious observance is still intermittently
enforced, when it does not interfere with the still more important
business of fighting. I liked Littleton very much in many ways, but
sometimes he infuriated me. He was lunching with us one day and
describing how for some months in France, during some murderous
fighting, he was attached to an Infantry Battalion. "I have never in my
life enjoyed myself more," he said, "than during those months." I could
not help asking, "What did you enjoy, seeing the poor devils getting
hit?" I told him afterwards that I knew he did not really delight in
spectacles of agony and bloodshed, but that "enjoy" seemed to me an
unfortunate word to use.
On another occasion I attended, in the capacity of Orderly Officer for
the day, one of Littleton's Church Parades and heard him preach. It was
clear that he was troubled by a suspicion that the war and the details
of its development had discredited in some minds some of the ideas of
which he was the professional exponent. He made a brave struggle,
however, against this tide of unreason. "God does not make things too
easy for us," he explained, "He gives us the opportunities, and if we
choose not to use them, that is our fault. A loving father sets up a
tremendously high standard for his son, and judges him severely, not in
spite of, but because of, his love for him. In God's sight, three or
four years of war may be tremendously worth while."
Then we sang a hymn. I felt inclined to sing instead a song, written by
a soldier who was wounded in France:--
"The Bishop tells us, 'when the boys come back
They will not be the same; for they'll have fought
In a just cause: they led the last attack
On Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has bought
New right to breed an honourable race.
They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.'
'We're none of us the same!' the boys reply.
For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind;
Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;
And Bert's gone syphilitic; you'll not find
A chap who served there hasn't found _some_ change.'
And the Bishop said 'The ways of God are strange!"
It was hard for such a limited intelligence as mine, especially in this
unending Italian sunshine, to imagine that it could seriously be worth
while to burn down a whole real world, in order to roast a probably
imaginary pig. I found it very hard to believe, with the Chaplains, that
the war was purifying everyone's character, and I was particularly
sceptical as regards some of the elderly non-combatants who were unable
to realise at first hand "the Glory of the Great Adventure."
CHAPTER VIII
A FRONT LINE RECONNAISSANCE
Every day, in our Group, some officer carried out a Front Line
Reconnaissance. This officer was chosen in rotation from the Group
Headquarters and the various Batteries. Colonel Raven, our Group
Commander, often carried out these Reconnaissances himself. Of all
British officers at this time serving in Italy, he had, I think, the
greatest understanding of the Italians. He had travelled in Italy in
peace-time and had studied Italian history. He fully appreciated the
difficulties against which the Italian Army had to contend, and its
military achievements in spite of them. He enjoyed social intercourse
with Italians, and his invariable and slightly elaborate courtesy was,
in an Englishman, remarkable. For, as Mazzini once said, an Englishman's
friendship, when once secured, holds very firm, but it is manifested
more by deeds than by words. But Colonel Raven had the gift of
sympathetic imagination, and he had also in full measure the Allied
spirit.
The purpose of these Reconnaissances was twofold: first, to report on
matters of military importance, any notable activity by the enemy, the
direction and nature of hostile fire upon our trenches, the effects of
our own fire, when not otherwise ascertainable, the precise position on
the map, especially after any action, of our own and of the enemy's
lines, including saps, advanced posts and the like; second, to maintain
a real contact and spirit of comradeship with the Italian Infantry and
to seek to give them confidence in the efficiency and promptitude of
British Artillery support. Under the first head, valuable information
was frequently brought back, and under the second I believe that, so far
at least as our Group was concerned, the personal relations between the
Artillery and the Infantry were exceptionally good. Hardly ever did we
receive complaints that our guns were firing short, though such
complaints are often made, and often quite groundlessly, when the
Infantry lack confidence in the Artillery behind them.
At one time thin-skinned persons among us used to complain that
Italians who passed them on the roads used to call out "imboscato!"
Imboscato is a term very frankly used in the Italian army, generally
though not necessarily as a term of reproach. It corresponds with the
French "embusqué," one who shelters in a wood, for which we in English
have no precise equivalent. It is used by an Italian to indicate one who
runs, or is thought to run, less risk of death than the speaker. It is
chiefly used of men in the non-combatant services or in posts well
behind the fighting front, including the Higher Staff and especially the
junior ranks attendant on them. It is used also in jest by Italian
patrols going out at night into No Man's Land, of their comrades, whom
they leave behind in the front line trenches. Personally I was never
called an imboscato, nor were any of my brother gunners, except once or
twice when riding in side-cars or motors miles in rear of our guns. And
to Infantry marching along dusty roads under an Italian sun there is
something very irritating in a motor car dashing past, with its
occupants reclining in easy positions, its siren hideously shrieking,
and blinding dust-clouds rising in its wake.
German propaganda was insidiously active in Italy throughout the war,
and spread many lying stories with the object of discrediting the
British. Among these was one, the details of which do not matter now,
concerning the fact that only British Artillery, and no British
Infantry, had at that time been sent to Italy. Our Reconnaissances,
involving our visible and daily presence among the gallant succession of
Italian Brigades, who held the blood-stained line on the Carso and
across the valley of the Vippacco, were the most fitting reply which we
could make to German propaganda.
* * * * *
I made my first Front Line Reconnaissance on July 27th, two days after
we had moved forward to our new Battery position. That day I visited the
trenches on the Volconiac, starting in the early afternoon and getting
back at nightfall. I took with me as a guide a young Italian gunner, a
Neapolitan by birth, who had been a waiter in an Italian restaurant in
New York before the war. He had been in the Austrian offensive of 1916
in the Trentino, where all the guns of his Battery had been lost and
nearly all his comrades killed or captured.
From the Battery position we followed the road behind Hill 123, up a
glorious valley, whose sides were thickly wooded with pines, gradually
thinning under the destruction wrought by Austrian shell fire and the
Italian military need for timber. The only other vegetation here was a
little coarse grass. On the lee side of Hill 123, sheltered from
Austrian fire, was a whole village of wooden huts, admirably
constructed, capable of housing several Battalions. At the head of the
valley, the road, a good example of the war work of the Italian
Engineers, turned sharply up the hillside, securing tolerable gradients
by means of constant zigzags--tolerable that is to say for men on foot
and for pack mules, for wheeled transport could not proceed beyond this
point. It was a steep climb and I perspired most visibly right through
my thin tunic. Three-quarters of the way up we stopped and got a drink
of water from the Infantrymen in charge of the water barrels. There are
no springs or streams on the Volconiac or on Dosso Faiti. All water has
to be pumped up from below through pipes, and at the point where we
rested, water barrels were being continually filled from the pipes and
then hauled on by hand, on sleighs, for the remainder of the ascent.
Water was also carried up from this point by individual soldiers in the
fiaschi, or glass bottles encased in plaited straw, in which Italian
wine is sold.
Just below the crest we entered the trenches, which were held at this
time by the Florence Brigade. The construction of these trenches was
very interesting. They were all blasted in the rock, and many drilling
machines were at work as I passed along them, increasing the number of
_caverne_, or dug-outs, and deepening those already in existence. Here
and there, where the trenches were rather shallow, they were built up
with loose rocks and sandbags filled with stones.
One of my objects was to get a view of the Austrian trenches and barbed
wire on the Tamburo, in order to observe from closer quarters than was
possible from any of our O.P.'s the effects of our recent bombardments,
and to verify or disprove a report that certain new defensive works were
being constructed by the enemy at night. Our own trenches here were on a
higher level than the enemy's, and the bottom of the valley between the
Tamburo and this part of the Volconiac was in No Man's Land, as was a
relatively short slope on the Tamburo and a relatively long slope on the
Volconiac. The latter slope was very steep, but thickly clothed with
pines, most of which were now shattered by shell fire into mere dead
stumps. Even these stumps, however, made it difficult to get an
uninterrupted view of the Tamburo, and I had to go some miles along the
trenches, gazing through numerous peepholes, before I reached a point
from which I could satisfy myself that our bombardments had been
effective and that the reported new works were indeed real. Having got
this information, I smoked a pipe and talked with an Italian company
commander in a rocky dug-out, and then started to return.
Things were quiet on this sector of the Front that afternoon, though
Italian Field Guns were bursting shrapnel from time to time over the
Tamburo. As I went along the trenches I was several times greeted by
Italians who had been in America, "Hullo, John! How are you? How d'you
like this dam country?" This type brings back with it across the
Atlantic the frank, almost brutal, familiarity of a new and democratic
civilisation. It contrasts oddly with the quieter ways of those Italians
who have lived all their lives in Italy, amid one of the oldest and most
mature civilisations of the world.
On our way down the hill we passed a seemingly endless string of pack
mules coming up, laden with food and ammunition. Always at evening this
wonderful system of supply was visibly working, triumphing over
tremendous natural difficulties. We passed, too, a party of about fifty
men hauling up on long ropes a heavy drilling engine, the sort of labour
of which British fatigue parties have, luckily for themselves, no
experience. Mists came down from the mountains as we descended, and
rainstorms threatened, but did not break.
CHAPTER IX
AN EVENING AT GORIZIA
On the first day in August I had been doing some observation at S.
Andrea in the afternoon, and, this duty over, I got permission to walk
into Gorizia and visit the section of the British Red Cross stationed
there, several of whose members I knew. It is a longer walk than one
would think, for S. Andrea is practically a southern suburb of Gorizia,
which, however, straggles over a large area of country. The railway
bridge across the Isonzo is broken down by shell fire and so are two
other bridges,--all three of stone,--but these could be soon repaired,
if we made a big advance. It would be wasted labour to repair them now,
for the Austrians would only break them down again. The Italians have
run up a low, broad wooden bridge, sheltered from Austrian view behind
one of the broken stone bridges. From time to time the Austrians hit
this bridge, and then the Italians quickly make it good again. To be
able to cross the Isonzo at this point is a convenience, but not a
military necessity, for all movement of troops and supplies into Gorizia
can be carried out on the left bank of the river and across bridges some
miles further down-stream.
The suburbs of the town were badly knocked about, but the centre was not
at this time much damaged. Gorizia lies in a salient of the hills, with
the Austrians looking down upon it from the tops of most of them. But,
still hoping to win it back, they do not shell it heavily or often.
There are special reasons, too, for their forbearance. For Gorizia is a
sort of Austrian Cheltenham, whither Austrian officers retire in large
numbers to pass their last years in villas which they take over from one
another's widows. So the Austrian officer class has a sort of vested
interest in the preservation of the place. So also have certain Hebrew
Banks in Vienna, which hold mortgages on a great part of the land in and
around the city, which just before the war was being rapidly developed
as a fashionable Spa. It is a well laid out town, with large public
gardens and good buildings, architecturally very like the larger Italian
towns on the other side of the old frontier, Udine for example, but with
a certain element of a heavier and more _rococo_ style, the Viennese.
There is still a fairly large civilian population in the town, and one
restaurant still keeps open.
I found the British Red Cross in the Via Ponte Isonzo, in what had once
been a big boarding-house, with a large untidy garden behind. Most of
those stationed there were motor ambulance drivers, about twenty in
number, some too old to fight, some rejected for health, some Quakers,
unwilling to kill, but willing to risk their own lives on behalf of the
wounded, others again boys under military age, who go, as soon as they
can, to the Navy or the Flying Corps. It is brave and nervous work they
do, driving ambulances in the dark, without lights and under fire.
After dinner I sat out in the garden in the twilight and talked with an
old acquaintance of mine, who has had a large share in the organisation
and daily work of the British Red Cross in Italy. The Italians, he said,
are really beginning to feel their feet, as a united nation, in this
war. Men of all classes from all parts of Italy are meeting and mixing
with one another as they have never done before, and the old
_regionalismo_ is being rapidly undermined. He himself has almost ceased
to think critically of the past or speculatively of the future, but just
lives and works in the present. As to the state of the world after the
war, he is very confident, provided we go on fighting long enough.
Nothing that happens at home is of great importance, all the pressure is
on the Fronts. Everything is looking now in the direction of democracy.
Even Russia, in the long run unconquerable, has got her good out of the
war already, whatever miseries and transitory anarchy she may have yet
to undergo. In England and elsewhere many of the present political
leaders are vile, but we shall all know what we want the world to look
like, and to _be_ like, after the war, and new leaders will arise and
lead us. When the survivors of our smitten generation have grown old,
there must be a peace of hearts, as well as a peace of arms, between the
young of all lands. But our generation can never make personal
friendships again with Germans, seeing that they have killed nearly all
those who mattered most to us, and that we have to spend the rest of our
lives without them.
* * * * *
He motored me back to the Vippacco bridge at Rubbia. When next I heard
of him it was a month later at the height of the Italian offensive. He
had been severely wounded on the Bainsizza Plateau.
The British Red Cross did splendid work in Italy and made a big
contribution to Anglo-Italian friendship and understanding. They began
their operations in Italy in September 1915, and were thus the first
Englishmen to "show the flag" on the Italian Front. Thousands of
Italians will gratefully and affectionately remember them till the end
of their lives. More even than the British fighting troops who came
after them, the British Red Cross will remain a historic legend in Italy
in the days to come.
CHAPTER X
A CEMETERY AT VERSA
I was at Versa, as I have already said, from the 2nd to the 10th of
August, to supervise a party working on the hospital. I walked one
evening down the village street, where in the light of the sunset an
Italian military band was playing to a mixed crowd of soldiers and
civilians. Just outside the village I came to the gates of a cemetery,
where six tall cypresses stand like sentinels on guard over the graves
of many hundreds of Italian dead. This was at first a civilian
graveyard, but all the dead have Italian names, except one Kirschner,
and even he was called Giuseppe and has an Italian inscription on his
tombstone. For this is Italia Redenta, in this one little corner of
which a great company of Italian youth have already laid down their
lives. And now the graves, in long straight rows, have filled one newly
added field, and begun to flow across a second, and soon from the Field
Hospitals in the village more dead will come.
Here, as in our war graveyards in France, no religious dogma or
supernatural hope intrudes upon the little wooden crosses. On these, for
the most part, you can read only the bare conventional attributes of
each little handful of dust, which has passed through its quivering
agony into the still sleep of decay,--its name and regiment, its
civilian home, the place and date of its death. A few have more than
this. Here lie the two brothers Bellina in one grave, with a cross at
their head and another, rougher and larger, at their feet, announcing
simply, "I due fratelli," "the two brothers." And here is a tombstone
engraved with an anchor, for one who, very early in the war, was hit
while fording the Isonzo in face of the enemy's fire. "Al Pontiere
Guazzaro Giuseppe che valorosamente sfidando le infide acque dell'
Isonzo cadeva colpito dal piombo nemico. 25 Giugno 1915."[1] And here is
another inscription, typical of that Latin sense of comradeship, which
is more articulate, though not necessarily more profound, than ours.
"Sottotenente Arcangeli Antonio, con commossa memoria," the officers of
his Battery, "il loro orgoglio infinite quì eternano." "In deeply moved
remembrance they here place upon eternal record their infinite pride in
him." It is poor stuff in English, but a vivid and quite natural tribute
in Italian.
[Footnote 1: "To the Sapper Giuseppe Guazzaro, who fell, while bravely
defying the treacherous waters of the Isonzo, struck down by an enemy
bullet, 25th June, 1915."]
Where the sun went down, the sky was a sea of rose red and golden green,
studded with little long islands of dark cloud, and on the edge of this
sea the evening star twinkled like a tiny illumined boat, dancing, a
blaze of light, upon the waves. To left and right the cloudbanks were a
deep purple blue, fast fading into the dim warm grey of an Italian
night. East and north the mountains that bound the plain, silent
witnesses of Italy's great struggle, were hidden in the dusk, and the
cypress sentinels stood up sharp and black against the darkening sky.
The band had ceased to play and one heard only the chirp of
grasshoppers, and across an orchard the soft sound of Italian speech,
and the distant song of two soldiers in the village street. But the warm
air, which just now was throbbing with a military march, seemed to be
throbbing still with an aching longing that happier days may come
swiftly to this land of beauty and pain, so that the sacrifice of all
these dead shall not be wholly waste.
* * * * *
Not many miles away, as the sun was setting, an Austrian shell burst in
a British Battery, and three hours later through the dark under faint
stars an ambulance lorry brought to us the bodies of four British
gunners, whose dust will mingle with Italian dust, under Italian skies,
for ever.
CHAPTER XI
UDINE
I first saw Udine on the 5th of August. I was still on duty at Versa,
but the conversation in the R.A.M.C. Mess bored me, particularly at
meals; it was all sputum and latrines, gas gangrene and the relative
seniority of the doctors one to another. There was nothing to keep me at
Versa, for my gunner fatigue party did not in truth need any
supervision. So I determined to go to Udine. I started, walking, about
10 a.m. It was not too hot. I walked about three miles and then picked
up a lorry. One can generally get a ride on an Italian lorry if there is
any room, by waving one's stick at the driver, shouting out one's
destination, and looking agreeable. This one took me to Mogaredo and
then stopped. I then walked another three miles to a point near
Trevignano. Here I was within ten miles of Udine and picked up another
lorry which took me the rest of the way. It was driven by a Triestino
who, seeing what was coming, had left the Unredeemed City just before
Italy declared war. His face was very sad, and he made a gesture of
weeping, drawing his fingers downwards from his eyes across his cheeks,
though his eyes were dry. "How long?" he asked. "How long before Trieste
will be free?"
We approached Udine through a long avenue of plane trees, planted under
Napoleon. It is a gay little town, with arcaded streets, clustering
round a hill on the top of which stands a Castello, with a memorial
tower to the martyrs of 1848, and on the hill slopes public gardens full
of cypresses. Udine was at this time a nest of British newspaper
correspondents. I began to make their acquaintance in the afternoon.
First an Anglo-Italian lady from Rome, whom I met sitting out behind the
Hotel Grande d'Italia under the shade of trees. She was evidently
something of a figure here and received several callers, all ladies of
Udine, as we sat drinking coffee. One of these, on learning that I was a
gunner, took out a locket and handed it to me. It contained a picture of
a marvellously handsome boy. It was her eldest son, killed three months
before in Cadore, a Lieutenant in a Mountain Battery. He was only
nineteen. His mother began to weep as she handed me the locket, and it
was the lady from Rome who told me these things. Then the mother cried,
between her sobs, "E troppo crudele, la guerra!" And as I handed the
locket back, I thought of the unmarried childless parson in khaki who
considered that "three or four years of war may be tremendously worth
while."
* * * * *
Later I met and dined with two of the male correspondents of the London
Press. Conversation, in the sense of a mere flow of talk, is never
difficult with newspaper men. They are among the most articulate of the
British, although much that they articulate is only patter. These two
had plenty of miscellaneous information, much of which I received in a
sceptical spirit, but I learned some interesting facts, which I verified
from other sources later on. Chief of these was the effect produced
upon Young Italy by the personal gallantry of the poet D'Annunzio, who,
when he is not flying at the head of the Italian bombing planes against
Pola, is making fiery orations to the Infantry in the front line and
distributing among them little tricolor flags bearing his own autograph.
Having talked till midnight, I found a bedroom at the Croce Malta, where
I slept for four hours. Then I got up and dressed and walked to the
railway station, where I drank coffee and ate biscuits. A train was due
to leave for Palmanova, the nearest station to Versa, at 5.30 a.m. As I
waited for it on the platform, I looked out at the station lights, a
dull orange under their dark shades, and at the red signals beyond, four
in a vertical line, and beyond again at the dim outlines of houses and
dark trees against a sky, at first a very deep dark blue, but slowly
lighting up with the beginning of the dawn. The train did not start till
nearly seven. By this time it was quite light, and the sun had turned
the distant Cadore into a ridge of pink grey marble, very sharply
outlined against the morning sky, and in the middle distance, just
across the maize fields which run beside the railway track, rose the
_campanile_ of some little village of Friuli, like a stick of shining
alabaster.
CHAPTER XII
THE BRITISH AND THE ITALIAN SOLDIER
The sending of ten British Batteries to Italy had something more than a
military significance. Otherwise the thing was hardly worth doing. It
was evident that here was an international gesture. An effort was being
made to promote a real Anglo-Italian understanding, to substitute for
those misty and unreal personifications--"England" to an Italian,
"Italy" to an Englishman--real personal knowledge and a sense of
individual comradeship in a great cause. Our task, in short, was not
only to fight, but also to fraternise. But would we fraternise
successfully? For it has been said, not without some truth, that
"England is an island and every Englishman is an island," and in the
early days I was doubtful what sort of personal effect we should
produce, and what sort of personal impressions our men would bring away.
When I got back to the Battery from Versa I began to take stock of my
own impressions so far, and to notice, in the letters which I had to
censor, the drift of general opinion. It was surprisingly satisfactory.
"Some of these Italians," writes one gunner, "are the finest fellows you
could wish to meet. Our men get on very well with them." "The Italians,"
writes another, "are very good soldiers and nice chaps. We get on well
together." "The other night," writes a third, "I was out laying
telephone wires in a graveyard. We saw some Italian soldiers carrying a
tombstone for their Lieutenant who had recently been killed. The
Italians look after their graves very well. A Sergeant, who had spent
most of his life in England, asked us in and gave us some coffee and
cognac which was jolly acceptable. He asked if we had any old English
papers, as he was forgetting all his English, as he had been away from
England for five years." And a fourth writes, "The great majority of
these Italians have been in different parts of America" (this of course
is a wild exaggeration!), "they are very delighted to have a chat. In
fact I think the Italian people are very sociable. Nearly all the boys
can begin to make themselves understood." These tributes are obviously
sincere. They occur in the midst of good-natured grumbles about the
heat, and the monotony of macaroni and rice and stew, and of requests
for "more fags" and of hopes that "this business will soon be over."
The fact that so many Italians, having lived in England and America, can
speak English and know something of us and our ways, accounts for much.
For a foreign language is the Great Barrier Reef against the voyages of
ordinary people towards international understanding. And the country
counts for something, too. Its natural obstacles compel admiration for
an Army which has achieved so much in spite of them. And I am sure that
no British gunner, however inarticulate, who has served in Italy, and
especially those young fellows who, when war broke out, stood only on
the threshold of their manhood, with their minds still wide open for new
impressions, has not felt some sort of secret thrill at the astounding
and incomparable beauty of this country, the very contemplation of
which sometimes brings one near to weeping.
I recall, for instance, a tough old Sergeant Major, with twenty-seven
years' service with our Artillery all over the world, an utterly
unromantic person. He and I were bringing back my working party on the
10th of August from Versa to Rubbia in a lorry. The men were singing
loudly, and greeted an Italian sentry on Peteano bridge with cheerful
cries of "Buona sera, Johnny!" And the Sergeant Major suddenly observed
to me that "this must be a fine country in peace-time," and went on to
praise the mountains, and the rivers, and the trees, especially the
cypresses, and the surface of the roads, and some town behind the lines,
Udine I think, which was "very pretty" and "quite all right." The
Italians, too, were "all right," which from him was most high praise.
And then, as though half ashamed of having said so much, he added,
rather hastily, "But there's nothing to touch the old country after all.
I think I shall settle down there when this war's over. I've had about
enough of foreign parts."
And what do the Italians think of us, I wonder? I only know that they
treat us always with great friendliness, and show great interest in our
guns and all our doings. So the international gesture has, I think,
begun already to succeed. And its success will grow. For those British
graves, which we shall leave behind us--some are dug and filled
already--will tell their own story to the future. They will be facts, if
only tiny facts, both in British and Italian history, and "far on in
summers that we shall not see," bathed in the warm brilliance of Italian
sunshine, they will bear witness to Anglo-Italian comradeship across
the years.
CHAPTER XIII
I JOIN THE FIRST BRITISH BATTERY IN ITALY
On the 15th of August arrived an operation order indicating our targets
in the first and second phases of the great Italian offensive, which had
been long expected, and also the objectives of the Infantry. The day on
which the offensive was to begin was not yet announced. Six more British
Siege Batteries, giving us now three British Heavy Artillery Groups, had
arrived on the Carso and in the Monfalcone sector about a fortnight
before. The French too had sent a number of Heavy Batteries, which were
in position on Monte Sabotino and elsewhere north of the Vippacco. But
the counsel of wise men had been disregarded, and no French or British
Infantry, no complete Allied Army Corps, had been sent to the Italian
Front, where a big military success could have been more easily obtained
and would have had greater military and political results at this time,
than anywhere else.
On this day I walked to and from S. Andrea, returning to the Battery in
the evening greatly perspiring but with an enormous appetite. Large
numbers of Infantry were going up the Vallone and the Volconiac in the
dusk. Italian Infantry march in twos on either side of a road, not in
fours on one side as ours do.
The Austrians shelled a good deal this evening, and put a lot of gas
shell into Merna.
* * * * *
On the 17th I was transferred to another Battery. It was the eve of the
offensive, and my new Battery was an officer short, while my old Battery
was again at full strength, the officer who had been in hospital
wounded, when I arrived in Italy, having now returned. I joined my new
Battery about midday. They were in position on the Vippacco, close to
the former position of my old Battery. I was destined to stay with them
for seventeen months, till after the war was won, and I came to identify
myself very completely with them, and to be proud to be one of them.
This had been the first of all the British Batteries to come into action
in Italy, and had fired the first British shell against Austria. The
Major in command had the reputation of being the most efficient British
Battery Commander in Italy, and, so far as my experience of others went,
he deserved it. He was a Regular soldier, and had served with a Mountain
Battery in India, a service which requires and breeds a power of quick
decision, by no means universal among Garrison Gunners of the Regular
Army. Personally he was a most delightful man, at his best a very
amusing talker, a pleasant companion and an excellent Commanding
Officer. Few officers whom I have met took as much thought and trouble
as he for the material welfare of his men. From his junior officers he
combined a demand for high efficiency with a sometimes wonderful
solicitude for their comfort, health and peace of mind. He never asked
any of us to do more, or even as much, as he did willingly himself, and
if anything went wrong in the Battery, which it seldom did, he never
hesitated, in dealing with higher authorities, to take all the blame. He
had been twice wounded already, once on the Somme and again in the
Italian May offensive. Later on he was wounded a third time.
Captain Jeune, the Second-in-Command, was also a Regular, but very
young. In mind and manner he was older than his years, and he knew his
work as a military professional extremely well. Some found him
truculent, but he never displayed any truculence to me.
On my arrival I became Senior Subaltern of the Battery. The three Junior
Subalterns, Darrell, Leary and Winterton, provided a variety of
companionship. Darrell was a man of business, a most capable officer, a
good Mess Secretary, and very easy to get on with. Leary was a
dark-haired Irishman, who had originated in the County Limerick. He was
a good mathematician, but in conversation was apt to be long-winded, and
had a wonderful capacity for making a simple matter appear complex. He
had been, by turns, a civil engineer and an actor, and had a fine
singing voice. As an officer he was infinitely laborious and
conscientious, but with a queer disconcerting streak of Irish
unaccountability. One never quite knew what he would do, if left alone
in charge of anything.
Winterton was a good-looking boy, who would have gone up to Cambridge in
1915, if there had been no war. Instead he enlisted in the Horse
Artillery, became a Corporal, and went to the Dardanelles as a Despatch
Rider. Having spent several months in hospital at Malta and nearly died
of dysentery, he came back to England and was given an Artillery
Commission. He was a gallant youth but just a little casual, with rather
a music-hall mind, but good company, if one was not left alone with him
too long.
There was also attached to the Battery at this time an Italian Artillery
officer, whom I will call Manzoni, a Southerner, small and very dark. He
had taught himself to speak excellent English though he had never been
in England. He was an intelligent observer and an amusing companion, and
we became great friends.
The personnel of the Battery was splendid, and I do not believe that in
any other Battery the spirit of the men was better, nor the personal
relations between officers and men on a sounder and healthier footing,
than with us.
Some Battery Commanders proceed on the principle that even the most
experienced N.C.O. cannot be trusted to perform the simplest duty,
except under the eye of an officer, however junior. The Battery in this
case becomes helplessly dependent on the officers. If they go out of
action, so does the whole Battery. Other Battery Commanders, of whom my
new Major was one, proceed on the principle that as many N.C.O.'s as
possible should be able to do an officer's work, so that the Battery
should be able to continue in action without any officers at all if
necessary, and also be able to adapt itself readily to a sudden change
from stagnant to open warfare. This principle is universally applied in
the French Artillery, where, apart from its evident wisdom, it has been
necessitated by the great shortage of officers. My own Major used to
train all our best N.C.O.'s with this object in view and, when satisfied
of their competence, used to give them in normal times considerable
responsibilities in the working of the Battery in action. The result was
that we had as capable and reliable a set of "Numbers One" and
"B.C.A.'s" as could be found anywhere.[1] The men thoroughly appreciated
the amount of trust reposed in them and never failed us. Furthermore,
when I joined the Battery there was hardly a man who was not a trained
specialist, either as a Signaller, Gunlayer or B.C.A.
[Footnote 1: A "Number One" is the Sergeant or other N.C.O. in charge of
a gun and its detachment when in action. A "B.C.A." (or Battery
Commander's Assistant) assists the officer on duty in the Command Post
in locating points on the map, in making numerical calculations, and in
other miscellaneous duties.]
Seventeen months later, only the Major, Leary and myself, out of the
officers in the Battery when I joined, still remained with it, and
death, wounds, sickness, promotion and commissions from the ranks had
taken from us many of our best N.C.O.'s and men. But through all the
varied experiences of those long months, there had been a continuity of
tradition and an unchanging spirit. We were still, for me and for many,
the First British Battery in Italy.
PART III
THE ITALIAN SUMMER OFFENSIVE, 1917
CHAPTER XIV
THE OFFENSIVE OPENS
On the 18th of August I got up at half-past four in the morning. There
was a mist in the air, which cleared away as the day grew warmer. The
big bombardment in what the journalists called the Twelfth Battle of the
Isonzo began at six o'clock and went on continuously all day. Once the
thing was started, I had little to do except to change occasionally the
rate of fire,--"_lento_," "_normale_," "_vivace_," "_celere_" and
"_double vivace_" by turns. The first part of the day I was in charge of
the Right Section of the Battery and sat most of the time on a wooden
bench at a table under a tarpaulin among the acacias. By my side sat a
telephonist in communication with the Battery Command Post, some four
hundred yards away to the left, beyond the Left Section. My only other
apparatus was a megaphone, a notebook and pencil, and a pipe.
Occasionally I would go and stand by one of the guns, to check the
gun-laying and to see that the guns were recoiling and coming up again
without undue violence. One had also to guard against a dust cloud being
raised by the blast of the guns, thus giving away our position to the
enemy. To prevent this, we formed a chain of men every half hour to pass
water-buckets from hand to hand, from the river just behind us down the
sunken road, to lay the dust in and around the gun pits. But under an
Italian August sun the ground soon grew parched and dusty again.
The Austrians did not shell much till the evening, when they nearly hit
our Mess and shell-shocked a man of another Battery in the road close
by. But the Italian bombardment all day was very heavy, and our guns and
theirs were to go on firing all night. Just before midnight I relieved
the Major in the Command Post, and he and the rest of the officers went
to bed. So I sat there wakefully among the acacias, awaiting any sudden
orders from the Group to switch or lift to new targets, or to vary the
rate of fire. Every now and then I took a walk round the Battery to see
that all was working correctly, and every hour the N.C.O.'s in charge of
each gun brought in their fired tubes to the Command Post and reported
how many rounds had been fired in the preceding hour and how many tubes
misfired.
* * * * *
It was a clear, starlight night, up above the multitudinous flashes of
British and Italian guns. At close quarters these flashes were
blindingly bright, and flung up showers of red sparks. In the intervals
of a few seconds between flashes, if one stood with one's eyes fixed on
the guns, the stars seemed blotted out in an utterly black darkness. A
long bombardment is one of the most boring things in the world by reason
of its intense monotony, and because in a queer half-unconscious way it
begins, after many hours, very slightly to fray the nerves. Listening
and watching in the small hours, and from time to time directing, I
found myself able, with almost discreditable elastic-mindedness, to call
up at will any of the aspects of modern war,--its utter and inherent
wickedness, its artistic and scientific majesty, its occasional moral
justification against the oppressor, its ultimate blank insanity. But I
would not have liked to be an Austrian yesterday or this morning. The
Italian Infantry attacked on our sector at 5.30 a.m. There was a
tremendous crescendo of gunfire at this time. The Major relieved me in
the Command Post at 5 o'clock, and urged me to go to bed, but I did not
feel inclined to sleep. Instead I went up about 6 o'clock through Pec
village to an O.P. on a hillside beyond, to see what could be seen. But
all the Front was hidden in a thick mist, made thicker by the smoke,
shot through with innumerable momentary flashes. All round us thousands
of guns were going off, filling the air with a deafening and continuous
roar. A telephonist was with me who had been through a good deal of the
Somme fighting, and had found the Italian Front, in times of lull, a
little uneventful. But this morning he was full of appreciation. "This
is something like it, isn't it, Sir?" he said. Being able to see
nothing, I went back to bed for some hours and spent the afternoon at a
Battery O.P., which had been specially arranged for this offensive, in
an Italian reserve trench just off the Pec-Merna road.
* * * * *
The bombardment continued through the 19th and 20th and 21st of August,
now with guns firing independently, now with salvos or rounds of Battery
fire, now with individual guns being ranged afresh from some O.P., with
hardly an hour's interval of silence. How little the individual soldier
knows of what is happening at these times! Conflicting rumours of
varying credibility came in to us during those three days, rumours of
big advances both to the north and to the south. But on our own sector
we knew that no permanent advance had been made, for we were still
firing a good deal on old "Zone 15," one of our first day's targets, and
on that damned Hill 464, the most important of the first objectives of
the Infantry.
Before this offensive began I had slept in a hut above ground, but the
Major had now insisted that I should sleep in a small dug-out half-way
up a steep bank, at the bottom of which our Mess Hut stood in an orchard
stretching down to the river bank. The Austrians shelled us
intermittently, but without doing any damage. In the small hours of the
21st I was dozing in my dug-out, where I had been reading Lowes
Dickinson's _Choice Before Us_, a congenial book at such a time, with
nine-tenths of which I was in complete agreement. I then heard a series
of Austrian "4.2's" come sailing over my dug-out and burst just at the
foot of the bank. They made miserable bursts in the soft earth, so small
as to make me suspect gas shells for a moment, but this suspicion did
not worry me, for no one was sleeping at the bottom and gas cannot run
uphill. Next morning I found a shell hole fifteen yards from the Mess
Hut, another on the path and several others among the trees. They were
"double events," with a shrapnel and time fuse head and a high
explosive and percussion fuse tail, but neither head nor tail had been
of much effect. There was very heavy firing that morning, but less in
the afternoon. Great gloom prevailed on our sector, where we were back
again in most of our first positions. The Infantry were reported to be
unable to make headway against machine guns on Hill 464 and the Tamburo.
To the south, on the Carso, the ruins of the village of Selo had been
taken, but not much else.
But, though we did not know it then, the Italian Army in those first
three days had won magnificent successes to the north of us.
CHAPTER XV
WE SWITCH OUR GUNS NORTHWARD
On the 22nd of August we got for the first time definite news of the
Italian advance on the Bainsizza Plateau. The day was rather hotter than
usual, and on our own sector there was still no appreciable progress.
Hill 464 had been won and lost three times since yesterday morning, and,
to the south of it, Hill 368 also had been won and lost again. Up there
it must be a vain and shocking shambles. It was claimed for Cadorna's
communiqués, I think justly, that at this time no others were more
moderate and truthful. No point was claimed as won, until it was not
merely won but securely held.
The Italian Battery beside us were moving north that night to the
Tolmino sector and next day our Left Section was to move out into a
position in the open, in order to switch north and shell S. Marco, which
we could not reach from our present gun pits. S. Marco, being north of
the Vippacco, was in the area of the Italian Second Army, commanded by
Capello, which had been performing the great feats of these last days.
It was clear that, for the moment, the main Italian effort was being
made to the north.
Indeed by the 24th all the British guns of our Group were pointing
north-eastward, firing at S. Marco and neighbouring targets. British
casualties and those of the Italian Heavy Artillery had been very light,
the Austrian having concentrated practically all his Artillery fire, in
addition to his machine guns, on the Italian Infantry, amongst whom
there had been hideous slaughter.
But in the early morning of the 23rd an Austrian shell killed a Sergeant
and two men in one of our Batteries. The Sergeant was torn into several
pieces, one of which landed on the top of the Officers' Mess and another
in a gun pit 150 yards away. One of his legs could not be found, so they
had to bury what they could, an incomplete set of torn fragments. But
three or four days later the smell of the lost limb came drifting down a
ravine above their guns, and following the scent, they found it, black
with flies among the stones.
In my old Battery, too, four hundred cartridges went up with a direct
hit, and the Austrians then shelled the smoke with unpleasant effect. A
twelve-inch shell also burst very close to the Battery's Mess, killing
a number of Italian telephonists next door.
Throughout these days, periods of very heavy firing alternated with
periods of comparative quiet.
* * * * *
On the 25th a party of nearly thirty British officers and men, a
procession of two cars, three side-cars and twelve motor bicycles, went
up Podgora Hill. The Italian Second Army, to whom we were strangers,
watched us with interest as we went past in a cloud of dust. On the top
of Podgora Hill was a series of O.P.'s, known collectively as Maria
O.P., hollowed out of the rock, approached through rock passages, and in
front a wide rocky platform commanding a splendid panorama. At our feet
was a precipitous descent, clothed with acacias, at the bottom Podgora
with its gutted factories, then the broad stream of the Isonzo, and
Gorizia on the further side. To the left we could see the Isonzo winding
down out of the mountains, between Monte Sabotino and Monte Santo, the
latter hiding from our sight the Bainsizza Plateau. In the centre of our
view rose the great mass of San Gabriele; Italian patrols were out on
its southern slopes, clearly visible through field-glasses. Then Santa
Catarina and the long low brown hillside of San Marco. Away to the right
the flat lands of the Isonzo and Vippacco valleys, and beyond these
again the northern ridge of the Carso, from Dosso Faiti to the Stoll,
beautifully visible. On the right everything seemed quiet, but there was
tremendous Allied shelling of San Gabriele, Santa Catarina and San
Marco. French Gunners also were here with fifteen-inch guns firing on
San Marco, and two of their officers were at Maria O.P. that day. It
was symbolic that from this height, for the first time on the Italian
Front, Gunners of the three Western Allies were looking out eastward
together toward the Promised Land.
The enemy trenches on San Marco lay out of view behind the crest, and
our registration point, a white house on the top of the ridge, was
almost completely blown away by a big French shell while we were
watching, and waiting our turn to fire. We saw another shell burst in
the Isonzo just above Gorizia, causing a huge waterspout. Colonel Canale
arrived while we were firing. His white gloves were a little soiled, and
he seemed rather worried and more serious than usual. He was
disappointed at the stoppage of the offensive on the Carso.
CHAPTER XVI
THE FALL OF MONTE SANTO
Even when our guns were turned against San Marco, we continued to man
Sant' Andrea O.P., for one could get good general observation to the
northward from the other side of the ruined house which was the old
O.P., and most of the trenches on San Marco were invisible except from
aeroplanes. I spent the night there several times during the August
offensive, watching by turns with one of our Bombardiers, to whom I
explained that wars were made by small groups of wicked men, generally
also rich, sitting and planning in secret. I proposed to him the need
to shell such groups, while they were yet forming, with the shrapnel of
public opinion.
It was also at Sant' Andrea that I met a young Lieutenant of Italian
Field Artillery, a Sardinian from Cagliari. He had still the face of a
child, and he had, too, that perfect self-possession and that wonderful,
soft charm which are so often found together in the Italian youth. I
think of him often with affection, and with an eager hope that he passed
unharmed through all the vicissitudes which were to follow.
He and I spent many hours together, watching those bloody, memorable
hills. I met him first on the 24th of August, and we drank a bottle of
Vermouth together, and discussed with enthusiasm many subjects. We even
worked out in detail a scheme for the interchange of students, for
periods of a year at a time, between Italian and British Universities
after the war. We then turned to modern history and I noticed that he
did not respond as much as I had expected to the name of Garibaldi. He
held the historical theory that, broadly speaking, there are no really
great men, but only lucky ones. He put forward in support of this view
the distribution of death, wounds and decorations in this war. This
theory of history has in it larger elements of wholesomeness and truth
than has, for instance, the pernicious bombast of Carlyle. I told my
Sardinian friend that I had once heard it said by a most learned man
that, if Rousseau had never lived, the world would not look very
different to-day, except that probably there would be no negro republic
in the island of Haiti. This saying pleased him and he was inclined to
think it plausible.
He told me that day that Monte Santo was reported taken, but the news
was not yet sure.
* * * * *
I saw him again three days later and by then all the world knew that
Monte Santo had fallen. For Cadorna in his communiqué of the 25th had
cried: "Since yesterday our tricolour has been waving from the summit of
Monte Santo!" Already we could see the flashes of Italian Field Guns in
action near the summit. All day I was buoyant, exhilarated, and as
absorbed in the war as any journalist.
Victory has an intoxicating quality in this bright clear atmosphere, and
among these mountains, which it has, perhaps, nowhere else. All day
there seemed to be in the air a strange thrill, which at evening seemed
to grow into a great throbbing Triumph Song of the Heroes,--incomparable
Italians, living and dead. The emotion of it became almost unbearable.
"Our tricolour is waving from the summit of Monte Santo!"
Here on the night of the 26th there occurred a scene wonderfully, almost
incredibly, dramatic. The moon was rising. Shells passed whistling
overhead, some coming from beyond the Isonzo toward the Ternova Plateau,
others in the opposite direction from Ternova. Rifle shots rang out from
beneath Monte Santo, along the slopes of San Gabriele, where the Italian
and Austrian lines were very close together, where no word on either
side might be spoken above a whisper. Suddenly there crashed out from
the gloom the opening bars of the Marcia Reale, played with tremendous
_élan_ by a military band. The music came from Monte Santo. On the
summit of the conquered mountain, the night after its conquest, an
Italian band was playing amid the broken ruins of the convent, standing
around the firmly planted Italian flag. It was the Divisional Band of
the four Regiments which had stormed these heights. On the flanks of the
mountain, along the new lines in the valley beneath, along the trenches
half-way up San Gabriele, Italian soldiers raised a cry of startled joy.
Below the peak an Italian Regiment held the line within forty yards of
the enemy, crouching low in the shallow trenches. Their Colonel leaped
to his feet and his voice rang out, "Soldiers, to your feet! Attention!"
All along the trench the soldiers, with a swift thrill of emotion,
sprang to their feet. Then again the Colonel cried, "My soldiers, let us
cry aloud in the face of the enemy, 'Long live Italy! Long live the
King! Long live the Infantry!'" Loud and long came the cheers, echoing
and re-echoing from the rocks, taken up and repeated by others who heard
them, first near at hand, then far away, echoing and spreading through
the night, like the swelling waves of a great sea.
The Austrians opened fire on Monte Santo. But the music still went on.
The Marcia Reale was finished, but now in turn the Hymn of Garibaldi and
the Hymn of Mameli, historic battle songs of Italian liberty, pealed
forth to the stars, loud above the bursting of the shells. And many
Italian eyes, from which the atrocious sufferings of this war had never
yet drawn tears, wept with a proud, triumphant joy. And as the last
notes died away upon the night air, a great storm of cheers broke forth
afresh from the Italian lines. The moon was now riding high in the
heavens, and every mountain top, seen from below, was outlined with a
sharp-cut edge against the sky.
Four days after, not far from this same spot, General Capello, the
Commander of the Italian Second Army, decorated with the Silver Medal
for Valour some of the heroes of the great victory. Among these was a
civilian, a man over military age. It was Toscanini, Italy's most famous
musical conductor. It was he who, charged with the organisation of
concerts for the troops, had found himself in this sector of the Front
when Monte Santo fell, and, hearing the news, had demanded and obtained
permission to climb the conquered mountain. He reached the summit on the
evening of the 26th and, by a strange chance, found his way among the
rocks and the ruins of the convent, to the place where the band was
playing. His presence had upon the musicians the same effect which the
presence of a great General has upon faithful troops. They crowded round
him, fired with a wild enthusiasm. Then Toscanini took command of what
surely was one of the strangest concerts in the world, played in the
moonlight, in an hour of glory, on a mountain top, which to the Italians
had become an almost legendary name, to an audience of two contending
Armies, amid the rattle of machine guns, the rumble of cannon, and the
crashes of exploding shells.
* * * * *
"Our tricolour is waving from the summit of Monte Santo!"
If the souls of poets be immortal and know what still passes in this
world, be sure that the soul of Swinburne sings again to-day, from hell
or heaven, the Song of the Standard.
"This is thy banner, thy gonfalon, fair in the front of thy fight.
Red from the hearts that were pierced for thee, white as thy
mountains are white,
Green as the spring of thy soul everlasting, whose life-blood is light.
Take to thy bosom thy banner, a fair bird fit for the nest,
Feathered for flight into sunrise or sunset, for eastward or west,
Fledged for the flight everlasting, but held yet warm to thy breast.
Gather it close to thee, song-bird or storm-bearer, eagle or dove,
Lift it to sunward, a beacon beneath to the beacon above,
Green as our hope in it, white as our faith in it, red as our love."
CHAPTER XVII
THE CONQUEST OF THE BAINSIZZA PLATEAU
The Italian advance on the Middle Isonzo in the early days of the August
offensive reached a depth of six miles on a front of eleven miles. The
Italians had swept across the Bainsizza Plateau, and had gained
observation and command, though not possession, of the Valley of
Chiapovano, the main Austrian line of communication and supply in this
sector. This advance and the resumption of the war of movement raised,
for the moment, tremendous expectations, which were destined, alas, to
die away without fulfilment.
The passage of the Isonzo, here a deep cleft in the mountains, from
Plava to above Canale, had been accomplished by the combined skill and
valour of Infantry, Artillery and Engineers. The preliminary work of the
Engineers in roadmaking on the western side of the river had been, as
always, worthy of the highest praise. A great mass of bridging material
had had to be accumulated in the valley, alongside camouflaged roads.
The Austrians must have been on their guard, but it seems probable that
they did not expect a big attack to be made here. For they were fully
conscious of the natural strength of their positions.
First to cross the river on the night of the attack were boats carrying
Engineers and detachments of Arditi. As they crossed, the river gorge
was full of mist and they were not detected. But when the work of
bridging began, and sounds of hammering and the dragging of planks into
position could be clearly heard, suddenly all along the further bank the
Austrian machine guns began to spit fire, and red rockets went up
calling for the Artillery barrage. Many boats were hit and sank, and the
Bridging Detachments suffered severe casualties. One bridge, half built,
was set on fire, and one could see dark shadows, lit up by the glare
amid the darkness, darting forward to extinguish the flames. Fourteen
bridges were thrown across under heavy fire, and, as the Infantry began
to cross, Platoon after Platoon, the Austrian Machine Gunners fired at
the sound of their footsteps, and many Italians fell, especially
officers leading their men. But the crossing went on and, when dawn
broke, the attackers had a firm footing on the left bank of the river.
They swept round the flanks of those machine guns which had not yet been
put out of action, and making use of the subterranean passages which the
enemy had pierced in the cliffs for sheltered communication between the
higher and the lower levels of the mountain, began to pour forth upon
the crest of the ridge which overlooks the river. Then, as the advance
continued, the Austrian right wing above Canale gave way in confusion
and the Italians pressed forward on to the Bainsizza Plateau.
But their difficulties were tremendous. When they left the valley of the
Isonzo behind them, they entered a waterless land, without springs for
some four miles. In the early stages of the battle all water for the
troops had to be brought up by mules, and likewise all food, ammunition
and medical supplies, until the Engineers could get to work with
road-building on the left bank of the river. The Bainsizza Plateau
itself, lying amid a mass of barren mountains, contains woods, pastures,
springs, small villages, a few roads and many tracks. The Italians swept
over it on the 21st and 22nd of August, but soon found themselves once
more in difficult country. In the days that followed the advance was
slower and more spasmodic, but it still continued. By the 27th, 25,000
Austrian prisoners had been taken, together with a great quantity of
material, and several whole Austrian Divisions had ceased to exist.
It had been a wonderful feat of arms, finely conceived by the Staff,
magnificently executed by the rank and file. It opened out a great vista
of new possibilities, but, for the moment, it was over. Before any
further advance was practicable, the positions won had to be
consolidated, roads had to be built, dumps and stores of every kind to
be moved forward.
* * * * *
In a village on the Bainsizza Plateau, half wrecked by shell fire, two
old peasants were sitting outside their house. Austrian shells whistled
through the air and burst a few hundred yards away. "These are not for
us," said one of the old men to an Italian soldier, "the shells and the
war are for the soldiers, not the civilians."
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FIGHTING DIES DOWN
On the 28th of August the offensive was really beginning again. We were
firing on San Marco at a slow rate from six a.m. for an hour, then
"vivace" from seven till noon, and at noon we lifted and continued
vivace. San Marco was not rocky, and the trenches there should be
bombardable into pulp. In the early morning from Sant' Andrea the hills
all round were clearly outlined, except where some long belts of
motionless, white, low-lying cloud partly hid the Faiti-Stoll range.
Later, with the sun up, a warm haze hid everything. Firing continued
heavy till six p.m., and then slowed down. The attack on San Marco had
failed.
Next day there was a good deal of shelling and some torrential showers.
We set fire to some woods on the lower slopes of San Daniele, with a
high wind blowing.
* * * * *
The Battery's good luck continued. On the 30th, while my Gun Detachment
were at breakfast, a 5.9 burst in their shelter trench, at the moment
unoccupied, and covered every one with showers of loose earth. All the
breakfast vanished, and our shells were thrown about like driftwood in a
storm. But no ammunition was exploded and no one was hurt. Raven, who
had been up Sabotino that day, told us that "San Gabriele is tottering."
Our offensive seemed to have completely come to an end on the Carso and
in the Vippacco Valley. But we were still hammering away at San Marco
and San Gabriele, at intervals of a few days at a time. On the 2nd of
September San Gabriele was still "tottering," on the morning of the 4th
it was reported taken, on the 6th we heard that it had been taken, lost
and retaken, the Arno Brigade having distinguished themselves by some
wonderful bombing. Cadorna's objective now, it was said, was Lubiana,
and not Trieste. The Major and I both agreed that the Entente ought to
put every available man and tank on to this Front and go for Vienna. On
the 8th Raven told us that the top of San Gabriele was held, but not the
lower slopes nor Santa Catarina, which were still precariously supplied
from behind San Marco. A few days later we lost the top of San Gabriele,
and the attack upon it was not renewed.
Then followed quiet times, except for activity by Austrian Trench
Mortars against our trenches on Hill 126. We established direct
telephonic communication from the Battery to the Infantry Brigade
Headquarters in order to provide rapid retaliation, and we made several
Reconnaissances to try to locate Trench Mortars in the tangle of broken
ground through which the enemy line ran.
On the 17th we were warned to be ready to move at short notice to the
neighbourhood of Monfalcone, for a big push against the Hermada in three
weeks' time. Battery positions were chosen, but we never went. Instead a
rumour began to spread that all British Batteries were leaving Italy and
going East. It was said that the War Office had the wind up about the
Turks. An international tug of war was going on behind the scenes. On
the afternoon of the 28th we were told on high authority that our
movements were still undecided, but the Battery was inspected that day
by General Capello, the victor of Bainsizza, who looked like an Eastern
potentate, and was heard to say that he wanted as many British Batteries
as he could get, to increase the gun power of the Second Army. That
evening, however, our fate was said to be unofficially decided. We, with
the rest of Raven's Group, five Batteries in all, were to stay in Italy,
the other two Groups were to go away. It was not till the 3rd of October
that we received definite orders on the subject. The other Groups went
to Egypt and a couple of Batteries, after three months of doing nothing
in Cairo, came back to Italy again. They had at any rate found a little
employment for some of our surplus shipping and they had missed some
queer experiences in Italy meantime.
It was also announced that we were not moving down to Monfalcone, but
were probably remaining in our present positions for the winter. We
therefore began systematically to prepare winter quarters. The Italian
Corps Commander in a special Order of the Day expressed his satisfaction
that our Group was remaining under his command.
* * * * *
On the 5th I got up at four o'clock in the morning and carried out a
Front Line Reconnaissance with Sergeant Cotes, the No. 1 of my gun, and
Avoglia, an Italian Sergeant Major attached to our Battery, rather a
sleek person, who had been a _maître-d'hôtel_ at Brighton before the
war. We went along the front line trenches on Hill 126, recently
captured. These trenches ran beside the river and were now in fine
condition, great repairs and reconstruction having been carried out
during the past three weeks. It was here that Austrian Trench Mortars
were active. They were firing when we arrived and caused some
casualties. As it grew light, a strong Austrian patrol was seen moving
about in No Man's Land, and it was thought that a raid might be coming.
The order "Stand to" was given, and the Infantry came swarming out of
their dug-outs, a crowd of youths, some very handsome, with almost
Classical Roman features, and older men, sturdy and bearded. They
densely manned the parapet, with fixed bayonets and hand grenades. The
machine gun posts were also manned. But nothing happened!
A little later an Austrian was seen to emerge from cover in No Man's
Land, about a hundred yards away from us, and run towards our trenches,
throwing away his rifle and shouting some unintelligible words. He was
sick of the war and wanted to surrender. But a young Italian recruit, in
the trenches for the first time, quivering with excitement and eagerness
to distinguish himself, not realising the man's motive, fired at him
through a peephole. He missed, but the Austrian turned and doubled back
like a rabbit to his own lines, where I suppose he was shot, poor brute,
by his own people. I was standing quite close to the young recruit when
he fired. No one rebuked him, but a Corporal patiently explained things
to him. We smiled at one another, and I wished him "auguri" and went on
up the hill.
The Austrian snipers were busy, and another Italian standing close to
me, looking out slantwise through a peephole, was shot through the jaw.
He was bandaged up, profusely bleeding, and went stoically down the
hill, supported by a companion, leaving a red trail along the wooden
duck-boards that paved the trench.
I went down two saps which the Italians had pushed out, one to within
twenty yards, the other to within ten yards, of the Austrian front line.
Here every one spoke in a low whisper or by signs. They warned me to
keep well down, as the Austrians hated khaki worse even than
"grigio-verde," as one is always apt to hate third parties who butt in
against one in what one conceives to be a purely private quarrel.
But I went back armed with some useful information regarding the
position of those Austrian Trench Mortars.
CHAPTER XIX
A LULL BETWEEN TWO STORMS
From the beginning of October the Battery were hard at work on their
winter quarters. We had two large dining and recreation huts for the
men, one for the Right Section and one for the Left, fitted up with long
wooden tables and benches. These huts were dug into the bank, one on
either side of the road leading up from the Battery position to Pec
village. The dug-outs were improved and made watertight and the
Officers' Mess and sleeping huts were moved up from the river bank into
the Battery position itself. Everything was very comfortable and handy.
We maintained close relations with an Italian Battery next door
commanded by a certain Captain Romano. His men helped us in putting up
our huts, which were of Italian design, and we had frequent exchanges of
hospitality. Romano was a Regular officer, about 28 years old, with
twinkling brown eyes and a voice like a foghorn even when speaking from
a short distance away, but a fine singer. He had a wonderful collection
of photographs, was a good Gunner and popular with his men.
* * * * *
On the 9th I spent the night in Lecce O.P. on Hill 123, overlooking
Hills 126 and 94. It was named after the Lecce Brigade who made it, one
of the best Brigades in the Italian Army. When they were in front of
us, we saw a good deal of them. Now the Parma Brigade were holding the
line and the British officer in the O.P. used to take his meals at the
Brigade Headquarters. Things were rather active that evening. At
half-past five in the afternoon the enemy opened a heavy bombardment,
increasing to a pitch of great fury, on our front and support trenches.
Our own lines down below me were blotted out from sight by dense clouds
of crashing, flashing smoke. Just before six the Italian Brigadier asked
me for a heavy barrage from all the British Batteries. A big
counter-bombardment was now working up from our side. I spoke on the
telephone to Raven, who told me that all our Batteries were firing
"_double vivace_." At a quarter past six the Austrians attacked. There
was a terrific rattle of Italian machine gun fire, almost drowning the
sound of the heavier explosions, and a stream of rockets went up from
our front line calling for more barrage. The attack was beaten off by
machine guns and hand grenades. A few Austrians reached our parapet, but
none got into our trenches.
Firing died down about a quarter to seven, and the Brigadier came up to
the O.P., very pleased with the support we had rendered, and asked that
a slow rate of fire might be kept up. Later on an Austrian telephone
message was overheard, which suggested that the attack was to be renewed
just before dawn, after a gas attack. We kept on the alert, but nothing
happened. Two of our Batteries went on firing at a slow rate all night.
When dawn broke, it was evident that our bombardment had been very
destructive. The enemy's trenches were knocked to pieces; uprooted
trees, planks, sandbags and dead bodies lay about in confusion. It was
thought that owing to our fire some Austrian units, which were to have
taken part in the attack, could not, and others would not, do so, in
spite of a special issue of rum and other spirits. I saw also,
motionless amid the Austrian wire, a figure in Italian uniform, one of a
patrol who had gone out four nights before, and had not returned.
On the 12th I went out with a Sergeant, a Signaller and Corporal
Savogna, a Canadian Italian, on a Front Line Reconnaissance on the
northern side of the Vippacco, in the Second Army area. The day was
wonderfully clear and we could see the everlasting snows beyond Cadore.
We went through Rupa to Merna and, being evidently spotted, were shelled
with 4.2's and forced to proceed along a muddy communication trench knee
deep in water. At Raccogliano Mill we visited the Headquarters of the
Bergamo Brigade, which was holding the line. A guide took us along the
front line, which had been considerably advanced here in August and
September, and again by a successful local attack a few days before. We
went down one _Caverna_ in which, on the occasion of this last attack, a
Magyar officer and 25 men surrendered. The Austrian sentry, also a
Magyar, had been fastened by the leg to the doorpost outside the
entrance to the dug-out. In the Italian bombardment one of his feet was
blown away, but his own people had done nothing for him. Now his dead
body lay out in the open behind the new Italian front line.
* * * * *
On the 14th Jeune went on leave to England, no one having any
expectation that anything of importance was likely to happen in the
near future. In his absence I acted as Second-in-Command of the Battery.
On the 19th we heard that the Italian High Command was preparing another
big offensive from the Bainsizza against the Ternova Plateau, and the
same day the Intelligence Report contained the information that a series
of German Divisions had been seen detraining at Lubiana since the
beginning of October, and that, owing to the Russian collapse, a
thousand Austrian guns had been moved across from the Russian to the
Isonzo Front since the middle of September. We had noticed a perceptible
increase in the enemy's Artillery activity for some time, but this, we
thought at the time, was purely defensive. There had also been a week of
heavy rains, but the Vippacco, after rising rapidly and threatening to
flood us all out, fell eighteen inches in one night. It swept away a
number of Italian bridges, however, from Merna and Raccogliano further
up stream, and we saw pieces of these rushing past in the swift current.
On the 21st the Major and I motored to Palmanova and bought some winter
clothing at the Ordnance. An Austrian twelve-inch howitzer, whom we had
christened "Mr Pongo," was shelling all day at intervals, chiefly in the
back areas. An unpleasant beast, we agreed, who wanted smothering!
On the 22nd it was evident, from the Austrian shelling, that quite a
number of fresh heavy howitzers, both twelve- and fifteen-inch, had
appeared behind the Austrian lines. A few, no doubt, of those thousand
guns from Russia! Listening to their shells whistling over one's head
like express trains, and to their (happily distant) deep crashes on
percussion, one realised very vividly the immediate military effects of
the Russian collapse. We heard that the Italian offensive was not coming
off after all.
On the 23rd we heard that a big Austrian attack was expected last night
and might come that night instead. We received orders to clean up and
prepare, in case of necessity, the old position at Boschini on San
Michele, which the Battery had occupied when they first arrived in
Italy. This, I thought, seemed rather panic-stricken. Romano's Battery
had similar orders. It would be annoying to leave our present position
after all the work put into it to make it habitable for the winter. But
I noted that the atmosphere was tinged with apprehension.
PART IV
THE ITALIAN RETREAT AND RECOVERY
CHAPTER XX
THE BEGINNING OF THE ENEMY OFFENSIVE
On the morning of October 24th soon after nine o'clock the enemy
launched a big attack against the Third Army Front, especially violent
between Faiti and the Vippacco, and renewed it in the afternoon. But he
gained no ground. All through the previous night and all that day till
evening the bombardment on both sides was heavy. We had not fired during
the night but began at seven in the morning and went on throughout the
day. A message came in that the enemy would probably shell Batteries for
four hours with gas shell, starting with irritant gas and going on to
poison. He had already employed these tactics up north, as we learned
later. Gas alert was on all night and we were listening strainedly for
soft bursts. Heavy rain came down steadily all day, and everything was
drenched and dripping. The spaces between our huts filled with water,
and needed continual baling out. But when gas was expected, one welcomed
heavy rain[1] and high winds and loud explosions from bursting shells.
[Footnote 1: It was not till a later date that gases were employed, the
effects of which were increased by rain.]
Between nine and ten p.m. I heard a series of soft bursts just across
the river and arranged with Romano's Battery for mutual alarms if any
gas should come too near. An hour later I was relieved in the Command
Post and turned in. As I was undressing, I heard the wind rising again
and the telephonists next door baling out their dug-out. We were keeping
up a desultory fire all night to harass any further attacks that might
be attempted. The Major, who had been out on a Front Line Reconnaissance
that morning in the neighbourhood of Merna, had come in for some very
heavy shelling and returned very weary.
* * * * *
The next day, the 25th, was at least fine; it was even rather sunny. We
did a little firing, but not much, between seven a.m. and two p.m. Enemy
planes came over continually, flying very low, about thirty in the
course of the morning. They attacked one of our observation balloons,
which descended rapidly as they approached, and I think got down safely.
Italian anti-aircraft guns brought down one of them. Whenever we shelled
Mandria, a little village up the valley, a plane came over. Evidently
they had something there as to which they were sensitive, perhaps a
General's Billet!
At half past ten the Italians ditched a lorry full of ammunition just at
the top of the road from the Battery position to Pec village, in full
view of the enemy on Hill 464. At this time the village was being
heavily shelled by 5.9's, and our cookhouse on the outskirts was all but
hit, shells bursting all round it in a circle. Showers of bricks and
lumps of earth and masonry rose high in the air. One shell hit the
Artillery Group Headquarters of Major Borghese and I saw all his office
papers going up, a cloud of shreds, shining in the sun. I laughed and
said to myself, "There goes a lot of red tape!" I saw Borghese himself
later in the day limping along with a stick; a chunk of one of his
office walls had fallen on his foot.
The enemy meanwhile had begun to shell the lorry, methodically as their
idiotic habit was, with one shell every five minutes. It was too near us
to be pleasant, so the Major took out a party and hauled it out of their
view under cover of a bank. But this took some time. Leary stood by with
a stopwatch calling out the minutes. At the end of every fourth minute,
the party ran for cover. Then a few seconds later we heard the next
shell coming. The Major was hit on the hand once by a shell splinter
which drew blood, but nothing more serious than this happened.
About two o'clock a big bombardment worked up again, and the Volconiac
and Faiti became a sea of smoke and flame. This went on till dusk, we
firing hard all the time. More enemy planes came over, one even after
dark, a most unusual thing, flying very low indeed, under a heavy fire
of anti-aircraft Batteries and machine guns from the ground. Our planes
had been very scarce all day. They had nearly all gone north. For the
time being we had quite lost the command of the air in this sector.
The two British Batteries who were furthest forward had orders to move
back that night to reserve positions on San Michele. The Italians were
going to horse their guns, for it was said that the majority of the
tractors had gone north too. This move looked rather panicky, I thought.
Many red rockets went up in the early evening from Volconiac and Faiti.
The enemy were making another attack. Then a little later tricolour
rockets, red, white and green, went up. This was the signal that the
attack had been beaten off and that the situation was quiet again. The
firing died down about seven. We fed and put up for the night an Italian
officer, whose Battery used to be here, but had moved north yesterday.
He had just come back from a gas course at Palmanova. From a newspaper
which he had I saw that a strong offensive had begun on the afternoon of
the 23rd to the north of the Bainsizza Plateau. Either the attacks here
were only holding attacks, or the attack to the north was a feint and
the real thing was to be here. Anyhow, I thought, it is their Last
Despairing Great Cry! I turned in just after midnight. The night was
still and there was a bright moon and stars. A thick mist lay along the
Vippacco, just behind the trees. The air was damp and cold. It seemed
pretty quiet for the moment all along the Front.
* * * * *
I had a troubled night. In the early morning we were bombarded with gas
shell and had to wear respirators from a quarter to three till four
o'clock. We were firing from five till six and again steadily from a
quarter past seven onwards. We got orders to move back that night to
Boschini, on San Michele. I thought this a great mistake. Later in the
day our move was cancelled, as the two forward Batteries which pulled
out last night would not be in action on San Michele till to-morrow.
They had been last heard of stuck fast in a crush of traffic at the
bottom of the hill at Peteano. A strong team of horses were straining
their guts out in vain attempts to pull an Italian twelve-inch mortar up
the hill. It was this which had caused the block. Those two forward
Batteries _might_ have lost their guns in a quick retreat, I thought,
but hardly we. It seemed to be feared, however, that the two bridges
across the Vippacco might go.
That day we were shelled heavily with every kind of weapon, from
fifteen-inch downwards, especially the Left Section in the afternoon. We
had, as usual, marvellously good luck, and only had one casualty, and
that a slight wound. The spirit and endurance of the men were wonderful.
Enemy planes were over all day; we counted twenty-two between daybreak
and four p.m. Some hovered overhead and ranged their guns on us. Several
times we put our detachments under cover and ceased fire owing to the
shelling. My own gun was half buried by a great shower of earth kicked
up by a 9.45, which pitched right on top of the bank in front of us. But
Cotes, my Sergeant, and myself, crouching under cover of the girdles,
were quite unhurt. The rest of the detachment had been ordered down into
their dug-out. Another time the enemy neatly bracketed our Command Post
with twelve-inch, and several of us within were uncomfortably awaiting
the next round. But luckily for us he switched away to the right.
We had to fire hard most of the day, especially in the afternoon and
evening. It had been exhausting and almost sleepless work for the
detachments for several days past, for Darrell and a working party of
forty were away preparing the reserve position on San Michele, and we
had hardly any reliefs for the guns. The Major, too, looked very tired
and frayed, but, whenever our eyes met, he gave me a smile of
encouragement and leadership. That evening, during a short break in the
firing, he asked me, since he himself could not leave the Command Post,
to go round and "buck the men up" and thank them on his behalf for the
way in which they had behaved. "So long as the Major's pleased, we're
satisfied," said one man. Another, a Bombardier who afterwards got a
Commission, and had been with Darrell on a reconnaissance on Faiti a few
days before and had nearly been killed on the journey, said, "Well, Sir,
we were thinking of the boys in the Front Line today." And well he
might, for it had been a hellish bombardment up there. After delivering
my message to the men, I walked up and down the road in front of the
guns for a few moments in the short silence, realising how the Alliance
of Britain and Italy was burning itself more deeply than ever into our
hearts in these days of trial.
That night the enemy attacked again, and we lost Faiti and Hill 393, and
had to fire on them. I heard afterwards from the Group that Colonel
Canale, when he gave the order to fire on 393, was almost weeping on the
telephone. Next day we counter-attacked and retook Faiti, but 393
remained in Austrian hands. Rumours and denials of rumours came in from
the north. It was said that we had lost Monte Nero and Caporetto, and
that German Batteries had kept up a high concentration of gas for four
hours on our lines in the Cadore. And we knew that the Italian gas masks
were only guaranteed to last for an hour and a half in such conditions,
and that each man only carried one.
CHAPTER XXI
FROM THE VIPPACCO TO SAN GIORGIO DI NOGARA
On the 27th the rumours became bad. The German advance to the north was
said to be considerable and rapid. Orders came that all the British
Batteries were to pull out and park that night at Villa Viola, behind
Gradisca, "for duty on another part of the Front." Probably, we thought,
we were going north. "The gun concentration up there must be awful,"
said the Major. I told Cotes that we were probably going into the thick
of it, and his eyes shone with pride. He was a fine fellow. That day the
sun was shining, and the Italian planes in this sector seemed to have
regained command of the air. For the moment there was a little lull in
the firing, but we felt that some big fate was looming over us. I went
away to my hut for five minutes and wrote in my diary, "I here put it on
record once more that I am proud to fight in and for Italy. I repeat
that dying here is not death, it is flying into the dawn! If I die in
and for Italy, I would like to think that my death would do something
for Anglo-Italian sympathy and understanding."
In the early afternoon the Major went down to Headquarters. He rang me
up from there to say that two guns were to be pulled out at once, and
the other two to double their rate of fire. No. 4 gun was now engaging
two different targets with alternate rounds and different charges.
When the Major came back, he called all the men together and said. "I am
not going to conceal anything from you. The situation is serious. The
Italians have had a bad reverse up north. But there is no need for
anyone to get panicky. We shall pull out and go back to-night. That is
all I know at present. When I know more, I will tell you more. One gun
will remain in action till the last. No. 2 is the easiest to get out, so
I have chosen her for the post of honour." As the men scattered, I heard
several saying, "Good old No. 2!"
The Major told me that the Austrians were almost in Cividale, staggering
news. Tractors and lorries were to come and take away our guns and
stores in the evening. But the number of tractors was very limited and
Raven was doubtful if enough would come in time. The whole Third Army
was retreating, and three British Batteries, ourselves, the Battery in
Pec village and the Battery at Rupa, would be the last three Batteries
of Medium or Heavy Calibre left on this part of the Front.
All through the afternoon and evening Italian Infantry and Artillery
were retreating through Pec. Some looked stolid, others depressed,
others merely puzzled. But a little later a Battalion came along the
road the other way, going up to be sacrificed on Nad Logem. They halted
to rest by the roadside, full of gaiety and courage. They cheered our
men on No. 2 gun, who were pumping out shells as fast as they could.
"Bravi inglesi!" cried the Italians, and some of our men replied, "Good
luck, Johnny!" Unknown Italians were always "Johnny."
As the dark came on, ammunition dumps began to go up everywhere; the
Italians were deliberately exploding them, and great flashes of light,
brighter than even an Italian noonday, lit up the whole sky for minutes
at a time. Romano's Battery next door to us threw the remains of their
ammunition into the river, and pulled out and away about 6.30. They were
horse-drawn and did not need to wait for tractors. We wished each other
good-bye, and hoped we might meet again some better day. We too got
orders to destroy all ammunition we could not fire, as there would be no
transport to take it away. So we gave No. 2 a generous ration and heaved
the rest into the waters of the Vippacco.
No. 2 went on firing ceaselessly. So did one gun of the Battery in the
village, and one gun at Rupa. That Battery, being the furthest forward,
was in the greatest danger of the three. About 7 o'clock our first
tractor arrived and took away No. 1 gun with Winterton and Manzoni.
Enemy bombing planes came over frequently. One came right over us and
then turned down the Vallone, and there was a series of heavy
explosions, and great clouds of brownish smoke leapt up beneath her
track.
Why, I kept asking myself, didn't the fools shell Pec village, where a
crowd of men and guns were waiting for transport? Why didn't they put
over gas shell? Why didn't they bomb us? Evidently there were no Germans
_here_! About a quarter to nine No. 2 finished her ammunition, and we
pulled her out. The other three guns had gone now and the other two
British Batteries were clear, all but two lorries. Just after nine
o'clock our last tractor came along and took off No. 2, with Darrell in
charge of her. How the Italians had managed to get all these lorries and
tractors for us, I don't know, for, in the Third Army as a whole, they
were terribly short of transport. Many made the criticism that we should
have kept out in Italy our own transport. But the Italians certainly did
us very handsomely, at the cost of losing some bigger guns of their own.
After the last British gun had ceased to fire there was for about five
minutes an eerie stillness, as though all our Artillery had gone and
theirs was holding its fire. And then an Italian Field Battery opened
again on the right of Pec. For over an hour now I had been expecting,
minute by minute, to see the enemy Infantry come swarming along the Nad
Logem in the dusk, cutting off our retreat, for I knew we had nothing
but rear-guards left up there. But they did not come!
Only the Major and I and about forty men were left now, and we had been
told that there would be no more transport. So we destroyed everything
that we had been unable to get away, and the Major informed Headquarters
of the situation and then disconnected the telephone and the men fell in
and we marched away. We were just in time to see an Italian Field
Battery come into Pec at the gallop, the gunners all cheering, unlimber
their guns, take up position and open fire. It was a smart piece of
work, done with a real Latin gesture. How enfuriating it was to be
leaving these wooden huts of ours and these good positions, on which
had been spent so many hours of labour, where we could have passed such
a comfortable winter, going forth now none knew whither! Old Natale, one
of the Italians attached to us, chalked up in German on the entrance to
one of the huts, "You German pigs, we shall soon be back again!" But at
that moment I did not feel so sure. Natale was afterwards lost in the
retreat, and was reported by us as "missing." But one of our men saw him
again six months later with an Italian Battery and said he looked
several years younger!
We passed Campbell, the Medical Officer, standing outside his dug-out on
the road. He was waiting for the last of the other Batteries' parties to
get away. He told me afterwards that we were out only just in time.
Within half an hour of our going, the Austrians fairly plastered the
position with shells of all calibres. They shelled the road a little as
we went along, but not too much. As we passed the railway embankment at
Rubbia, we saw and spoke to some Italian machine-gunners in position,
whose orders were to hold up the enemy till the last possible moment.
They were quite calm and determined, those boys, knowing perfectly well
that, by the time the enemy came, the Isonzo bridges would have been
blown up behind them. I dragged myself on with an aching heart. One who
retreats cuts a poor figure beside a rear-guard that stays behind and
fights.
We crossed the Isonzo at Peteano, and took a short cut across the fields
to Farra. In the crowd and the dark we were jostled by some Italian
Infantry. We hailed them and found that they were our old friends, the
Lecce Brigade. The Major made our men stand back. "Pass, Lecce," he
said. "Good luck to you!" We marched on through Farra to Gradisca, both
blazing in the night. The towns and villages everywhere in this sector
had been deliberately fired by the retreating Italians, in addition to
the ammunition dumps. The whole countryside was blazing and exploding. I
thought of Russia in 1812, and the Russian retreat before Napoleon, and
Tchaikovsky's music.
It began to rain, but that made no difference to the burning. In
Gradisca burning petrol was running about the streets. Earlier in the
evening there had been a queer scene here. The Headquarters of the
British Staff had been at Gradisca, and the Camp Commandant had made a
hobby of fattening rabbits for the General's Mess. When the time had
come that day to pack up and go, it was found that the lorries provided
were fully loaded with office stores, Staff officers' bulky kit and
20,000 cigarettes, which the General was specially proud of having saved
from his canteen. There was no room for the Camp Commandant's rabbit
hutches, so these were opened and the fat inmates released, to the
delight of the civilians and Italian soldiery in Gradisca, who knocked
them over or shot them as they ran. I heard this from a gunner, who was
officer's servant to one of the Staff and witnessed the scene.
A few miles away, at the Ordnance Depôt at Villa Freifeldt, thousands of
pounds' worth of gun stores stood ready, packed in crates, to be
removed. But no transport came for them, and they were abandoned and
fell into Austrian hands. For lack of them, our Batteries were
afterwards kept out of action for several weeks. Whoever ordered these
things seems to have thought it more important to save the Staff's kit
and the General's cigarettes.
Just before we entered Gradisca, we passed a Battalion of the
Granatieri, the Italian Grenadiers, all six foot tall, with collar
badges of crimson and white, coming up from reserve to fight a
rear-guard action. I had seen them a few days before in rest billets and
admired their appearance. And in their march that night and in their
faces was scorn for fugitives and contempt for death. The Major said to
me, as they swung past us, that _that_ Battalion could be trusted to
fight to the end. And they did. Some of our men met a few of their
survivors at Mestre a week later. Nearly the whole Battalion had been
killed or wounded, but they had held up the Austrian advance for several
hours.
On the further side of Gradisca we passed a great platform, which had
been erected a few weeks before for the Duke of Aosta's presentation of
medals for the Carso offensive. It was here that the Major had received
the Italian Silver Medal for Valour. The platform looked ironical that
night, still decked with bunting, limp and drenched now by the rain, and
lit up by the flames of the burning town. We reached Villa Viola about
11.30 p.m. It was to have been a rendezvous, but there was no one there.
Only the rain still falling. About midnight we entered an empty house,
and threw ourselves down upon the floor to sleep.
* * * * *
We had slept for less than an hour, when we were hurriedly awakened. The
Italians had orders to set fire to the house. Meanwhile Savogna, our
Canadian Italian Corporal, had just returned from scouting for us, and
reported that parties from the other Batteries were in a house half a
mile away. We marched off again through pouring rain, our path lit up by
the flames, which in places thrust their long tongues right across the
road. The wind blew clouds of smoke in our faces. The air was full of
the roaring of the fires, the crackle of blazing woodwork, the crash of
houses falling in, the loud explosions of ammunition dumps and petrol
stores, which now and again for a few seconds lighted up the whole night
sky for miles around with a terrific glare, and then died down again.
Far as the eye could reach the night was studded with red and golden
fires. Everywhere behind the front of the retreating Third Army a
systematic destruction was being carried out. The Third Army was
retreating in good order, unbroken and undefeated, retreating only
because its northern flank was in danger of being turned. The Third Army
was proving to the enemy that its movements were deliberate and governed
by a cool purpose. The enemy should advance into a wilderness.
Again I seemed to hear in the air the music of "1812," and the bells of
burning Moscow ringing out loud and clear above the triumph song of the
invader.
* * * * *
Our men marched doggedly on, some looking puzzled and full of wonder,
others tired but cheerful, others with expressionless, uncomprehending
faces. But in the faces of a few I read a consciousness of the
tremendous tragedy of which we formed a tiny part. We found the other
Batteries in a house not yet marked down for burning. The house was
crowded out already and all the best places taken, such as they were.
There were pools of water everywhere on the floor. Officers of the Group
were there, knowing nothing, awaiting the appearance of Colonel Raven.
All our party got in somehow and lay down to sleep. But half an hour
later we were roused again. Raven had come and ordered that all should
push on to Palmanova.
Some of our men were sleeping very heavily and were hard to waken. When
we started it was still raining. The roads were crowded with traffic,
including many guns. Our own went by with the rest, Winterton, Darrell,
Leary and Manzoni with them. Each Battery party marched independently,
the easier to get through blocks in the traffic. The Square at Palmanova
had been fixed as the next rendezvous.
The stream of refugees with their slow-moving wagons drawn by oxen, or
their little donkey carts, or trudging on foot carrying bundles, became
gradually thicker and more painful. For we were back now in country that
yesterday or the day before had fancied itself remote from the battle
zone. I remember one elderly peasant woman, tall and erect as a young
girl, with white hair and a face like Dante, calm, beautiful and stern.
She was alone, tramping along through the mud. And she had the walk of a
queen.
At Versa we halted for a few minutes at the Hospital. All the wounded
had been evacuated.[1] Campbell was lying on a bed in one of the empty
wards, snatching a little rest. He had seen the last British troops away
from Pec and had then followed on a motor-bicycle. I went into the old
R.A.M.C. Mess to see if any food or drink was left. The question of food
was beginning to be serious for the whole retreating Army. Italian
troops were clearing out everything. I found a wine bottle half full,
and took a deep drink. It was vinegar, but it bucked one up. I handed
the bottle to an Italian, and told him it was "good English wine." He
drank a little, saw the joke, smiled and passed it on to an unsuspecting
companion. I got a little milk which I shared with the Major and some of
our men. Then we resumed the march.
[Footnote 1: One wounded British soldier, who had been in an Italian
Field Hospital which was not evacuated in time, was taken prisoner by
the Austrians. He told me, when he was released a year later, that the
Austrians bayoneted the Italian wounded whom they found in this
hospital, but spared the British, and, on the whole, treated them well.]
We reached Palmanova about 7 a.m. It was now the 28th of October. We met
Raven in the Square, where were also collected a British General and his
Staff officers. They were standing about, with a half lost look on their
faces. There was no evidence of decision or any plan. The General was
smiling, as his habit was. The Staff Captain was telling someone, in a
hopeless voice, that he had heard that the Italians were going back to
the Tagliamento. Just as we arrived, the Italians began to set fire to
the town. Dense clouds of black smoke, fanned by a strong wind, began to
pour over our heads. Flames were soon roaring round houses, where three
months ago I had been a guest. But the inmates had all gone now. Food
and drink was being sold in the shops at knock-down prices. The Italian
military authorities were requisitioning all bread, and issued some to
us. The Major ordered it to be kept in reserve.
I went round the town and into the Railway Station looking for our guns.
But there was no sign of them. I came back and slept for an hour amid
some rubble under the archway inside one of the town gates. The town was
burning furiously. Our men, wet to the skin, sheltered themselves from
the smoke and the cold wind in the dry moat outside the walls.
Then the order came to move on. We formed up and started with the rest.
Nobody knew whither. Some said Latisana, but no one knew how far off
this was. The men had no rations except the bread obtained at Palmanova,
and no prospect, apparently, of getting any. The Supply Officers of the
A.S.C. might as well have gone to Heaven, for all the use they were to
us during those days of retreat. It was raining again and the roads were
blocked. We proceeded slowly for a mile or two, and were then turned off
the road into a damp, open field, which someone said was a "strategic
point." Here a number of different Battery parties collected. We were to
wait for the guns. The downpour steadily increased, the field rapidly
became a marsh, and there was no shelter anywhere. Raven walked up and
down, puffing at this pipe, taking the situation with admirable calm. It
was at this time that I personally touched my bedrock of misery, both
mental and physical. For there seemed to be nothing to be done, and,
what most irked me, there were so many senior officers present that I
myself could take no decisions. Then some of our guns arrived, and were
halted at the side of the road to wait for the rest. But this made the
traffic block worse, and they had to move forward again, and the idea
of getting them all together was abandoned.
Raven then gave the order to the rest of us to move on. There were some
vacant places in various cars and lorries at this point and some
footsore men were put in. The Major insisted, in spite of my protests
that I preferred to walk, that I should get into one of the cars, which
I shared with Littleton, the Chaplain who had thought that war "might be
tremendously worth while" and three junior officers from Raven's
Headquarters. I was, in truth, pretty done at this stage, chiefly
through want of sleep, compared to which I always found want of food a
trifling inconvenience. It was now about 4 p.m. and we could only make
very slow progress. A rendezvous had been fixed by Raven at Foglie,
where rations were to have been distributed. But there was no one and no
rations there, and it seemed that Raven had taken the wrong road. The
enemy were said to be advancing from the north at right angles to our
only possible line of retreat, and the chances seemed strongly in favour
of our all being cut off.
An Italian doctor ran out into the road and stopped our car, almost
beside himself with despair. He had been left in charge of a number of
severely wounded cases, without any food, medical necessities or
transport. But we had no food and could do nothing to help him, except
promise to try to have transport sent back to him from San Giorgio di
Nogara.
CHAPTER XXII
FROM SAN GIORGIO TO THE TAGLIAMENTO
We reached San Giorgio about 9 p.m. and here I got out of the car, which
two of Raven's Staff took on to try and arrange for transport to be sent
back for the Italian wounded. Having slept for an hour or two in the
car, I felt quite a different being and fit for anything. Stragglers
were coming in from the various Batteries' dismounted parties, and I
collected nearly a hundred of these men into a hall on the ground floor
of an Italian Field Hospital. They lay about on the stone floor,
sleeping like logs. Upstairs a panic had spread among the wounded that
they would be abandoned. Men were crying with terror and struggling to
get out of bed. Campbell, who had now joined us, went up and helped the
Italian medical personnel. Soon afterwards ambulances of both the
Italian and British Red Cross began to arrive, and the hospital was
quickly cleared. From one British Red Cross Driver I got a large box of
Cabin biscuits, which I distributed among our men, some of whom were
ravenously hungry. I also found a tap of good drinking water in the main
street and here we refilled all available water bottles, including those
of several men who were too fast asleep to waken.
The question then arose what to do with these stragglers. I went to the
station, but found that no more trains were running. Latisana was said
to be only "a few kilometres" away. It was in fact more than twenty. I
discovered that it was on the Tagliamento and I supposed that, once
across the river, we should be momentarily safe from risk of capture,
and, if ammunition was forthcoming, our Batteries might once more come
into action. Meanwhile we should push on as soon as possible. On the
other hand the men were very tired, having been marching for twenty-four
hours, with only a few short breaks. A few hours' sleep now might be
worth a lot to them later on.
Several civilians came up to me and asked when the Germans would be
here. "This is my house," one old man explained, pointing to a small
house near the Hospital, "and I shall have to leave everything if I go
away. But I cannot stay....," and he began to cry.
In the early hours of the 29th I put some of our most footsore
stragglers on to lorries going in the direction of Latisana. The rest
marched off under Henderson, one of the officers from Raven's
Headquarters, who had come with me in the car to San Giorgio. Meanwhile
I was keeping a look-out for our guns in the dense columns of traffic
slowly crawling past. I saw guns belonging to other Batteries, and was
told that some of ours were further behind. It was just getting light,
when a tractor appeared drawing two of our guns and one belonging to
another British Battery, which we had picked up on the road a long way
back with only three gunners in charge of it, and which would certainly
have been lost, if we had not taken it in tow. But, as the result of
this additional load, our tractor had been breaking down all the way
along, and had fallen almost to the rear of the retreating column. It
had a damnable and useless accumulator, but there was no means of
changing this. With the tractor and guns were Winterton, Darrell, and
Leary, also the Battery Quartermaster Sergeant and two of our lorries.
They told me Manzoni was well on ahead with the other two guns and I
told them that the Major and the bulk of the dismounted party must also
be a good distance ahead, as stragglers from this party had appeared
here many hours before.
We were now the last British guns on the road, a post of honour which we
continued to hold. I was delighted to find that I was now entitled, by
reason of seniority, to take command. I sent on the two lorries with
Winterton and Darrell, to get in touch as soon as possible with the two
guns in front and the Major's party. Leary and I remained behind with
the tractor and its load. We had about thirty men with us and a small
quantity of rations, including a little tea. We moved on slowly and got
stuck in a bad block of traffic at San Giorgio cross roads. Here we had
to remain stationary for several hours. The dawn was breaking and we
made some tea.
About 5 a.m. I got tired of sitting still and walked about half a mile
down the road to find out the cause of the block. I began to control and
jerrymander the traffic and at first annoyed an Italian officer, who was
there with the same object as myself; but I persuasively pointed out to
him the benefits to both of us, if we could only succeed in getting a
move on, and he then calmed down and began to help me. In the end we
both manoeuvred our own transport into a moving stream, and went
forward smiling.
We went along at a fine pace for several miles and then our tractor
stopped and wouldn't start up again. Whereupon there came to our
assistance a young man named Rinaldo Rinaldi, a skilled and resourceful
mechanic, who was driving a tractor in rear of us. He patched up our
engine and got us going again. But we kept on breaking down after
intervals never very long. Time after time Rinaldo Rinaldi came running
up, smiling and eager to help. He patched us up and got us going six
times. But at last he had to pass us and go on. For he, too, was drawing
guns. I shall never forget Rinaldo Rinaldi and the cheerful help he gave
us. In the end he left us an accumulator, but it was not much better
than our own.
Enemy planes now began to appear in the sky, some scouting only, others
dropping bombs. They did more damage to the wretched refugees than to
the military. What chances they missed that day! Once or twice, when we
were stationary, I gave the order to scatter in the fields to left and
right of the road. But they never came very near to hitting us. They
flew very high and their markmanship was atrocious.
Atrocious also was our tractor! Finally, when it broke down and we had
no fresh accumulator, we had to unlimber the front gun, attach drag
ropes to the tractor, haul vigorously on the ropes until the engine
started up, then back the tractor and front limber back to the guns,
limber up, cast off the ropes and go ahead again. We did this three or
four times in the course of an hour, and enjoyed the sense of
triumphing over obstacles. But it was very laborious, and the intervals
between successive breakdowns grew ominously shorter and shorter. And
the last time the trick didn't work, though we had all heaved and heaved
till we were very near exhaustion. We were fairly stuck now, half
blocking the road. Great excitement, as was only natural, developed
among those behind us.
I sent forward an orderly with a message to the Major, describing our
plight and asking that, if possible, another tractor might be sent back
from Latisana to pull us. This message never reached the Major, but was
opened by another Field officer, who sent back this flatulent reply. "If
you are with Major Blinks, you had better ask him whether you may use
your own discretion and, if necessary, remove breech blocks and abandon
guns." I was not with Major Blinks, and I neither knew nor cared where
he might be. Nor had I any intention of abandoning the guns. I
determined, without asking anyone's permission, to use my discretion in
a different way.
I saw, a little distance in front, an Italian Field Artillery Colonel in
a state of wild excitement. He was rushing about with an unopened bottle
of red wine in his hand, waving it ferociously at the heads of refugees,
and driving them and their carts off the road down a side track. A queer
pathetic freight some of these carts carried, marble clocks and
blankets, big wine flasks and canaries in cages. The Colonel had driven
off the road also a certain Captain Medola, of whom I shall have more to
say in a moment, and who was sitting sulkily on his horse among the
civilian carts. The Colonel's object, it appeared, was to get a number
of Field Batteries through. He had cleared a gap in the blocked traffic
and his Field Guns were now streaming past at a sharp trot. But he was
an extraordinary spectacle and made me want to laugh. Treading very
delicately, I approached this enfuriated man, and explained the helpless
situation of our guns, pointing out that we were also unwillingly
impeding the movements of his own. I asked if he could order any
transport to be provided for us. He waved his bottle at me, showed no
sign of either civility or comprehension, only screaming at the top of
his voice, "Va via, va via!"[1]
[Footnote 1: "Away with you, away with you!"]
I gave him up as hopeless, and went back to my guns, intending to wait
till he had disappeared and things had quieted down again, and then to
look for help elsewhere. But the Latin mind often follows a thread of
order through what an Anglo-Saxon is apt to mistake for a mere hurricane
of confused commotion. Within five minutes Captain Medola came up to me
and said that the Colonel had ordered him to drag our tractor and guns.
Medola was in command of a Battery of long guns, and had one of these
attached to a powerful tractor on the road in front of us. To this long
gun, therefore, we now attached our tractor, useless as a tractor but
containing valuable gun stores, and our three guns. It was a tremendous
strain for one tractor, however strong, to pull, and we decided a little
later to abandon our own tractor and most of its contents.
Medola, having handed over his horse to an orderly, who was to ride on
ahead and arrange for a fresh supply of petrol for his tractors, of
which there were three, mounted the front of the leading tractor and I
got up beside him. He rendered us most invaluable help in a most willing
spirit and at considerable risk to himself. For he undoubtedly had to go
much more slowly with us in tow than he could have gone if he had been
alone.
We saw another Battery of Italian heavy guns going along the road,
heavier than either ours or Medola's. They were an ancient type, which
we had seen sometimes on the Carso, and not of very high military value.
But their gunners took a regimental and affectionate pride in those old
guns. They had neither tractors nor horses, but they had dragged their
beloved pieces for thirty miles from the rocky heights of the Carso,
along good roads and bad, up and down hill, through impossible traffic
blocks, down on to the plains as far as Palmanova, with nothing but long
ropes and their own strong arms. They had forty men hauling on each gun.
At Palmanova new hauling parties had been put on, who dragged the guns
another thirty miles to the far side of the Tagliamento at Latisana. And
as they hauled, they sang, until they were too tired to go on singing,
and could only raise, from time to time, their rhythmical periodic cry
of "Sforza!... Sforza!"[1]
[Footnote 1: "Heave!... Heave!"]
As we passed through Muzzano, the town and road were heavily bombed. The
bell in the campanile jangled wildly and weeping women crowded into the
church, as though thinking to find sanctuary there. Others stood gazing
helplessly up into the sky. Here I saw some Italian Infantry, mostly
young, who were delighted to be retreating. "Forward, you militarists!"
they cried to us as we passed. "This is your punishment! How much longer
do you think the war is going to last? What about Trieste now?" They
spoke with joyful irony, as though the conquest of Trieste had been a
slaves' task, imposed upon unwilling Italy by foreign imperialists. They
were the only Italian troops I saw during the retreat, who showed any
sign of being under the influence of "defeatist" or German propaganda.
The stream of refugees steadily thickened on the roads. More than once I
got down and ran on ahead, calling out with monotonous refrain to the
drivers of civilian carts to keep well over to the right of the road, so
as to let the guns pass. They all did their best to obey, poor brutes,
and we gained some useful ground in that endless column.
At nightfall we were still eight or nine kilometres from Latisana. The
traffic block grew worse and worse, and there were too few Carabinieri
to exercise proper control. We stuck for hours at a time, with nothing
moving for miles, three motionless lines of traffic abreast on the road,
all pointing in the same direction. Tired men slept and wakeful men
waited and watched and cursed at the delay. Behind us, far off, we could
hear the booming of the guns, which seemed from hour to hour to come a
little nearer, and flashes of distant gunfire flickered in the night
sky. Back there the rear-guards were still fighting, and brave men were
dying to give us time to get away. It seemed just then that their
sacrifice might be in vain. What a haul the Austrians would have here!
And behind and around us burning villages were still flaming in the
dark, and throwing up the sharp black outlines of the trees.
* * * * *
Afterwards I heard of some of the deeds that had been done "back there."
I heard of the charges of the Italian Cavalry, of the Novara Lancers and
the Genoa Dragoons, crack regiments, full of the best horsemen in Italy,
who had been waiting, waiting, all the war through, for their chance to
come. Their chance had come at last, the chance to die, charging against
overwhelming odds, in order that Italy, or at least the glory of her
name, might live for ever. One commanding officer called all his
officers around him and said, "The common people of Italy have betrayed
our country's honour, and now we, the gentlemen of Italy, are going to
save it!" and then he led the charge, and fell leading it. It was a
fine, aristocratic gesture, though the prejudices of his class partly
blinded him.
Near Cervignano Italian Cavalry charged the massed machine guns of the
enemy and, when the horses went down, the men went on, and then the men
went down, all but a few, and those few for a moment broke the line and
held up the advance, and gave to the mass of the retreating troops just
that little space of extra time, which spans the gulf between escape and
destruction.
And away up north on Monte Nero, left behind when the rest of the Army
retired, Alpini and Bersaglieri resisted for many days, and aeroplanes
flew back and dropped food and ammunition from the skies for them. And
when their ammunition was all shot away, that garrison came down into
the plains, and a few survivors fought their way through with bombs and
bayonets back to the Italian lines.
And many other such deeds were surely done that will never be known,
because the men that did them died out of sight of any of their comrades
who survived.
* * * * *
In the small hours of the 30th of October, I left our guns in Leary's
charge and determined to walk on to Latisana, to see if I could not find
some person in authority and get something done to move things on. I had
only gone a little way when I met Bixio, a Captain of Mountain
Artillery, attached to Raven's Headquarters. He had come back to see how
far behind our rearmost guns were. I saw him several times during the
retreat. He did fine work more than once in creating order out of
confusion. He looked a magnificent, almost a Mephistophelian, figure,
with his dark features, his flashing angry eyes, his air of decision,
his sharp gestures, his tall body enveloped in a loose cloak, his Alpino
hat, with its long single feather. He told me that all traffic along
this road into Latisana had been stopped for the past three hours, in
order to let traffic from the north get on, for it was from that
direction that the advance of the enemy was most threatening.
I walked on and found a British Red Cross Ambulance stuck in the block.
I talked for a few moments to the driver, who gave me a piece of cake
and some wine. When I reached Latisana, I found traffic pouring through
along the road from the north. I crossed the bridge over the Tagliamento
and looked down at the broad swift current, glistening beneath. Hope
leapt again within me at the sight. Here, at last, I said to myself, is
a fine natural obstacle. We shall turn here and stand at bay, and the
invader will come no further.
I had been told that there were some huts on the right hand side, just
over the bridge, where our men would be, where the A.S.C. would have
delivered rations and the Staff had fixed a rendezvous. I, therefore,
expected to find the Major and our dismounted party, or at least someone
from another Battery, or some of either Raven's or the General's Staff.
But there was nothing there; no British troops, no rations, and no
Staff! Only the never ending rain, and a confused stream of Italian
troops, chiefly Field Guns, hurrying across the bridge.
There was nothing to do but to go back. The sentries on the bridge tried
to stop me, but I insisted that I must see some Artillery officer in
authority. They directed me to the Square, where I found Colonel Canale,
controlling the movements of Batteries, looking straight before him out
of uncomprehending, heavy eyes, like one crushed under a weight of
bitter humiliation. He asked where our guns were. I told him they were
getting near now, but stuck fast in the traffic. He said it was
forbidden to let through traffic on that road at present, but he would
do what he could. I asked if there were any new orders. "No," he said,
"only forward across the bridge, and then push on as fast as possible to
Portogruaro." I left him, and found three of our stragglers from the
Major's party, asleep on the floor of a forge. I told them to cross the
river and wait on the Portogruaro road for myself and the guns. I asked
an Italian Corporal if there was anywhere in Latisana where one could
get a drink. He said he thought not, but gave me a bottle full of cold
coffee, brandy and sugar in about equal proportions. It was a splendid
drink, but a little too sweet.
I walked back along the road towards the guns. Some houses on the
outskirts of the town were burning furiously. The traffic was beginning
to move forward along our road, very slowly and with frequent halts. I
had two overcoats with me when we started from Pec. Both were long ago
wet through, and I was wearing over my shoulders at this time a blanket
lent to me by Medola. This, too, was thoroughly drenched by now. In the
fields on either side of the road Infantry were lying out in the rain,
asleep, dreaming, perhaps, of Rome or Sicily or the Bay of Naples. The
dawn of another day was breaking, cold, damp and miserable, symbolic of
this great weary tragedy.
* * * * *
I had not gone far when I met four of our men carrying on a stretcher
the dead body of the Battery Staff Sergeant Artificer. He had dropped
asleep on one of the guns and, as the tractor moved on, he had fallen
forward, head downwards, beneath the gun wheel, which had passed over
him, along the whole length of his body, crushing him to death. They
said he died before they could get him out. He was a good man and a very
skilled worker, full of pluck and spirit. The last thing he had done for
me was to get everything ready for rendering the guns unserviceable in
case we should have to abandon them. There was no chance of decent
burial for him here, but I had his body placed upon an empty trench
cart, which was being towed by a lorry of another Battery, and put two
of our men in charge of it. They buried him the next day
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