A Visit to Three Fronts, June 1916 | Page 8

desperate ventures, but never once has there been a lack of
volunteers. The Tyrolese are good men--too good to be fighting in so
rotten a cause. But from first to last the Alpini have had the ascendency
in the hill fighting, as the line regiments have against the Kaiserlics
upon the plain. Caesar told how the big Germans used to laugh at his
little men until they had been at handgrips with them. The Austrians
could tell the same tale. The spirit in the ranks is something marvellous.
There have been occasions when every officer has fallen and yet the
men have pushed on, have taken a position and then waited for official
directions.
But if that is so, you will ask, why is it that they have not made more
impression upon the enemy's position? The answer lies in the
strategical position of Italy, and it can be discussed without any
technicalities. A child could understand it. The Alps form such a bar
across the north that there are only two points where serious operations
are possible. One is the Trentino Salient where Austria can always
threaten and invade Italy. She lies in the mountains with the plains
beneath her. She can always invade the plain, but the Italians cannot
seriously invade the mountains, since the passes would only lead to
other mountains beyond. Therefore their only possible policy is to hold
the Austrians back. This they have most successfully done, and though
the Austrians with the aid of a shattering heavy artillery have recently
made some advance, it is perfectly certain that they can never really
carry out any serious invasion. The Italians then have done all that
could be done in this quarter. There remains the other front, the
opening by the sea. Here the Italians had a chance to advance over a
front of plain bounded by a river with hills beyond. They cleared the
plain, they crossed the river, they fought a battle very like our own
battle of the Aisne upon the slopes of the hills, taking 20,000 Austrian
prisoners, and now they are faced by barbed wire, machine guns,
cemented trenches, and every other device which has held them as it
has held every one else. But remember what they have done for the
common cause and be grateful for it. They have in a year occupied
some forty Austrian divisions, and relieved our Russian allies to that

very appreciable extent. They have killed or wounded a quarter of a
million, taken 40,000, and drawn to themselves a large portion of the
artillery. That is their record up to date. As to the future it is very easy
to prophesy. They will continue to absorb large enemy armies. Neither
side can advance far as matters stand. But if the Russians advance and
Austria has to draw her men to the East, there will be a tiger spring for
Trieste. If manhood can break the line, then I believe the Durandos will
do it.
'Trieste o morte!' I saw chalked upon the walls all over North Italy.
That is the Italian objective.
And they are excellently led. Cadorna is an old Roman, a man cast in
the big simple mould of antiquity, frugal in his tastes, clear in his aims,
with no thought outside his duty. Every one loves and trusts him. Porro,
the Chief of the Staff, who was good enough to explain the strategical
position to me, struck me as a man of great clearness of vision,
middle-sized, straight as a dart, with an eagle face grained and coloured
like an old walnut. The whole of the staff work is, as experts assure me,
moot excellently done.
So much for the general situation. Let me descend for a moment to my
own trivial adventures since leaving the British front. Of France I hope
to say more in the future, and so I will pass at a bound to Padua, where
it appeared that the Austrian front had politely advanced to meet me,
for I was wakened betimes in the morning by the dropping of bombs,
the rattle of anti-aircraft guns, and the distant rat-tat-tat of a maxim
high up in the air. I heard when I came down later that the intruder had
been driven away and that little damage had been done. The work of
the Austrian aeroplanes is, however, very aggressive behind the Italian
lines, for they have the great advantage that a row of fine cities lies at
their mercy, while the Italians can do nothing without injuring their
own kith and kin across the border. This dropping of explosives on the
chance of hitting one soldier among fifty victims seems to me the most
monstrous development of the whole war, and the one which should be
most sternly repressed