"Asked about their food, they replied that they did not get enough to

eat, but their looks belied their statements. Whatever may be the

truth in regard to the meatless and fatless days in the Hapsburg

Empire, the armies in the field are not suffering in this respect,

and, though the civilians at home are now put on strict rations,

their soldiers' rations, in this sector at least, have not been cut

down. I was shown small tins of meat, taken from the knapsack of a

prisoner, and several carried 3-ounce tins of a good quality of

butter. In another sector I saw Bosnian prisoners wearing a gray fez,

and looking much like Turkish troops. They also impressed me as very

fit men; in fact, all the prisoners taken recently would seem to be of

strong fiber, and far better equipped than Austrian troops which I

have seen elsewhere.

"It is evident that the Austrian commanders have assembled the picked

troops of the Dual Monarchy for the storming of these Trentino

heights. Everything would point to the fact that they are making a

supreme and final effort to win the war. Prisoners confirm this by

stating that the war cannot go on much longer.

"Are the last good reserves being used up in this battle? Yesterday

morning an Italian patrol coming in from the night's tour of

inspection of their positions bring in a prisoner. He is a burly,

thick-lipped peasant boy of twenty, dressed in a Russian uniform. On

his loose-fitting blouselike tunic, torn in many places, is pinned a

black and yellow ribbon, and hanging from a thin remaining strand

shines the silver medal of St. George. An Italian subaltern takes

charge of the prisoner.

"'A Russian refugee,' the officer remarks, in answer to my look of

surprise at the sight of a Russian prisoner being brought in by an

Italian patrol on the Trentino front. The Russian smiles

good-naturedly, as he feels secure, now that he is among friends. In

due time he will be repatriated, or perhaps join the Russian corps in

France. We leave him busy over a big bowl of macaroni.

"'There are close to 20,000 Russian prisoners of war employed by the

Austrians along our front, repairing roads, making trenches, and

engaged on other 'noncombatant military duties,' the officer informed

me. 'A few manage to escape into our lines nearly every day, but many

more Russian dead lie in the silent crevasses of our high mountains

who have lost their lives while attempting to escape.

"'You see, they need the men,' he concluded, as we watched an endless

stream of fresh Italian troops winding their way up from the valley."

CHAPTER XXXV

THE ITALIAN COUNTEROFFENSIVE IN THE TRENTINO

Hardly had the Austro-Hungarian offensive shown signs of weakening

when the Italians themselves began to attack the invaders. The first

indication of this change was gleaned from the wording of the official

statements, covering military operations on the Italian front for June

9, 1916. No longer is there any mention of Austro-Hungarian advances,

but on the contrary this term appears now in the reports concerning

the military operations of the Italian troops, who are also reported

as "making attacks." Of course, this turn in affairs developed slowly

in the beginning.

Thus, although on June 9, 1916, the Italian troops attacked at many

points along the entire front between the Adige and Brenta Rivers,

most of these attacks were repulsed by the Austro-Hungarians, who were

still able to claim the capture of some 1,600 prisoners. At the same

time Italian forces began to push back the invaders at some points and

were able to advance in the upper Arsa Valley in the Monte Novegno

region, between the Posina and Val d'Astico, as well as on the western

slopes of Monte Cengio. Artillery duels were maintained along the

entire balance of the front to the sea. Austrian aeroplanes dropped

bombs on various localities in the Venetian plain, while an Italian

squadron shelled Austro-Hungarian positions in the Arsa Valley and the

Val d'Astico.

Much the same was the result of the fighting on June 10 and 11, 1916.

On the former day the Austro-Hungarians concentrated their efforts

still more and restricted themselves to an attack against a small

portion of the Italian front southeast of Asiago. After an intense

bombardment strong forces numbering about one division repeatedly

attacked the Monte Lemerle positions. They were repulsed with very

heavy losses by counterattacks.

From the Adige to the Brenta the Italian offensive action was

increasing. Infantry, effectively supported by artillery, made fresh

progress along the Vallarsa height, south of the Posina, in the Astico

Valley, at the Frenzela Valley bridgehead, on the Asiago Plateau, and

to the left of the Maso torrent.

During the following day Austro-Hungarian artillery intensely

bombarded the Italian positions near Conizugna in the Lagarina Valley.

In the Arsa Valley, in the Pasubio sector, on the Posina, and on the

Astico line Italian infantry advance continued despite violent

artillery fire and a snowstorm.

Two Austrian counterattacks toward Forni Alti and Campigliazione were

repulsed with very heavy losses. In the plateau of the Sette Comuni,

southwest of Asiago, Italian advanced detachments, after passing the

Canaglia Valley, progressed toward the southeastern slopes of Monte

Cengio, Monte Barco, and Monte Busibello. In the Sugana Valley

detachments progressed toward the Masso torrent, repulsing two

Austrian counterattacks near Sucrelle. Along the remainder of the

front there were artillery duels and bomb-throwing activity by small

detachments. Austrian aeroplanes dropped bombs on Vicenza, hitting the

military hospital, and also attacked Thiene, Venice, and Mestre,

causing slight damage.

Still further ground was gained by the Italian forces on June 12,

1916, in spite of the most obstinate resistance.

In the Lagarina Valley, by a strong attack after artillery preparation,

the Italians carried the strongly fortified line from Parmesan, east of

the Cima Mezzana, to Rio Romini. The Austro-Hungarians immediately

launched violent counterattacks, but were always repulsed.

Along the Posina-Astico front there was an intense bombardment by both

sides. Austrian infantry, which succeeded in penetrating Molisini, was

driven out by gunfire, pursued and dispersed.

In the Sugana Valley on the night of June 12, 1916, and the following

morning, Austrian detachments attempting to advance east of the Maso

torrent were repulsed with very heavy losses.

Once more the Austro-Hungarians attempted to wrest the initiative from

their opponents, without, however, succeeding to any extent. On the

Posina front on the evening of June 12, 1916, after violent artillery

preparation, they attacked Monte Forni Alti, the Campiglia (both

southwest of Posina), Monte Ciove and Monte Brazonne (both south of

Arsiero), but were everywhere repulsed with heavy losses.

During the day they bombarded with numerous batteries of all calibers

the Italian positions along the whole front from the Adige to the

Brenta, especially in the Monte Novegno zone. The Italian troops

firmly withstood the violent fire and repelled infantry detachments

which attempted to advance.

Austro-Hungarian hydroaeroplanes attacked the station and military

establishments at San Giorgio di Nogaro, as well as the inner harbor

at Grado.

More and more it became evident that the Austro-Hungarian drive in the

Trentino region had definitely been stopped or abandoned. From time to

time, it is true, the Austrians returned to the offensive. But this

was always of local importance only and restricted in strength and

extent. The Italians, on the other hand, not only maintained their new

offensive movement, but even extended gradually its sphere.

Two attempted attacks by the Austro-Hungarian forces in the region of

Monte Novegno, made in the direction of Monte Ciove and Monte

Brazonne, were repulsed. But on Monte Lemerle, against which the

Austrians had launched without success a very violent attack only a

few days before, they now surprised a hostile detachment near the

summit and captured the mountain completely, taking 500 prisoners.

Italian activity was renewed again on the Isonzo front. After intense

artillery preparation a Naples brigade, supported by dismounted

cavalry detachments, in a surprise attack, penetrated Austrian lines

east of Monfalcone. The trenches remained in Italian possession after

a severe struggle, during which 10 officers, 488 men, and 7 machine

guns were captured.

Italian squadrons of aeroplanes bombarded the railway station at

Mattarello, in the Lagarina Valley, and encampments at the junction of

the Nos and Campomulo Valleys on the Asiago Plateau, while Austrian

aeroplanes dropped bombs on Padova, Giorgio di Nogaro, and Porto

Rosega.

The Italian advance was steadily maintained from now on, not without,

however, finding everywhere the stiffest kind of resistance, which at

times made it even possible for the Austro-Hungarians to gain slight

local successes. These, however, were not extensive or frequent enough

to change the general picture of military operations on the

Austro-Italian front. The Austrians, though still on Italian territory

in a number of localities, were on the defensive with the Italians,

though making only very slow and painful progress, unquestionably on

the offensive.

On June 16, 1916, the Italians advanced northeast of Asiago, between

the Frenzela Valley and Marcesina. Notwithstanding the difficult and

intricate nature of the terrain and the stubborn resistance of the

Austrians, intrenched and supported by numerous batteries, the Italian

troops made progress at the head of the Frenzela Valley, on the

heights of Monte Fior and Monte Castel Gomberto and west of Marcesina.

The best results were attained on the right wing, where Alpine troops

carried the positions of Malga Fossetta and Monte Magari, inflicting

heavy losses on the Austrians and taking 203 prisoners, a battery of 6

guns, 4 machine guns, and much material.

During the next few days the most fierce fighting occurred on the

plateau of Sette Comuni. All Austrian attempts to resume the offensive

and continue their advance failed. The Italian advance was scarcely

more successful; fighting had to be done in the most difficult

territory; strong Austrian resistance developed everywhere.

Thunderstorms frequently added to the difficulties already existent.

Yet slowly the Italian forces pushed back the invader.

On June 18, 1916, Alpine troops carried with the bayonet Cima di

Sidoro, north of the Frenzela Valley. Fighting developed in the Boite

sector, where the Italians had made some slight gains during the

previous days, which the Austrians tried to dispute. Heavy Italian

artillery bombarded the railway station at Toblach and the Landro

road in the Rienz Valley. Artillery and aeroplane activity was

extremely lively during this period. Not a day passed without

artillery duels at many scattered points along the entire front from

the Swiss border down to the Adriatic. Aeroplane squadrons of

considerable force paid continuously visits to the opposing lines,

dropping bombs on lines of communication and railway stations.

Alpine troops captured a strong position for the Italians on June 20,

1916, at the head of the Posina Valley, southwest of Monte Purche. On

the 22d the Italians pushed their advance beyond Romini in the Arsa

Valley, east of the Mezzana Peak, and on the Lora Spur, west of Monte

Pasubio.

On the same day the Austrians counterattacked with extreme violence at

Malga Fossetta and Castel Gomberto, but were repulsed with heavy

losses. On the 21st a further Austrian attack at Cucco di Mandrielle

resulted in a rout. On the 22d the Italians, while holding all the

Austrian first-line approaches under heavy fire to prevent the

bringing up of reserves, attacked on the entire front, but still

encountered a strong resistance. During the night of the 24th the

remaining peak of Malga Fossetta, held by the Austrians, Fontana

Mosciar, and the extremely important Mandrielle were taken by storm,

while the Alpini on the right made themselves masters of the Cima

Zucadini by the 22d.

Henceforth retreat was inevitable, and during the night of the 25th

the Italians on Monte Fior, seeing that the Austrian resistance had

greatly diminished, pushed their offensive vigorously. Shortly after

the advance was begun along the whole right. Monte Cengio, which had

received an infernal bombardment for three days and nights, fell at

last, and the advance proceeded apace.

On June 26, 1916, Italian troops in the Arsa Valley carried strong

trenches at Mattassone and Naghebeni, completing the occupation of

Monte Lemerle. Along the Posina front, after driving out the last

Austrian detachments from the southern slopes of the mountain, the

Italians crossed the torrent and occupied Posina and Arsiero,

advancing toward the northern slopes of the valley.

On the Sette Comuni Plateau Italian infantry, preceded by cavalry

patrols, reached a line running through Punta Corbin, Fresche,

Concafondi, Cesuna, southwest of Asiago, and passing northeast of the

Nosi Valley, and occupied Monte Fiara, Monte Lavarle, Spitzkaserle and

Cimasaette.

On the right wing Alpine troops, after a fierce combat, carried Grolla

Caldiera Peak and Campanella Peak.

The inside workings of the Italian armies engaged in this offensive

movement are interestingly pictured in the following account from the

pen of the special correspondent of the London "Times," who, of

course, had special opportunities for observation:

"Thanks to the courtesy of the Italian Government and higher command,

I have been allowed to go everywhere, to see a great deal on the chief

sectors of a 400-mile Alpine border, and to study the administrative

services on the lines of communication.

"I have visited the wild hills of the upper Isonzo, have inspected the

strange Carso region on the left bank of the river, and have continued

my investigations on the Isonzo front as far as Aquileia and the sea.

I have threaded beautiful and rugged Carnia nearly as far west as

Monte Croce, have ascended the valley of the But to Mount Timau, where

the Austrians, as elsewhere, are in close touch, and, passing on to

wonderful Cadore, have visited the haunts of the Alpini above the

sources of the Tagliamento and Piave.

"Coming then to the Trentino sector, I have traversed the Sugana

Valley as far as was practicable, accompanied the army in its

reconquest of Asiago Plateau, and concluded an instructive tour by

ascending the mountains which dominate Val Lagarina to the point of

contact between the contending armies.

"The rest of the front, from the Lago di Garda to the Stelvio and the

frontier of Switzerland, is not at present the scene of important

operations, so I contented myself by ascertaining at second hand how

matters stand between the Valtellina and the Chiese.

"I have had the honor of a private audience with his Majesty the King

of Italy, and have seen and talked to nearly all the leading soldiers.

Nothing could exceed the kindness with which I have been received, and

my grateful thanks are due especially to Colonels Count Barbarich and

Claricetti, who were placed at my disposal by General Cadorna and

accompanied me during my tour.

"It is necessary for those who wish to have a clear understanding of

Italy's share in the war to look back and realize the situation of our

Italian friends when, at the most critical moment for the cause, they

threw the weight of their sword into the scales.

"Italy, like England, had lost the habit of considering policy in

military terms. Home politics ruled all decisions. The army had been

much neglected, and the campaign in Libya had left the war material at

a very low ebb. United Italy had not yet fought a great modern

campaign, and neither the army nor the navy possessed in the same

measure as other powers those great traditions which are the outcome

of many recent hard-fought wars. Italy was without our coal and our

great metallurgic industries. She did not possess the accumulation of

resources which we were able to turn to warlike uses; nor could she

find in her oversea possessions, as we did, the strength and vitality

of self-governing younger people of her own race. The old Sardinian

army had given in the past fine proofs of valor, but it was not known

how the southern Italians would fight, and it was at first uncertain

whether the whole country would throw itself heart and soul into the

war.

"These impediments to rapid decisions and the extreme difficulty of

breaking with an old alliance explain the apparent hesitation of Italy

to enter the war.

[Illustration: Gorizia.]

"On the other hand, there were compensations. The heart of Italy was

always with the Allies, and the hatred of Austria was very deep. There

was every hope that the long-prevailing system of amalgamating the

various races of Italy in the common army would at last bear fruit,

and that this amalgamation, combined with the moral and material

progress of Italy in recent years, and the pride of the country in its

past history, would enable Italy to play an honorable and notable

part in the war by land and sea, and to wrest from her hereditary

enemy those portions of unredeemed Italy which still remained in

Austrian hands.

"These hopes have either been fulfilled or are in course of

fulfillment. United Italy is unitedly in the war, and, except among a

few political busybodies, who intrigue after the manner of their kind,

there are not two opinions about the war. There are many cases of

mothers compelling their sons to volunteer and other cases of fathers

insisting upon being taken because their sons are at the front. The

prefect of Friuli told me that nearly all the 24,000 men in his

province who were absent abroad when the war broke out returned home

to fight before they were recalled. The south and the island areas

warm for war as the north, and the regiments of Naples and of Sicily

have done very well indeed in the field. Some people think that

Piedmont is not quite so enthusiastic as other parts of Italy, because

she flags her streets rather less, but I do not think that there is

any real difference of feeling. In all the capitals of the Allies the

political climate has been a trifle unhealthy, and of Rome it has been

said that the old families of the Blacks have not taken a leading part

in the campaign. My inquiries make me doubt the accuracy of this

statement, and I think on the whole it will be found that, despite the

old and persistent divergence of opinion on certain topics, all ranks

and all classes are heartily for the war, and that an enemy who counts

on assistance from within Italy will be grievously disappointed.

"Italy is fortunate in having at her head, at this critical hour of

her destinies, a king who is a soldier born and bred.

"It is a common saying here that the King of Italy is homesick when he

is absent from the army, and it is certain that his majesty spends

every hour that he can spare from state affairs with his troops. He

wears on his breast the medal ribbon, only given to those who have

been at the front for a year, and, though he deprecates any allusion

to the fact, it is true that he is constantly in the firing line, has

had many narrow escapes, and is personally known to the whole army,

who love to see him in their midst.

"I have not found any officer of his army who has a better, a more

intimate, or a more accurate knowledge of his troops than the king.

His attention to the wants of the army is absolutely untiring, and I

fancy that his cool judgment and large experience must often be of

great service to his ministers and his generals.

"I do not know whether the field headquarters of the King of Italy or

of King Albert of Belgium is the most unpretentious, but certainly

both monarchs live in circumstances of extreme simplicity. My

recollection is that when I last had the honor of visiting King

Albert's headquarters, the bell in what I must call the parlor did not

ring, and the queen of the Belgians had to get up and fetch the tea

herself.

"When I had the honor of being received by the King of Italy I found

his majesty in a little villa which only held four people, and the

king was working in a room of which the only furniture which I can

recall consisted of a camp bed close to the ground and of exiguous

breadth, a small table, and two chairs of uncompromising hardness. The

only ornament in the room was the base of the last Austrian shell

which had burst just above the king's head and has been mounted as a

souvenir by the queen.

"When a prince of the House of Savoy lives in the traditions of his

family, and shares all the hardships of his troops, it needs must that

his people follow him. And so they do.

"The hardy Alpini from the frontiers, the stout soldiers of Piedmont,

the well-to-do peasantry of Venetia, the Sardinians, who are ever to

the front when there is fighting to be enjoyed, the Tuscans,

Calabrians, and those Sicilians once so famous amongst the

legionaries, are all here or at the depots training for war.

Mobilization must have affected two and a half million Italians at

least. There have been fairly heavy losses, and fighting of one kind

or another is going on in every sector that I have visited, and every

day, despite the great hardships of fighting on the Alpine frontier,

the moral of the army remains good, the men are in splendid health,

and Italy as a whole remains gay and confident, less affected on the

whole by the war than any other member of the grand alliance.

"There are certainly more able-bodied men of military age out of

uniform in Italy than there are in France, or than there are now with

us. Except volunteers, no men under twenty are at the front. There are

large reserves still available upon which to draw. The army has been

more than doubled since the war began.

"The Italian regular officers, and the officers of reserve, are quite

excellent. The spirit of good comradeship which prevails in the army

is most admirable, and the corps of officers reminds me of a large

family which is proverbially a happy one. Those foreign observers who

have seen much of the Italian officers under fire tell me that they

have always led their men with superb valor and determination, while,

though Italy has not such a professional body of N. C. O.'s as

Germany, I believe that most of these men are capable of leading when

their officers fall.

"But there are not enough of good professional officers and N. C. O.'s

to admit for the moment of a considerable further expansion of the

army. Existing formations can be, and are being, well maintained, and

this is what matters most for the moment.

"The peasant in certain parts of Italy rarely eats meat. In the army

he gets 300 to 350 grams a day, according to the season, not to speak

of a kilogram of good bread and plenty of vegetables, besides wine and

tobacco. He is having the time of his life, and if, as cynics say,

peace will break up many happy homes in England, peace in Italy will

certainly make some peasants less joyful than before."

CHAPTER XXXVI

CONTINUATION OF THE ITALIAN COUNTEROFFENSIVE

Between the Adige and the Brenta the retreating Austro-Hungarian

forces had now reached strongly fortified and commanding positions

which considerably increased their power of resistance. The Italians,

however, continued, even if at reduced speed, to make progress. On

June 27, 1916, they shelled Austrian positions on Monte Trappola and

Monte Testo and took trenches near Malga Zugna. Between the Posina and

the Astico they took Austrian positions on Monte Gamonda, north of

Fusine, and Monte Caviojo. Cavalry detachments reached Pedescala (in

the Astico Valley, about three miles north of Arsiero).

On the Asiago Plateau other Italian forces occupied the southern side

of the Assa Valley and reached the slopes of Monte Rasta, Monte

Interrotto and Monte Mosciagh, which were held strongly by the

Austrian rear guards. Further north, after carrying Monte Colombara,

Italian troops began to approach Calamara Valley.

On June 28, 1916, the Vallarsa Alpine troops stormed the fort of

Mattassone, and detachments of infantry carried the ridge of Monte

Trappola. On the Pasubio sector Italian troops took some trenches near

Malga Comagnon. Along the Posina line their advance was delayed by the

fire of heavy batteries from the Borcola.

In the Astico Valley they occupied Pedescala. On the Sette Comuni

Plateau the Austrians strengthened the northern side of the Assa

Valley Heights on the left bank of the Galmarara to the Agnella Pass.

The Italians established themselves on the southern side of the Assa

Valley and gained possession of trenches near Zebio and Zingarella.

The following day, June 29, 1916, the Italian line in the region

between the Val Lagarina and the Val Sugana was pushed forward still

further until it reached the main Austrian line of resistance. The

Italians occupied the Valmorbia line, in the Vallarsa, the southern

slopes of Monte Spil, and began an offensive to the northwest of

Pasubio, in the Cosmagnon region.

Farther east on the line of the Posina Valley, the Italians took Monte

Maggio, the town of Griso, northwest of Monte Maggio; positions in the

Zara Valley and Monte Scatolari and Sogliblanchi. Monte Civaron and

the Zellonkofel, in the Sugana Valley, fell into the hands of the

Italians.

The Italians continued their advance along the Posina front on June

30, 1916, despite the violent fire of numerous Austro-Hungarian

batteries dominating Borcola Pass, and also Monte Maggio and Monte

Toraro. Italian infantry occupied Zarolli in the Vallarsa, north of

Mattassone. On the left wing, overcoming stubborn resistance, Italian

troops scaled the crest of Monte Cosmagnon, whose northerly ridges

they shelled to drive out the enemy hidden among the rocks. On the

Sette Comuni Plateau they kept in close contact with Austrian

positions. Conflicts in the densely wooded and rocky ground were

carried on chiefly by hand grenades.

Between the Adige and the Brenta the Italians continued their

offensive vigorously on July 1, 1916. In the Vallarsa infantry began

an attack on the lines strongly held by the Austrians between Zugna

Torta and Foppiano.

Italian artillery shelled Fort Pozzacchio. On Monte Pasubio the

Austrians were offering stubborn resistance from their fortified

positions between Monte Spil and Monte Cosmagnon.

Along the Posina-Astico line Italian forces completed the conquest of

Monte Maggio and occupied the southern side of Monte Seluggio. On the

Asiago Plateau there were skirmishes on the northern side of the Assa

Valley.

On July 2, 1916, in the region of the Adige Valley, the Austrians

directed a heavy bombardment against the Italian positions from

Serravalle, north of Coni Zugna to Monte Pasubio. Some shells fell on

Ala. Italian artillery replied effectively. The infantry fighting on

the northern slopes of Pasubio was continued with great violence. In

the Posina Valley Italian troops occupied the spur to the northwest of

Monte Pruche, Molino, in the Zara Valley (northwest of Laghi), and

Scatolari, in the Rio Freddo Valley. The operations against Corno del

Coston, Monte Seluggio, and Monte Cimono (northwest and north of

Arsiero), the main points of Austrian resistance, were continued.

On the Asiago Plateau Italian detachments were pushed forward beyond

the northern edge of Assa Valley. On the remainder of this sector

there was a lull in the fighting, preparatory to further attacks on

the difficult ground. In the Brenta Valley small encounters took place

on the slopes of Monte Civaron north of Caldiera.

Monte Calgari, in the Posina Valley, was occupied by the Italians on

July 3, 1916, while other detachments completed the occupation of the

northern edge of the Assa Valley on the Asiago Plateau.

Between the Adige and the Brenta the Austrians on July 4, 1916,

contested with great determination the Italian advance and attempted

to counterattack at various points.

After several attempts, Alpine troops reached the summit of Monte

Corno, northwest of the Pasubio.

In the upper Astico Basin they captured the crest of Monte Seluggio

and advanced toward Rio Freddo.

Between the Lagarina and Sugana Valleys the Italian offensive was

continued on July 5, 1916. In the Adige Valley and in the upper Astico

Basin pressure compelled the Austrians to withdraw, uncovering new

batteries on commanding positions previously prepared by them.

On the Asiago Plateau Italian artillery bombarded the Austrian lines

actively. In the Campelle Valley the Austrians evacuated the positions

they still held on the Prima Lunetta, abandoning arms, ammunitions and

supplies.

The following day brought some new successes to the Italians on the

Sette Comuni Plateau. With the support of their artillery they renewed

their attack on the strongly fortified line of the Austrians from

Monte Interrotto to Monte Campigoletto and captured two important

points of the Austrian defenses, near Casera, Zebio and Malga Pozza,

taking 359 prisoners, including 5 officers and 3 machine guns. Between

the Adige and the Astico, north of the Posino and along the Rio Freddo

and Astico Valleys there was intense artillery activity, especially in

the region of Monte Maggio and Monte Camone. The same condition

continued throughout July 7, 1916.

On July 8, 1916, Italian infantry advanced on the upper Astico in the

Molino Basin and toward Forni. Dense mist prevented all activity of

artillery on the Sette Comuni Plateau. In the northern sector the

Italians stormed some trenches north of Monte Chiesa, and occupied

Agnella Pass.

A great deal of the fighting, both during the Austro-Hungarian

offensive in the Trentino and the Italian counteroffensive, took place

in territory abounding with lofty mountain peaks. Though it was now

midsummer, these were, of course, covered with eternal snow and ice.

Austrians and Italians alike faced difficulties and hardships, the

solution and endurance of which would have seemed utterly impossible a

few years ago until the Great War swept away many long-established

military and engineering maxims. An intimate picture of this new mode

of warfare was given by a special correspondent of the London "Daily

Mail" who, in part, says:

"The villages in the lower ground behind the front have been aroused

from their accustomed appearance of sleepy comfort. In their streets

are swarms of soldiers on their way to the front or back from it for a

holiday. Thousands are camping out in the neighborhood of the villages

or billeted on the inhabitants. Constant streams of motor vehicles

rumble through the villages on their way up the steep road, bearing

ammunition, food and supplies of all sorts, to the batteries, trenches

and dugouts on the peaks.

"The road over which these vehicles travel was before the war a mere

hill path--now the military engineers have transformed it into a

modern road, graded, metaled and carried by cunningly devised spirals

and turns three-quarters of the way up the mountains.

"It is a notable piece of military engineering, but it is not merely

that. It will serve as an artery of commerce when it is no longer

needed for the passage of guns and army service wagons. There is

nothing temporary or makeshift about it. Rocks have been blasted to

leave a passage for it and solid bridges of stone and steel thrown

across rivers.

"Because the Austrians started with the weather gauge in their favor,

being on the upper side of the great ridges, it was necessary for the

Italians to get their guns as high as they could. The means by which

they accomplished this task was described to me. They would seem

incredible if one had not ocular demonstration of the actual presence

of the cannon among these inaccessible crags.

"There are some of them on the ice ledges of the Ortler nearly 10,000

feet above sea level, in places which it is by way of an achievement

for the amateur climber to reach with guides and ropes and porters,

and nothing to take care of but his own skin. But here the Alpini and

Frontier Guides had to bring up the heavy pieces, hauling them over

the snow slopes and swinging them in midair across chasms and up

knife-edged precipices, by ropes passed over timbers wedged somehow

into the rocks. I was shown a photograph of a party of these pioneers

working in these snowy solitudes last winter. They might have been a

group of Scott's or Shackleton's men toiling in the Antarctic

wilderness.

"By means of a suspension railway made of wire rope with sliding

baskets stretched across chasms of great depth, oil, meat, bread and

wine are sent up, for the soldier must not only be fed, but must be

fed with particular food to keep the blood circulating in his body in

the cold air and chilling breezes of the snow-clad peaks. Kerosene

stoves in great numbers have been sent aloft to make the life of the

mountaineer soldiers more comfortable."

On July 9, 1916, there was bitter fighting between the Brenta and the

Adige. Strong Alpine forces repeatedly attacked the Austrian lines

southeast of Cima Dieci, but were repulsed with heavy losses. Shells

set fire to Pedescala and other places in the upper Astico Valley. An

attempt by the Austrians to make attacks on Monte Seluggio was

checked promptly.

In the Adige Valley another intense artillery duel was staged on July

10, 1916. On the Pasubio front the Italians captured positions north

of Monte Corno, but the Austrians succeeded in obtaining partial

repossession of them by a violent counterattack. On the Asiago Plateau

Alpine detachments successfully renewed the attack on the Austrian

positions in the Monte Chiesa region.

The next day, July 11, 1916, the Italians again made some progress in

the Adige Valley, north of Serravalle and in the region of Malga

Zugna, and reoccupied partially some of the positions lost on the

northern slopes of Monte Pasubio on the previous day. Heavy artillery

duels took place in the Asiago Basin and on the Sette Comuni Plateau.

The Austrians promptly responded on July 12, 1916, by attacking in the

Adige Valley, after artillery preparation on an immense scale, the new

Italian positions north of Malga Zugna. They were driven back in

disorder, with heavy loss, by the prompt and effective concentration

of the Italian gunfire.

Fighting in the Adige Valley and on the Sette Comuni Plateau continued

without cessation during the next few days without yielding any very

definite results. In that period there also developed extremely severe

fighting at the head of the Posina Valley. During the night of July

13, 1916, the Italians succeeded in carrying very strong Austrian

positions south of Corno del Coston and east of the Borcola Pass,

notwithstanding the strong resistance of the Austrians and the

difficulty presented by the roughness of the ground. During the night

the Austrians launched several violent but unsuccessful counterattacks

in which they lost heavily.

In spite of violent thunderstorms, seriously interfering with

artillery activity, fighting continued in this sector on July 14 and

15, 1916. Italian troops made some progress on the southern slopes of

Sogli Bianchi, south of Borcola and the Corno di Coston and in the

Boin Valley, where they occupied Vanzi on the northern slopes of Monte

Hellugio.

Austrian reenforcements arrived at this time, and as a result a

series of heavy attacks was delivered in the upper Posina area in an

attempt to stop the Italian advance between Monte Santo and Monte

Toraro. Italian counterattacks, however, were launched promptly and

enabled the Italian forces to maintain and extend their lines.

Throughout the balance of July, 1916, the Italian troops succeeded in

continuing their advance, although the Austro-Hungarian resistance

showed no noticeable abatement and frequently was strong enough to

permit not only very effective defensive work, but rather considerable

counterattacks. However, all in all, the Italians had decidedly the

better of it. Step by step they pushed their way back into the

territory from which the Austro-Hungarian offensive of a few weeks ago

had driven them.

On July 18, 1916, the Italians gained some new positions on the rocky

slopes of the Corno del Coston in the upper Posina Valley. Four days

later, July 22, 1916, they captured some trenches on Monte Zebio on

the Sette Comuni Plateau. The next day, July 23, 1916, between Cismon

and Aviso they completed the occupation of the upper Trevignolo and

St. Pellegrino Valleys, taking the summit of Monte Stradone and new

positions on the slopes of Cima di Bocche.

On the Posina-Astico line at daybreak of July 24, 1916, after a fierce

attack by night, they captured Monte Cimone, for the possession of

which violent fighting had been in progress for days.

Further north, Alpine troops renewed their efforts against the steep

rock barrier rising to more than 2,000 yards between the peaks of

Monte Chiesa and Monte Campigoletto. Under heavy fire from the

Austrian machine guns they crossed three lines of wire and succeeded

in establishing themselves just below the crest.

Again and again the Austrians launched attacks against the Italian

positions on these various mountains without, however, accomplishing

more than retarding the further advance of General Cadorna's forces.

The second anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War, August 1, 1916,

found the Italians on the Trentino front still strongly on the

offensive and well on their way toward regaining all of the ground which

they had lost in June and July, 1916, before the Austro-Hungarian

offensive had been brought to a standstill, while the Austrians were

yielding only under the force of the greatest pressure which their

opponents could bring to bear on them.

CHAPTER XXXVII

MINOR OPERATIONS ON THE AUSTRO-ITALIAN FRONT IN TRENTINO OFFENSIVE

Just as soon as the Austro-Hungarian forces began to concentrate their

activities in the latter part of May, 1916, on their drive in the

Trentino, military operations in the other sectors of the

Austro-Italian front lost in importance and strength. During the

greatest part of both the Austro-Hungarian drive and the Italian

counteroffensive in the Trentino--May to July, 1916--operations along

the rest of the Austro-Italian fronts--on the northwestern frontier of

Tyrol, along the Boite River in the northeastern Dolomites, in the

Carnic and Julian Alps, and on the Isonzo front--were practically

restricted to artillery duels. Only occasional, and then but very

local infantry engagements took place, none of which had any

particular influence on general conditions in these various sectors.

However, as the Italian counteroffensive in the Trentino progressed,

there developed from time to time minor operations along the other

parts of the front. Quite a number of these were initiated by the

Austro-Hungarians, undoubtedly in the hopes that they might thereby

reduce the Italian pressure on their newly gained successes in the

Trentino. Others found their origin on the Italian side, which at all

times attempted to avail itself of every opportunity to extend and

strengthen its positions anywhere along the front. And as the Austrian

resistance against the Italian counteroffensive stiffened and showed

no signs of abatement, General Cadorna, in undertaking operations in

other sectors of the front than the Trentino, was undoubtedly

influenced by motives similar to those guiding his opponents. He,

too, hoped to impress his adversary sufficiently by minor operations

in sectors unconnected with the Trentino, to reduce their strength

there.

Considerable light is thrown upon the organization of the Italian

army, which made it possible to carry on successfully these

operations, in the following article from the pen of the special

correspondent of the London "Times":

"I have been allowed to visit the offices of the general staff at army

headquarters and those of the administrative services at another point

within the war zone. This is not a favorable moment for describing how

the army machinery works; but there is no harm done in saying that all

these services appear to run smoothly, have good men at their head,

and produce good results.

"I was particularly struck by the maps turned out. They do great

credit to the Military Geographical Institute at Florence, and to the

officers at headquarters who revise the maps as new information pours

in. All the frontiers have been well surveyed and mapped on scales of

1:25,000, 1:50,000, 1:100,000, and 1:200,000. These maps are very

clear and good. I like best the 1:100,000, which is issued to all

officers, and on which operation orders are based. The photographs are

also very fine, and the panoramas excellent, while the airmen's

photographs, and the plans compiled from them, are quite in the front

rank.

"The service of information at headquarters also appears to me to be

good. There are more constant changes in all the Italian staffs than

we should consider desirable, and officers pass very rapidly from one

employment to another, but in spite of this practice the information

is well kept up, and the knowledge of the enemy's dispositions is up

to standard, considering the extraordinary difficulty of following the

really quite chaotic organization of the Austro-Hungarian forces.

"I am not sure that I like very much the liaison system in Italy. The

comparatively young officers intrusted with it report direct to army

headquarters, and on their reports the communiques are usually based.

These officers remind us of the _missi dominici_ of the great Moltke,

but on the whole I confess that the system does not appeal to me very

much.

"All the rearward services of the army are united under the control of

the intendant general, who is a big personage in Italy. He deals with

movements, quarterings, railways, supply, munitions in transit, and,

in fact, everything except drafts and aviation, both of which services

come under the general staff. There is a representative of the

intendant general in each army and army corps. An order of movement is

repeated to the intendant general by telephone and he arranges for

transport, food, and munitions.

"The means of transport include the railways, motor lorries, carts,

pack mules, and porters. The railways have done well. They had 5,000

locomotives and 160,000 carriages available when war broke out, and on

the two lines running through Venetia, they managed during the period

of concentration to clear 120 trains a day. Between last May 17 and

June 22, 1916, for the purposes of General Cadorna's operations in the

Trentino, the railways carried 18,000 officers, 522,000 men, about

70,000 animals, and 16,000 vehicles, with nearly 900 guns. These

figures have been given by the Italian press, so there is no harm done

by alluding to them. The railway material is much better than I

expected it to be, but coal is very dear.

"The motor lorries work well. There are three types in use--the heavy

commercial cars, the middleweight lorries, which carry over a couple

of tons, and the lightweights, taking about one and a half tons. These

lorries form an army service. Each army park has a group of lorries

for each army corps forming part of the army, and each group has two

sections for each division. The motor cars of the commanders and

staffs are good. I traveled several thousand miles in them, and having

covered 300 miles one day and 350 another, am prepared to give a good

mark to Italian motor-car manufacturers, and also to Italian roads and

Italian chauffeurs.

"I may also point out that the army has hitherto administered the

Austrian districts which have been occupied on various parts of the

front, and has had to deal with agriculture, roads, births, deaths,

marriages, police, and a great many other civil matters. As I had

once seen a French corps of cavalry farming nearly 5,000 acres of land

I was prepared to see the Italian army capable of following suit; but

I fancy that if Signor Bissolati is to take over all these civil

duties General Porro will be far from displeased.

"There is the little matter of the 4,000 ladies who remain at Cortina

d'Ampezzo while their men are away fighting in the Austrian ranks, and

there are such questions as those of the Aquileia treasures, which

have fortunately been preserved intact. I must confess that it is a

novelty and a pleasure to enter an enemy's territory and sit down in a

room marked _Militaer Wachtzimmer_, with all the enemy's emblems on the

walls, but on the whole I liked best the advice _evitare di fumare

esplosioni_ painted by some Italian wag on an Austrian guardhouse, and

possibly intended as a hint to Austro-German diplomacy in the future.

"The Italians regard Austria as we regard Germany, and Germany as we

regard Austria. Austria is the enemy, but at the same time, while

every crime is attributed to Austria on slight suspicion, I find no

unworthy depreciation of Austrian soldiers. I am told that while

Austrian discipline is very severe, and the officer's revolver is ever

quick to maintain it, the Austrian private soldier has a sense of deep

loyalty toward his emperor, and that this is a personal devotion which

will not easily be transferred to a successor. In meeting the

Kaiserjaeger so often the Italians perhaps see Austria's best, but the

fact remains that the Italian has a good word for the Austrian as a

soldier, and that I did not see many signs of such willful and

shameless vandalism by the Austrians as has disgraced the name of

Germany in Belgium and in France. Even towns which are or have been

between the contending armies have not, I think, been willfully

destroyed, but they have naturally suffered when one army or the other

has used the town as a pivot of defense.

"The officers who have to keep the tally of the Austrian forces and to

locate all the divisions have my deepest sympathy. Long ago the

Austrian army corps ceased to contain the old divisions of peace

times, but one now finds army corps with as many as four divisions,

while the division may be composed of anything from two to eight

battalions. A certain number of the divisions reckoned to be against

the Italians on the whole front are composed of dubious elements, and

there are some sixty Austrian battalions of rifle clubmen.

"The Austrians shift regiments about in such apparently haphazard

fashion that it is hard to keep track of them. They may take half a

dozen battalions from different regiments and call it a mountain

group. In a week or two they will break it up and distribute the

battalions elsewhere. They usually follow up their infantry with

so-called march battalions, but whether these battalions are 100 or

1,000 strong seems quite uncertain. Some surprise occurs elsewhere,

and away go some of the march battalions. They may lose prisoners,

say, on the Russian front, and the Russians naturally believe that the

regiment and the division to which the regiment belongs are all on the

Russian front, whereas only one weak battalion of drafts may be there

and all the rest may still be against the Italians. The Austrians also

take a number of regiments from a division and send them elsewhere,

leaving a mere skeleton of the divisional command behind.

"For these reasons one must regard with a good deal of scepticism any

estimate which professes to give an accurate distribution list of the

Austrian army. Also it is difficult to believe that any real _esprit

de corps_ can remain when such practices are common, and we are

reduced to the belief that the only real soldier of the army is the

personal devotion to the emperor of which I have already written.

"I could not find time to study the Italian air service, but foreign

officers with the army speak well of it. The Austrian airmen deserve

praise. They watched us daily and bombed with pleasing regularity.

"My view of the war on the Italian front is that Italy is in it with

her whole heart, and has both the will and the means to exercise

increasing pressure on Austria, whom she is subjecting to a serious

strain along 400 miles of difficult country. I think that few people

in England appreciate the special and serious difficulties which

confront both combatants along the Alpine borderland, and especially

Italy, because she has to attack. The Italian army is strong in

numbers, ably commanded, well provided, and animated by an excellent

spirit. As this army becomes more inured to war, and traditions of

victory on hard-fought fields become established, the military value

of the army is enhanced.

"As I think over the Italian exploits during the war, I remember that

the men of Alps, of Piedmont and Lombardy, of Venetia, and Tuscany, of

Rome, Naples, Sardinia, and Sicily have one and all contributed

something to the record, and have had the honor of distinguished

mention in General Cadorna's bulletins, which are austere in character

and make no concessions to personal or collective ambitions. I find

much to admire in the cool and confident bearing of the people, in the

endurance of great fatigues by the troops, and in the silent patience

of the wounded on the battle field. I fancy that the army is better in

the attack than in the defense, and I should trust most with an

Italian army to an attack pressed through to the end without halting."

The first indications of renewed activity, outside of artillery duels,

anywhere except in the Trentino, appeared during the last days of

June. On June 28, 1916, the Italians suddenly, after a comparative

quiet of several months, began what appeared to be a strong offensive

movement on the Isonzo front. They violently bombarded portions of the

front on the Doberdo Plateau (south of Goritz). In the evening heavy

batteries were brought to bear against Monte San Michele and the

region of San Martino. After the fire had been increased to great

intensity over the whole plateau, Italian infantry advanced to attack.

At Monte San Michele, near San Martino and east of Vermigliano,

violent fighting developed. At the Goritz bridgehead the Italians

attacked the southern portion of the Podgora position (on the right

bank of the Isonzo), and penetrated the first line trenches of the

Austrians, but were driven out.

The Italian offensive was continued the next day, June 29, 1916, and

resulted in the capture of Hills 70 and 104 in the Monfalcone

district. The Austrians undertook a counteroffensive at Monte San

Michele and Monte San Marino, on the Doberdo Plateau, attacking the

Italian lines under cover of gas. Fighting continued in the Monfalcone

sector of the Isonzo front for about a week, during which time the

Austrians vainly endeavored to regain the positions which they had

lost in the first onrush of the Italian offensive. After that it again

deteriorated into artillery activity which was fairly constantly

maintained throughout the balance of July, 1916, without producing any

noteworthy changes in the general situation.

Coincident with this short Italian offensive in the Monfalcone sector

of the Isonzo front, there also developed considerable fighting to the

east on the Carso Plateau, north of Trieste, which, however, was

equally barren of definite results.

Minor engagements between comparatively small infantry detachments

occurred in the adjoining sector--that of the Julian Alps--on July 1,

1916, especially in the valleys of the Fella, Gail and Seebach. These

were occasionally repeated, especially so on July 19, 1916, but

throughout most of the time only artillery duels took place.

In the Carnic Alps hardly anything of importance occurred throughout

the late spring and the entire summer of 1916, excepting fairly

continuous artillery bombardments, varying in strength and extent.

Considerable activity, however, was the rule rather than the exception

in the sector between the Carnic Alps and the Dolomites. There, one

point especially, saw considerable fighting. Monte Tofana, just beyond

the frontier on the Austrian side, had been held by the Italians for a

considerable period, and with it a small section of the surrounding

country, less than five miles in depth. The Italians at various times

attempted, with more or less success, to extend and strengthen their

holdings, while the Austrians, with equal determination, tried to

wrest from them what they had already gained, and to arrest their

further progress.

In this region Alpine detachments of the Italian army on the night of

July 8, 1916, gained possession of a great part of the valley between

Tofana Peaks Nos. 7 and 2, and of a strong position on Tofana Prima

commanding the valley. The Austrian garrison was surrounded and

compelled to surrender. The Italians took 190 prisoners, including

eight officers, and also three machine guns, a large number of rifles

and ammunition.

A few days later, on July 11, 1916, the Italians exploded a mine,

destroying the Austro-Hungarian defenses east of Col dei Bois peak.

This position commanded the road of the Dolomites and the explosion

blew it up entirely, and gave possession of it to the Italians. The

entire Austrian force which occupied the summit was buried in the

wreckage. On the following night the Austrians attempted to regain

this position which the Italians had fortified strongly in the

meantime, but the attack broke down completely.

Three days later, July 14, 1916, Italian Alpine detachments surprised

and drove the Austrians from their trenches near Castelletto and at

the entrance of the Travenanzes Valley. They took some prisoners,

including two officers, as well as two guns, two machine guns, one

trench mortar and a large quantity of arms and ammunition. An Austrian

counterattack against this position was launched on July 15, 1916, but

was repulsed.

Finally on July 30, 1916, the Italians registered one more success in

this region. Some of their Alpine troops carried Porcella Wood and

began an advance in the Travenanzes Valley.

Throughout this period considerable artillery activity was maintained

on both sides. As a result Cortina d'Ampezzo, on the Italian side,

suffered a great deal from Austrian shells, while Toblach, on the

Austrian, was the equally unfortunate recipient of Italian gunfire.

On the western frontier, between Italy and Austria, along Val

Camonica, only artillery bombardments were the order of the day. These

were particularly severe at various times in the region of the Tonale

Pass, but without important results.

Aeroplanes, of course, were employed extensively, both by the

Austro-Hungarians and the Italians, although the nature of the

country did not lend itself as much to this form of modern warfare as

in the other theaters of war. Some of these enterprises have already

been mentioned. The Austrians, in this respect, were at a decided

advantage, because their airships had many objects for attacks in the

various cities of the North Italian plain. Among these Bergamo,

Brescia, and Padua were the most frequent sufferers, while Italian

aeroplanes frequently bombarded Austrian lines of communication and

depots.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

RUSSIAN SUCCESSES AFTER ERZERUM

With the same surprising vigor with which the Russian armies in the

Caucasus had pushed their advance toward Erzerum, they took up the

pursuit of the retreating Turkish army, after this important Armenian

stronghold had capitulated on February 16, 1916. With Erzerum as a

center the Russian advance spread out rapidly in all directions toward

the west in the general direction of Erzingan and Sivas; in the south

toward Mush, Bitlis and the region around Lake Van, and in the north

with the important Black Sea port of Trebizond as the objective. This

meant a front of almost 300 miles without a single railroad and only a

limited number of roads that really deserved that appellation. Almost

all of this country is very mountainous. To push an advance in such

country at the most favorable season of the year involves the solution

of the most complicated military problems. The country itself offers

comparatively few opportunities for keeping even a moderate-sized army

sufficiently supplied with food and water for men and beasts. But

considering that the Russian advance was undertaken during the winter,

when extremely low temperatures prevail, and when vast quantities of

snow add to all the other natural difficulties in the way of an

advancing army, the Russian successes were little short of marvelous.

As early as February 23, 1916, the right wing of the Russian army had

reached and occupied the town of Ispir on the river Chorok, about

fifty miles northwest of Erzerum, and halfway between that city and

Rizeh, a town on the south shore of the Black Sea, less than fifty

miles east of Trebizond. At the same time Russian destroyers were

bombarding the Black Sea coast towns. Under their protective fire

fresh troops were landed a few days later at Atina on the Black Sea,

about sixty miles east of Trebizond, which promptly occupied that

town. From there they rapidly advanced southward toward Rizeh, forcing

the Turks to evacuate their positions and capturing some prisoners as

well as a few guns, together with rifles and ammunition.

The center, in the meantime, had advanced on the Erzerum-Trebizond

road, and by February 25, 1916, occupied the town of Ashkala, about

thirty miles from Erzerum. From all sides the Russian armies were

closing in on Trebizond, and their rapid success threw the Turkish

forces into consternation, for the loss of Trebizond would mean a

serious threat to their further safety, having been up to then the

principal point through which supplies and ammunition reached them

steadily and rapidly by way of the Black Sea. No wonder then that the

London "Times" correspondent in Petrograd was able to report on March

5, 1916, that all accounts agreed that the population of the Trebizond

region were panic-stricken and fleeing even then in the direction of

Kara-Hissar and Sivas, flight along the Black Sea route being out of

question on account of the presence of Russian warships.

In the south the left wing of the Russian army was equally successful.

On March 1, 1916, it occupied Mamawk, less than ten miles north of

Bitlis, a success foreshadowing the fall of that important Armenian

city. And, indeed, on the next day, March 2, 1916, Bitlis was occupied

by the Russians. This was indeed another severe blow to the Turkish

armies. Bitlis, 110 miles south of Erzerum, in Armenian Tamos, is one

of the most important trade centers, and commands a number of

important roads. It is only about fifty miles north of the upper

Tigris, and even though it is more than 350 miles from Bagdad, its

occupation by Russian forces seriously menaced the road to Bagdad,

Bagdad itself, and even the rear of the Turkish army, fighting

against the Anglo-Indian army in Mesopotamia.

Hardly had the Turks recovered from this blow when their left wing in

the north suffered another serious reverse through the loss of the

Black Sea port of Rizeh. This event took place on March 8, 1916, and

the capture was accomplished by the fresh Russian troops that had been

landed a few days before at Atina, from which Rizeh is only twenty-two

miles distant. Along the Black Sea coast the Russians were now within

thirty-eight miles of Trebizond. On and on the Russians pressed, and

by March 17, 1916, their advance guard was reported within twenty

miles of Trebizond. However, by this time Turkish resistance along the

entire Armenian front stiffened perceptibly. This undoubtedly was due

to reenforcements which must have reached the Turkish line by that

time. For on March 30, 1916, the official Russian statement announced

that seventy officers and 400 men who had been captured along the

Caucasus littoral front belonged to a Turkish regiment which had

previously fought at Gallipoli. At the same time it was also announced

that fighting had occurred northwest of Mush. The Turkish forces

involved in this fighting must have been recent reenforcements,

because Mush is sixty-five miles northwest of Bitlis, the occupation

of which took place about four weeks previously, at which time the

region between Erzerum and Bitlis undoubtedly had been cleared of

Turkish soldiers. Their reappearance, now so close to the road between

Bitlis and Erzerum, presented a serious menace both to the center and

to the left wing of Grand Duke Nicholas's forces, for if the Turkish

troops were in large enough force, the Russians were in danger of

having their center and left wing separated. This condition, of

course, meant that until this danger was removed, the closest

cooperation between the various parts of the Russian army became

essential, and therefore resulted in a general slowing down of the

Russian advance for the time being.

In the meantime the Russian center continued its advance against

Erzingan. This is an Armenian town of considerable military

importance, being the headquarters of the Fourth Turkish Army Corps.

On March 16, 1916, an engagement took place about sixty miles west of

Erzerum, resulting in the occupation by the Russians of the town of

Mama Khatun, located on the western Euphrates and on the

Erzerum-Erzingan-Sivas road. According to the official Russian

statement the Turks lost five cannon, some machine guns and supplies

and forty-four officers and 770 men by capture. Here, too, however,

the Turks began to offer a more determined resistance, and although

the official Russian statement of the next day, March 17, 1916,

reported a continuation of the Russian advance towards Erzingan, it

also mentioned Turkish attempts at making a stand and spoke even of

attempted counterattacks.

This stiffening of Turkish resistance necessitated apparently a change

in the Russian plans. No longer do we hear now of quick, straight,

advances from point to point. But the various objectives toward which

the Russians were directing their attacks--Trebizond, Erzingan, the

Tigris--are attacked either successfully or consecutively from all

possible directions and points of vantage. Not until now, for

instance, do we hear of further advances toward Erzingan from the

north. It will be recalled that as long ago as February 23, 1916, the

Russians occupied the town of Ispir, some fifty miles northwest of

Erzerum on the river Chorok.

The headwaters of this river are located less than twenty-five miles

northeast of Erzingan, and up its valley a new Russian offensive

against Erzingan was started as soon as the new strength of the

Turkish defensive along the direct route from Erzerum made itself

felt.

On April 1, 1916, and again on April 12, 1916, the Turks reported that

they had repulsed attacks of Russian scouting parties advancing along

the upper Chorok, and even claimed an advance for their own troops.

But on the next day, April 3, 1916, the Russians apparently were able

to turn the tables on their opponents, claiming to have crossed the

upper basin of the Chorok and to have seized strongly fortified

Turkish positions located at a height of 10,000 feet above sea level,

capturing thereby a company of Turks. Again on the following day,

April 4, 1916, the Russians succeeded in dislodging Turkish forces

from powerful mountain positions.

Concurrent with these engagements, fighting took place both in the

south and north. On April 2, 1916, a Turkish camp was stormed by

Russian battalions near Mush to the northwest of Bitlis. Still farther

south, about twenty-five miles southeast of Bitlis, the small town of

Khizan had fallen into the hands of the Russians, who drove its

defenders toward the south. The Russian advance to the southwest of

Mush and Bitlis continued slowly but definitely throughout the next

few days, with the town of Diarbekr on the right bank of the upper

Tigris as its objective.

Beginning with the end of March, 1916, the Turks also launched a

series of strong counterattacks along the coastal front. The first of

these was undertaken during the night of March 26, 1916, but

apparently was unsuccessful. It was an answer to a strong attack on

the part of the Russians during the preceding day which resulted in

the dislodgment of Turkish troops holding strong positions in the

region of the Baltatchi Darassi River and in the occupation by the

Russians of the town of Off on the Black Sea, thirty miles to the east

of Trebizond. This success was due chiefly to the superiority of the

Russian naval forces, which made it possible to precede their infantry

attack with heavy preparatory artillery fire. By March 27, 1916, the

Russians had advanced to the Oghene Dere River, another of the

numerous small rivers flowing into the Black Sea between Rizeh and

Trebizond. There they had occupied the heights of the left (west)

bank. During the night the Turks made a series of strong

counterattacks, all of which, however, were repulsed with considerable

losses to the attackers. Another Turkish counterattack in the

neighborhood of Trebizond was launched on April 4, 1916. Although

strongly supported by gunfire from the cruiser _Breslau_, it was

repulsed by the combined efforts of the Russian land forces and

destroyers lying before Trebizond. During the next few days the Turks

offered the most determined resistance to the Russian advance against

Trebizond, especially along the river Kara Dere. This resistance was

not broken until April 15, 1916, when the Turks were driven out of

their fortified positions on the left bank of that river by the

combined action of the Russian land and naval forces. The Russian army

was now, after almost a fortnight's desperate fighting, within sixteen

miles of its goal, Trebizond. On April 16, 1916, it again advanced,

occupying Surmench on the Black Sea, and reaching later that day,

after a successful pursuit of the retreating Turkish army, the village

of Asseue Kalessi, only twelve miles east of Trebizond.

With this defeat the fall of Trebizond apparently was sealed. Although

reports came from various sources that the Turkish General Staff was

making the most desperate efforts to save the city by dispatching new

reenforcements from central Anatolia, the Russian advance could not be

stopped seriously any longer. Every day brought reports of new Russian

successes along the entire Armenian front. On April 17, 1916, they

occupied Drona, only six and a half miles east of Trebizond. Then

finally, on April 18, 1916, came the announcement that Trebizond

itself had been taken.

Trebizond is less important as a fortified place than as a port and

harbor and as a source of supply for the Turkish army. It is in no

sense a fortress like Erzerum, though the defenses of the town,

recently constructed, are not to be despised. As a vital artery of

communications, however, its value is apparent from the fact, first,

that it is the Turks' chief port in this region, and secondly, that

railway facilities, which are so inadequate throughout Asia Minor, are

nonexistent along the northern coast. Hence the Turks will have to

rely for the transport of troops and supplies upon railways which at

the nearest point are more than 300 miles from the front at Trebizond.

Trebizond is an ancient seaport of great commercial importance, due

chiefly to the fact that it controls the point where the principal

trade route from Persia and central Asia to Europe, over Armenia and

by way of Bayezid and Erzerum, descends to the sea. It has been the

dream of Russia for centuries to put her hands forever upon this

important "window on the Black Sea."

Trebizond's population is about 40,000, of whom 22,000 are Moslems and

18,000 Christians. The city first figured in history during the

Fourth Crusade, when Alexius Comnenus, with an army of Iberian

mercenaries, entered it and established himself as sovereign. In 1461

Trebizond was taken by Mohammed II, after it had for two centuries

been the capital of an empire, having defied all attacks, principally

by virtue of its isolated position, between a barrier of rugged

mountains of from 7,000 to 8,000 feet and the sea.

As far as capturing important ports of the Turkish left wing was

concerned, the victory of Trebizond was an empty one. For the Turks

evacuated the town apparently a day or two before the Russians

occupied it. The latter, therefore, had only the capture of "some

6-inch guns" to report. This quick evacuation, at any rate, was

fortunate for the town and its inhabitants, for it saved them from a

bombardment and the town did not suffer at all as a result of the

military operations.

The campaign resulting in the fall of Trebizond did really not begin

until after the fall of Erzerum on February 16, 1916. Up to that time

the Russian Caucasian army had apparently been satisfied to maintain

strong defensive positions along the Turkish border. But since the

occupation of Erzerum a definite plan of a well-developed offensive

was followed looking toward the acquisition of Turkish territory which

had long been coveted by Russia.

With the fall of Trebizond Russia became the possessor, at least

temporarily, of a strip of territory approximately 125 miles wide

along a front of almost 250 miles length, or of an area of 31,250

square miles. In the north this valuable acquisition was bounded by

that part of the south shore of the Black Sea that stretches from

Batum in Russian Transcaucasia to Trebizond. In the south it

practically reached the Turko-Persian frontier, while in the west it

almost reached the rough line formed by the upper Euphrates and the

upper Tigris. It thus comprised the larger part of Armenia. As soon as

the Russians had found out that the Turks had a start of almost two

days, they began an energetic pursuit. The very first day of it, April

19, 1916, brought them into contact with Turkish rear guards and

resulted in the capture of a considerable number of them. The retreat

of the Turks took a southwesterly direction toward Baiburt along the

Trebizond-Erzerum road and toward Erzingan, to which a road branches

off the Trebizond-Erzerum road. Baiburt was held by the Turks with a

force strong enough to make it impossible for the Russians to cut off

the Trebizond garrison. Along the coast the Russians found only

comparatively weak resistance, so that they were able to land fresh

forces west of Trebizond and occupy the town of Peatana, about ten

miles to the west on the Black Sea.

A desperate struggle, however, developed for the possession of the

Trebizond-Erzerum road. The Russians had been astride this road for

some time as far as Madan Khan and Kop, both about fifty miles

northwest of Erzerum and just this side of Baiburt. There the Turks

put up a determined resistance and succeeded in holding up the Russian

advance. Although they were not equally successful farther north, the

Russians managed to advance along this road to the south of Trebizond

only as far as Jeyizlik--about sixteen miles south of Trebizond--where

they were forced into the mountains toward the Kara Dere River. This

left still the larger part of the entire road in possession of the

Turks, and especially that part from which another road branched off

to Erzingan.

In the Mush and Bitlis region the Russians had made satisfactory

progress in the meantime. On April 19, 1916, progress was reported to

the south of Bitlis toward Sert, although the Turks fought hard to

hold up this advance toward Diarbekr. This advance was the direct

result of the defeat which the Russians had inflicted on a Turkish

division at Bitlis as early as April 15, 1916. By April 23, 1916, the

Turks had again gathered some strength and were able to report that

they had repulsed Russian attacks south of Bitlis, west of Mush, east

of Baiburt, and south of Trebizond. From then on, however, the

Russians again advanced to the south of Bitlis as well as in the

direction of Erzingan. By the beginning of May, 1916, the Russian

official statements do not speak any longer of the "region south of

Bitlis," but mention instead "the front toward Diarbekr." This

important town is about 100 miles southwest of Bitlis, and apparently

had become, after the fall of Trebizond, together with Erzingan, one

of the immediate objectives of the Russian campaign.

Diarbekr is a town of 35,000 inhabitants, whose importance arises from

its being the meeting point of the roads from the Mediterranean via

Aleppo and Damascus from the Black Sea via Amasia-Kharput, and Erzerum

and from the Persian Gulf via Bagdad. Ras-el-Ain, the present railhead

of the Bagdad railway, is seventy miles south.

The stiffening of the Turkish defensive was being maintained as April,

1916, waned and May approached. The Russian campaign in the Caucasus

had resolved itself now into three distinctive parts: In the north its

chief objective, Trebizond, had been reached and gained. There further

progress, of course, would be attempted along the shore of the Black

Sea, and in a way it was easier to achieve progress here than at any

other part of the Caucasian front. For first of all the nature of the

ground along the coast of the Black Sea was much less difficult, and

then, too, the Russian naval forces could supply valuable assistance.

That progress was not made faster here by the Russians was due

entirely to the fact that the advance along the two other sectors was

more difficult and the Turkish resistance more desperate. And, of

course, if the front of any one sector was pushed considerably ahead

of the front of the other two, grave danger immediately arose that the

most advanced sector would be cut off from the rest of the Russian

armies by flank movements. For in a country such as Turkish Armenia,

without railroads and with only a few roads, it was of course

impossible to establish a continuous front line, such as was to be

formed on the European battle fields both in the east and west. This

explains why by May 1, 1916, the Russian front had been pushed less

than twenty-five miles west of Trebizond, even though almost two weeks

had elapsed since the fall of Trebizond.

In the center sector the immediate objective of the Russians was

Erzingan. Beyond that they undoubtedly hoped to advance to Swas, an

important Turkish base. Toward this objective two distinct lines of

offensive had developed by now--one along the valley of the river

Oborok and the other along the Erzerum-Erzingan road and the valley of

the western Euphrates. The latter was somewhat more successful than

the former, chiefly because it did not offer so many natural means of

defense. But to both of these offensives the Turks now offered a most

determined resistance, and the Russians, though making progress

continuously, did so only very slowly.

In the southern sector conditions were very similar. Here, too, two

separate offensives had developed, although they were more closely

correlated than in the center. One was directed in a southwestern

direction from Mush, and the other in the same direction from Bitlis.

Both had as their objective Diarbekr, an important trading center on

the Tigris and a future station on the unfinished part of the Bagdad

railroad. Here, too, Russian progress was fairly continuous but very

slow.

Some interesting details regarding the tremendous difficulties which

nature put in the way of any advancing army, and which were utilized

by the Turks to their fullest possibility, may be gleaned from the

following extracts from letters written by Russian officers serving at

the Caucasian front:

"We have traveled sixty miles in two days, and never have we been out

of sight of the place from whence we started. South and north we have

scouted until we have come into touch with the cavalry of the

---- Corps of the vedettes which the Cossacks of the Don furnished for

the ---- Brigade. Sometimes it is wholly impossible to ride. The

slopes of these hills are covered with huge bowlders, behind any of

which half a company of the enemy might be lurking. That has been our

experience, and poor K---- was shot dead while leading his squadron

across a quite innocent-looking plateau from which we thought the

enemy had been driven.

"As it turned out, a long line of bowlders, which he thought were too

small to hide anything but a sniper, in reality marked a rough trench

line which a Kurdish regiment was holding in strength, K---- was shot

down, as also was his lieutenant, and half the squadron were left on

the ground. Fortunately, at the foot of the road leading down to the

plateau, the sergeant who led the men out of action found one of our

Caucasian regiments who are used to dealing with the fezzes, and they

came up at the double, and after two hours' fighting were reenforced

by another two companies and carried the trench.

"Farther back we found the enemy in a stronger plateau. Almost within

sight of the enemy we made tea and rested before attempting to push

forward to the fight.

"An officer of the staff who does not understand the Caucasian way

reproved the colonel for delaying, but he took a very philosophical

view, and pointed out that it was extremely doubtful whether he even

now had men enough to carry the enormous position, and that he

certainly could not do so with exhausted troops. So we had the

extraordinary spectacle of our men lying down flat, blowing their

fires and drinking their tea and laughing and joking as though they

were at a picnic, but when they had finished and had formed up they

made short work of the fellows in the trench. But think of what would

have happened if we had left this plateau unsearched!"

"On the Baiburt road," writes another Russian officer, "there was one

small pass which had been roughly reconnoitered, and through this we

were moving some of the heavy guns, not imagining that there were any

Turks within ten miles, when a heavy fire was opened from a fir wood a

thousand feet above us. The limbers of the guns were a long way in the

rear, and there was no way of shelling this enemy from his aerie.

There was nothing to do but for the battalion which was acting as

escort to the guns to move up the slope under a terrific machine-gun

and rifle fire and investigate the strength of the attack. The guns

were left on the road, and mules and horses were taken to whatever

cover could be found, and an urgent message was sent back to the

effect that the convoy was held up, but the majority of the infantry

had already passed the danger point. Two mountain batteries were

commandeered, however, and these came into action, firing incendiary

shells into the wood, which was soon blazing at several points.

"The battle which then began between the Turks who had been ejected

from the wood and the gun escort lasted for the greater part of the

afternoon. It was not until sunset that two of our batteries, which

had been brought back from the front for the purpose, opened fire upon

the Turks' position, and the ambushers were compelled to capitulate.

The progress on the left was even more difficult than that which we

experienced in the northern sector. The roads were indescribable.

Where they mounted and crossed the intervening ridges they were almost

impassable, whilst in the valleys the gun carriages sank up to their

axles in liquid mud."

From still another source we hear:

"In the Van sector a Russian brigade was held up by a forest fire,

started by the Turks, which made all progress impossible. For days a

brigade had to sit idle until the fire had burned itself out, and even

when they moved forward it was necessary to cover all the munition

wagons with wet blankets, and the ashes through which the stolid

Russians marched were so hot as to burn away the soles of their boots.

"A curious discovery which was made in this extraordinary march was

the remains of a Turkish company which had evidently been caught in

the fire they had started and had been unable to escape."

On May 1, 1916, Russian Cossacks were able to drive back Turkish

troops, making a stand somewhere west of Erzerum and east of Erzingan.

Other detachments of the same service of the Russian army were equally

successful on May 2, 1916, in driving back toward Diarbekr resisting

Turkish forces west of Mush and Bitlis, and a similar achievement was

officially reported on May 3, 1916. On the same date Russian regiments

made a successful night attack in the upper Chorok basin which netted

some important Turkish positions, which were immediately strongly

fortified. May 4, 1916, brought a counterattack on the part of Turkish

forces in the Chorok sector at the town of Baiburt, which, however,

was repulsed. On the same day the Russians stormed Turkish trenches

along the Erzerum-Erzingan road, during which engagement most savage

bayonet fighting developed, ending in success for the Russian armies.

Turkish attacks west of Bitlis were likewise repulsed. On May 5, 1916,

the Turks attempted to regain the trenches in the Erzingan sector

lost the day before, but although their attack was supported by

artillery, it was not successful.

The Russian official statement of May 7, 1916, gives some data

concerning the booty which the Russians captured at Trebizond. It

consisted of eight mounted coast defense guns, fourteen 6-inch guns,

one field gun, more than 100 rifles, fifty-three ammunition wagons,

supply trains and other war material. This, taken in connection with

the fact that practically the entire Turkish garrison escaped,

confirms the view expressed previously that the capture of Trebizond

was of great importance to the Russians, not so much on account of

what they themselves gained thereby, but on account of what the Turks

lost by being deprived of their principal harbor on the Black Sea,

comparatively close to the Caucasian theater of war.

The Turkish artillery attack of May 5, 1916, in the Erzingan sector

was duplicated on May 7, 1916, but this time the Russians used their

guns, and apparently with telling effect. For so devastating was the

Russian fire directed toward the newly established Turkish trenches

that the Turks had to evacuate their entire first line and retire to

their second line of defensive works. Throughout the entire day on May

8, 1916, the Turks doggedly attacked the Russian positions. Losses on

both sides were heavy, especially so on the Turkish side, which hurled

attack after attack against the Russian positions, not desisting until

nightfall. Though no positive gain was made thereby, the Russians at

least were prevented from further advances. The same day, May 8, 1916,

yielded another success for the Russians in the southern sector, south

of Mush. There, between that town and Bitlis, stretches one of the

numerous mountain ranges, with which this region abounds. On it the

Turks held naturally strong positions which had been still more

strengthened by means of artificial defense works. A concentrated

Russian attack, prepared and supported by artillery fire, drove the

Turks not only from these positions, but out of the mountain range.

On May 9, 1916, engagements took place along the entire front. In the

center fighting occurred near Mount Koph, in the Chorok basin

southeast of Baiburt, and the Turks made some 300 prisoners. Farther

south a Turkish attack near Mama Khatun was stopped by Russian fire.

In the south another Turkish attack in the neighborhood of Kirvaz,

about twenty-five miles northwest of Mush, forced back a Russian

detachment after capturing some fifty men. All this time the Russians

were industriously building fortifications along the Black Sea coast

both east and west of Trebizond. During the night of May 9, 1916, the

Turks made a successful surprise attack against a Russian camp near

Baschkjoej, about thirty-five miles southeast of Mama Khatun. There a

Russian detachment consisting of about 500 men, of which one-half was

cavalry and one-half infantry, found themselves suddenly surrounded by

the bayonets of a superior Turkish force. All, except a small number

who managed to escape, were cut to pieces.

As the Russians succeeded in pushing their advance westward, even if

only very slowly, they became again somewhat more active in the north

along the Black Sea. On May 10, 1916, they were reported advancing

both south and southwest of Platana, a small seaport about twelve

miles west of Trebizond. Throughout May 11, 1916, engagements of

lesser importance took place at various parts of the entire front.

During that night the Turks launched another strong night attack in

the Erzingan sector, without, however, being able to register any

marked success. The same was true of an attack made May 12, 1916, near

Mama Khatun. In the south, between Mush and Bitlis, an engagement

which was begun on May 10, 1916, concluded with the loss of one

Turkish gun, 2,000 rifles and considerable stores of ammunition. In

the Chorok sector the Turks succeeded on May 13, 1916, in driving the

Russian troops out of their positions on Mount Koph and in forcing

them back in an easterly direction for a distance of from four to five

miles. There, however, the Russians succeeded in making a stand,

though their attempt to regain their positions failed. May 14, 1916,

was comparatively uneventful. Some Russian reconnoitering parties

clashed with Turkish advance guards near Mama Khatun, and a small

force of Kurds was repulsed west of Bitlis. On May 16, 1916, the

Russians announced officially that they had occupied Mama Khatun, a

small town on the western Euphrates, about fifty miles west of Erzerum

and approximately the same distance from Erzingan. Throughout the

balance of May, 1916, fighting along the Caucasian front was

restricted almost entirely to clashes between outposts, which in some

instances brought slight local successes to the Russian arms, and at

other times yielded equally unimportant gains for the Turkish sides.

To a certain extent this slowing down undoubtedly was due to the

determined resistance on the part of the Turks. It is also quite

likely that part of the Russian forces in the north had been diverted

earlier in the month to the south in order to assist in the drive

against Bagdad and Moone, which was pushed with increased vigor just

previous to and right after the capitulation of the Anglo-Indian

forces at Kut-el-Amara in Mesopotamia.

PART VII--CAMPAIGN IN MESOPOTAMIA AND PERSIA

CHAPTER XXXIX

RENEWED ATTEMPT TO RELIEVE KUT-EL-AMARA

As far as the Turko-English struggle in the Tigris Valley is

concerned, the preceding volume carried us to the beginning of March,

1916. On March 8, 1916, an official English communique was published

which raised high hopes among the Allied nations that the day of

delivery for General Townshend's force was rapidly approaching. That

day was the ninety-first day of the memorable siege of Kut-el-Amara.

On it the English relief force under General Aylmer had reached the

second Turkish line at Es-Sinn, only eight miles from Kut-el-Amara.

After an all night march the English forces, approaching in three

columns against the Dujailar Redoubt, attacked immediately after

daybreak. Both flanks of the Turkish line were subjected to heavy

artillery fire. But, although this resulted quickly in a wild stampede

of horses, camels and other transport animals and also inflicted heavy

losses in the ranks of the Turkish reenforcements, which immediately

came up in close order across the open ground in back of the Turkish

position, the English troops could not make any decisive impression on

the strongly fortified position. Throughout the entire day, March 8,

1916, the attacks were kept up, but the superior Turkish forces and

the strong fortifications that had been thrown up would not yield.

Lack of water--all of which had to be brought up from the main

camp--made it impossible for the English troops to maintain these

attacks beyond the end of that day. In spite of the fact that they

could see the flash of the guns of their besieged compatriots who were

attacking the rear of the Turkish line from Kut, they were forced to

give up their attempt to raise the siege. During the night of March 8,

1916, they returned to the main camp, which was located about

twenty-three miles from Kut-el-Amara.

The unusual conditions and the immense difficulties which confronted

the English relief force may be more easily understood from the

following very graphic description of this undertaking rendered by the

official representative of the British press with the Tigris Corps:

"The assembly was at the Pools of Siloam, a spot where we used to

water our horses, two miles southwest of Thorny Nullah. We left camp

at seven, just as it was getting dark. We had gone a mile when we saw

the lamps of the assembly posts--thousands of men were to meet here

from different points, horse, foot, and guns. They would proceed in

three columns to a point south of west, where they would bifurcate and

take a new direction, Columns A and B making for the depression south

of the Dujailar Redoubt, Column C for a point facing the Turkish lines

between the Dujailar and Sinn Aftar Redoubts. There was never such a

night march. Somebody quoted Tel-el-Kebir as a precedent, but the

difficulties here were doubled. The assembly and guidance of so large

a force over ground untrodden by us previously, and featureless save

for a nullah and some scattered sand hills, demanded something like

genius in discipline and organization.

"I was with the sapper who guided the column. Our odd little party

reported themselves to the staff officer under the red lamp of Column

A. 'Who are you?' he asked, and it tickled my vanity to think that we,

the scouts, were for a moment the most vital organ of the whole

machine. If anything miscarried with us, it would mean confusion,

perhaps disaster. For in making a flank march round the enemy's

position we were disregarding, with justifiable confidence, the first

axiom of war.

"We were an odd group. There was the sapper guide. He had his steps to

count and his compass to look to when his eye was not on a bearing of

the stars. And there was the guard of the guide to protect him from

the--suggestions of doubts as to the correctness of his line.

Everything must depend on one head, and any interruption might throw

him off his course. As we were starting I heard a digression under the

lamp.

"'I make it half past five from Sirius.'

"'I make it two fingers left of that.'

"'Oh, you are going by the corps map.'

"'Two hundred and six degrees true.'

"'I was going by magnetic bearing.'

"Ominous warning of what might happen if too many guides directed the

march.

"Then there was the man with the bicycle. We had no cyclometer, but

two men checked the revolution of the wheel. And there were other

counters of steps, of whom I was one, for counting and comparison.

From these an aggregate distance was struck. But it was not until we

were well on the march that I noticed the man with the pace stick, who

staggered and reeled like an inebriated crab in his efforts to

extricate his biped from the unevennesses of the ground before he was

trampled down by the column. I watched him with a curious fascination,

and as I grew sleepier and sleepier that part of my consciousness

which was not counting steps, recognized him as a cripple who had come

out to Mesopotamia in this special role 'to do his bit.' His humped

back, protruding under his mackintosh as he labored forward, bent into

a hoop, must have suggested the idea which was accepted as fact until

I pulled myself together at the next halt and heard the mechanical and

unimaginative half of me repeat 'Four thousand, seven hundred, and

twenty-one.' The man raised himself into erectness with a groan, and a

crippled greengrocer whom I had known in my youth, to me the basic

type of hunchback--became an upstanding British private.

"Walking thus in the dark with the wind in one's face at a kind of

funeral goose step it is very easy to fall asleep. The odds were that

we should blunder into some Turkish picket or patrol. Looking back it

was hard to realize that the inky masses behind, like a column of

following smoke, was an army on the march. The stillness was so

profound one heard nothing save the howl of the jackal, the cry of

fighting geese, and the ungreased wheel of an ammunition limber, or

the click of a picketing peg against a stirrup.

"The instinct to smoke was almost irresistible. A dozen times one's

hands felt for one's pipe, but not a match was struck in all that army

of thousands of men. Sometimes one feels that one is moving in a

circle. One could swear to lights on the horizon, gesticulating

figures on a bank.

"Suddenly we came upon Turkish trenches. They were empty, an abandoned

outpost. The column halted, made a circuit. I felt that we were

involved in an inextricable coil, a knot that could not be unraveled

till dawn. We were passing each other, going different ways, and

nobody knew who was who. But we swung into direct line without a

hitch. It was a miracle of discipline and leadership.

"At the next long halt, the point of bifurcation, the counter of steps

was relieved. An hour after the sapper spoke. The strain was ended. We

had struck the sand hills of the Dujailar depression. Then we saw the

flash of Townshend's guns at Kut, a comforting assurance of the

directness of our line. That the surprise of the Turk was complete was

shown by the fires in the Arab encampments, between which we passed

silently in the false dawn. A mile or two to our north and west the

campfires of the Turks were already glowing.

"Flank guards were sent out. They passed among the Arab tents without

a shot being fired. Soon the growing light disclosed our formidable

numbers. Ahead of us there was a camp in the nullah itself. An old man

just in the act of gathering fuel walked straight into us. He threw

himself on his knees at my feet and lifted his hands with a biblical

gesture of supplication crying out, 'Ar-rab, Ar-rab,' an effective,

though probably unmerited, shibboleth. As he knelt his women at the

other end of the camp were driving off the village flock. Here I

remembered that I was alone with the guide of a column in an event

which ought to have been as historic as the relief of Khartum."

After this unsuccessful attempt at relief comparative quiet reigned

for about a week, interrupted only by occasional encounters between

small detachments. On March 11, 1916, English outposts had advanced

again about seven miles toward Kut-el-Amara to the neighborhood of Abn

Roman, among the sand hills on the right bank of the Tigris. There

they surprised at dawn a small Turkish force and made some fifty

prisoners, including two officers. Throughout the next two or three

days intermittent gunfire and sniping were the only signs of the

continuation of the struggle. On March 15, 1916, two Turkish guns were

put out of action and during that night the Turks evacuated the sand

hills on the right bank of the river, which were promptly occupied by

English troops in the early morning hours of March 16, 1916.

During the balance of March, 1916, conditions remained practically

unchanged. The siege of General Townshend's force was continued by the

Turks along the same lines to which they had adhered from its

beginning--a process of starving their opponents gradually into

surrender. No attempt was made by them to force the issue, except that

on March 23, 1916, the English general reported that his camp at

Kut-el-Amara had been subjected to intermittent bombardment by Turkish

airships and guns during March 21, 22, and 23, 1916. No serious

damage, however, was inflicted.

As spring advanced the difficulties of the English forces attempting

the relief of General Townshend increased, for with the coming of

spring, there also came about the middle of March--the season of

floods. Up in the Armenian highlands, whence the Tigris springs, vast

quantities of snow then begin to melt. Throughout March, April, and

May, 1916, a greatly increased volume of water finds the regular

shallow bed of the Tigris woefully insufficient for its needs. The

entire lack of jetties and artificial embankments results in the

submersion of vast stretches of land adjacent to the river. Military

operations along its banks then become quite impossible, although in

many places this impossibility exists throughout the entire year,

because the land on both sides of the river for miles and miles has

been permitted to deteriorate into bottomless swamps, through which

even the ingenuity of highly trained engineering troops finds it

impossible to construct a roadway within the available space of time.

These natural difficulties were still more increased by the fact that

the equipment of the relief force was not all that might have been

expected. This is well illustrated by the following letter from a

South African officer, published in the "Cape Times:"

"The river Tigris plays the deuce with the surrounding country when it

gets above itself, from melting snows coming down from the Caucasus,

when it frequently tires of its own course and tries another. The

river is the only drinking water, and you can imagine the state of it

when Orientals have anything to do with it. A sign of its fruity state

is the fact that sharks abound right up to Kurna.

"We have all kinds of craft up here, improvised for use higher up. His

Majesty's ship _Clio_, a sloop, was marked down in 1914 to be

destroyed as obsolete, but she, with her sister ships, _Odin_ and

_Espiegle_, have done great work in the battles to date. Now that we

have got as far as Amara and Nassariyeh, the vessels that give the

greatest assistance are steam launches with guns on them,

flat-bottomed Irrawaddy paddle steamers. For troops we have 'nakelas'

a local sailing vessel, and have 'bellums,' a long, narrow, small

cone-shaped thing, holding from fifteen to twenty men; barges for

animals, etc. Rafts have been used higher up to mount guns on. Here we

have also motor boats.

"The difficulties as we advance are increased to a certain extent,

though country and climate are improving. Our lines of communication

will lengthen out, and we shall have to look out for Arab tribes

raiding. Our aerial service is increasing; we have now a Royal Navy

flight section, which has hydroplanes as well."

In spite of these handicaps, however, General Lake, in command of the

English relief force, reported on April 5, 1916, that a successful

advance was in progress and that the Tigris Corps at five o'clock in

the morning of that day had made an attack against the Turkish

position at Umm-el-Hannah, and had carried the Turkish intrenchments.

Umm-el-Hannah is at a much greater distance from Kut-el-Amara than

Es-Sinn which was reached on March 8, 1916, but from where the relief

force had to withdraw again that same night to a position only a short

distance beyond Umm-el-Hannah. However, it is located on the left bank

of the Tigris, the same as Kut-el-Amara, and the success of taking

this position, small as it was, promised therefore, once more an early

relief of General Townshend.

This successful attack against Umm-el-Hannah on April 5, 1916, was

carried out by the Thirteenth Division, which had previously fought at

the Dardanelles. It now stood under the command of Lieutenant General

Sir G. Gorringe who had succeeded to General Aylmer. The most careful

preparations had been made for it. For many weeks British engineering

troops had pushed forward a complicated series of sap works, covering

some sixteen miles and allowing the British forces to approach to

within 100 yards of the Turkish intrenchments. With the break of dawn

on April 5, 1916, bombing parties were sent forward, whose cheers soon

announced the fact that they had invaded the first line of Turkish

trenches. Already on the previous day the way had been cleared for

them by their artillery, which by means of incessant fire had

destroyed the elaborate wire entanglements which the Turks had

constructed in front of their trenches.

The storming of the first line of trenches was followed quickly by an

equally successful attack on the second line. By 6 a. m., one hour

after the beginning of the attack, the third line had been carried

with the assistance of concentrated machine-gun and artillery fire.

Within another hour the same troops had stormed and occupied the

fourth and fifth lines of the Turks. The latter thereupon were forced

to fall back upon their next line of defensive works at Felahieh and

Sanna-i-Yat, about four and six miles respectively farther up the

river. Reenforcements were quickly brought up from the Turkish main

position at Es-Sinn, some farther ten miles up, and with feverish

haste the intrenchments were made stronger. General Gorringe's

aeroplane scouts promptly observed and reported these operations, and

inasmuch as the ground between these new positions and the positions

which had just been gained by the British troops is absolutely flat

and offers no means of cover whatsoever, the British advance was

stopped for the time being.

In the meantime the Third British Division under General Keary had

advanced along the right bank of the river and had carried Turkish

trenches immediately in front of the Felahieh position. In the

afternoon of April 5, 1916, the Turks tried to regain these trenches

by means of a strong counterattack with infantry, cavalry and

artillery, but were unable to dislodge the British forces.

With nightfall General Gorringe again returned to the attack along the

left bank and stormed the Felahieh position. Here, too, the Turks had

constructed a series of successive deep trenches, some of which were

taken by the British battalions only at the point of the bayonet. This

attack as well as all the previous attacks were, by the nature of the

ground over which they had to be fought, frontal attacks. For all the

Turkish positions rested on one side of the river and on the other on

the Suwatcha swamps, excluding, therefore, any flank attack on the

part of the British forces.

Again General Gorringe halted his advance, influenced undoubtedly by

the open ground and increasing difficulties caused by stormy weather

and floods. April 6, 7, and 8, 1916, were devoted by the British

forces to the closest possible reconnoissance of the Sanna-i-Yat

position and to the necessary preparatory measures for its attack,

while the Turks energetically strengthened this position by means of

new intrenchments and additional reenforcements from their position at

Es-Sinn.

With the break of dawn on April 19, 1916, General Gorringe again

attacked the Turkish lines at Sanna-i-Yat. The attack was preceded by

heavy artillery fire lasting more than an hour. In the beginning the

British troops entered some of the Turkish trenches, but were driven

back at the point of the bayonet. After this stood success. Again the

floods came to the assistance of the Turkish troops. Increasing, as

they were, day by day, they covered more and more of the ground

adjoining the river bed and thereby narrowed the front, on which an

attack could be delivered, so much so that most of its force was bound

to be lost. According to Turkish reports the British lost over 3,000

in dead. Although the British commanding general stated that his

losses were much below this number, they must have been very heavy,

from the very nature of the ground and climatic conditions, and much

heavier, indeed, than those of the Turks which officially were stated

to have been only seventy-nine killed, 168 wounded and nine missing.

After this unsuccessful attempt to advance further a lull ensued for a

few days. On April 12, 1916, however, the Third Division again began

to attack on the right bank of the Tigris and pushed back the Turks

over a distance varying from one and one-half to three miles. At the

same time a heavy gale inundated some of the advanced Turkish trenches

on the left bank at Sanna-i-Yat with the waters from the Suwatcha

marshes. This necessitated a hurried withdrawal to new positions,

which British guns made very costly for the Turks. A heavy gale made

further operations impossible for either side on April 13 and 14,

1916. On the following day, April 15, 1916, the Third Division again

advanced a short distance on the right bank, occupying some of the

advanced Turkish trenches. Further trenches were captured on April 16

and 17, 1916, at which time the Turks lost between 200 and 300 in

killed, 180 by capture as well as two field and five machine guns,

whereas the English losses were stated to have been much smaller. This

was due to the fact that for once the English forces had been able to

place their guns so that their infantry was enabled to advance under

their protection up to the very trenches of the Turks, which, at the

same time, were raked by the gunfire and fell comparatively easily

into the hands of the attackers. The latter immediately pressed their

advantage and succeeded in advancing some hundred yards beyond the

position previously held by the Turks near Beit Eissa. Here, as well

as during the fighting of the few preceding days, the British troops

were frequently forced to advance wading in water up to their waist,

after having spent the night before in camps which had no more solid

foundation than mud. They were now within four miles of the Turkish

position at Es-Sinn, which in turn was less than ten miles from

Kut-el-Amara. However, this position had been made extremely strong by

the Turks and extended much further to the north and south of the

Tigris than any of the positions captured so far by the British relief

force.

In spite of this the Turks recognized the necessity of defending the

intermediate territory to the best of their ability. After the British

success at Beit Eissa in the early morning of April 17, 1916, they

again brought up strong reenforcements from Es-Sinn, and at once

launched two strong counterattacks, both of which, however, were

repulsed by the British.

During the night of April 17 and 18, 1916, the Turks again made a

series of counterattacks in force on the right bank of the Tigris, and

this time they succeeded in pushing back the British lines between 500

and 800 yards. According to English reports, about 10,000 men were

involved on the Turkish side among whom there were claimed to be some

Germans. The same source estimates Turkish losses in dead alone to

have been more than 3,000, and considerably in excess of the total

British losses. On the other hand the official Turkish report places

the latter as above 4,000, and also claims the capture of fourteen

machine guns. Storms set in again on April 18 and 19, 1916, and

prevented further operations.

Beginning with April 20, 1916, the relief force prepared for another

attack of the Sanna-i-Yat position on the left bank of the Tigris, by

a systematic bombardment of it, lasting most of that night, the

following night, April 21, 1916, and the early morning of April 22,

1916. On that day another attack was launched. Again the flooded

condition of the country fatally handicapped the British troops. To

begin with, there was only enough dry ground available for one brigade

to attack, and that on a very much contracted front against superior

forces. To judge from the official British report, the leading

formations of this brigade gallantly overcame the severe obstacles in

their way in the form of logs and trenches full of water. But,

although they succeeded in penetrating the Turkish first and second

lines, and in some instances even in reaching the third lines, their

valor brought no lasting success, because it was impossible for

reenforcements to come up quickly enough in the face of the determined

Turkish resistance strongly supported by machine-gun fire. According

to the Turkish reports, the British lost very heavily without being

able to show any gain at the end of the day. The same condition

obtained on the right bank of the Tigris. In spite of this failure the

bombardment of the Sanna-i-Yat position was kept up by the British

artillery throughout April 23, 1916. On the next day, April 24, 1916,

the British troops again registered a small success by being able to

extend their line at Beit Eissa, on the right Tigris bank--in the

direction of the Umm-el-Brahm swamps. On the left bank, however, the

line facing the Sanna-i-Yat position remained in its original

location.

All this time General Townshend was able to communicate freely by

means of wireless with the relief forces. As the weeks rolled by it

became evident that his position was becoming rapidly untenable on

account of the unavoidable decrease of all supplies. Having had his

lines of communication cut off ever since December 3, 1915, it was now

almost five months since he had been forced to support the lives of

some 10,000 men from the meager supplies which they had with them at

the time of their hurried retreat from Ctesiphon to Kut-el-Amara,

which were only slightly increased by whatever stores had been found

at the latter place. So complete was the circle which the Turks had

thrown around Kut that not a pound of food had come through to the

besieged garrison. It was well known that the latter had been forced

for weeks to exist on horse flesh. Beyond that, however, few details

concerning the life of the Anglo-Indian force during the siege were

known at that time except that they had not been subjected to any

attack on the part of the Turks.

During the night of April 24, 1916, one more desperate effort was made

to bring relief to General Townshend's force. A ship, carrying

supplies, was sent up the Tigris. Although this undertaking was

carried out most courageously in the face of the Turkish guns

commanding the entire stretch of the Tigris between Sanna-i-Yat and

the Turkish lines below Kut-el-Amara, it miscarried, for the boat went

aground near Magasis, about four miles below Kut-el-Amara. Another

desperate effort to get at least some supplies to Kut by means of

aeroplanes also failed. The British forces had only some comparatively

antiquated machines, which quickly became the prey of the more modern

equipment of the Turks.

CHAPTER XL

THE SURRENDER OF KUT-EL-AMARA

By the end of April it had become only a question of days, almost of

hours, when it would be necessary for General Townshend to surrender.

It was, therefore, no surprise when in the morning of April 29, 1916,

a wireless report was received from him reading as follows:

"Have destroyed my guns, and most of my munitions are being destroyed;

and officers have gone to Khalil, who is at Madug, to say am ready to

surrender. I must have some food here, and cannot hold on any more.

Khalil has been told to-day, and a deputation of officers has gone on

a launch to bring some food from Julnar."

A few hours afterward another message, the last one to come through,

reached the relief forces, announcing the actual surrender:

"I have hoisted the white flag over Kut fort and towns, and the guards

will be taken over by a Turkish regiment, which is approaching. I

shall shortly destroy wireless. The troops at 2 p. m. to camp near

Shamran."

It was on the hundred and forty-third day of the siege that General

Townshend was forced by the final exhaustion of his supplies to hoist

the white flag of surrender. According to the official British

statements this involved a force of "2970 British troops of all ranks

and services and some 6,000 Indian troops and their followers."

About one o'clock in the afternoon of April 29, 1916, a pre-arranged

signal from the wireless indicated that the wireless had been

destroyed. It was then that the British emissaries were received by

the Turkish commander in chief, Khalil Bey Pasha, in order to arrange

the terms of surrender. According to these it was to be unconditional.

But the Turks, who expressed the greatest admiration for the bravery

of the British, readily agreed to a number of arrangements in order to

reduce as much as possible the suffering on the part of the captured

British forces who by then were near to starvation. As the Turks

themselves were not in a position to supply their captives with

sufficiently large quantities of food, it was arranged that such

supplies should be sent up the Tigris from the base of the relief

force. It was also arranged that wounded prisoners should be exchanged

and during the early part of May, 1916, a total of almost 1,200 sick

and wounded reached headquarters of the Tigris Corps as quickly as the

available ships could transport them.

The civil population of Kut-el-Amara had not been driven out by

General Townshend as had been surmised. This was undoubtedly due to

the fact that a few civilians who, driven by hunger, had attempted to

escape, had been shot promptly by the Turks. Rather than jeopardize

the lives of some 6,000 unfortunate Arabs, the English commander

permitted them to remain and the same rations that went to the British

troops were distributed to the Arabs. This, of course, hastened the

surrender, an eventuality on which the Turks undoubtedly had counted

when they adopted such stringent measures against their own subjects

who were caught in their attempt to flee from Kut. Although Khalil

Pasha refused to give any pledge in regard to the treatment of these

civilians, he stated to the British emissaries that he contemplated no

reprisals or persecutions in regard to the civilian population and

that their future treatment at the hands of the Turkish troops would

depend entirely on their future behavior.

With the least possible delay the Turks moved their prisoners from

Kut-el-Amara to Bagdad and from there to Constantinople, from which

place it was reported on June 11, 1916, that General Townshend had

arrived and, after having been received with military honors, had been

permitted to visit the United States ambassador who looked after

British interests in Turkey during the war. An official Turkish

statement announced that together with General Townshend four other

generals had been captured as well as 551 other officers, of whom

about one-half were Europeans and another half Indians. The same

announcement also claimed that the British had destroyed most of their

guns and other arms, but that in spite of this the Turks captured

about forty cannon, twenty machine guns, almost 5,000 rifles, large

amounts of ammunition, two ships, four automobiles, and three

aeroplanes.

It was only after the capitulation of General Townshend that details

became available concerning the suffering to which the besieged army

was subjected and the heroism with which all this was borne by

officers and men, whites and Hindus alike. An especially clear picture

of conditions existing in Kut-el-Amara during the siege may be gained

from a letter sent to Bombay by a member of the Indian force and later

published in various newspapers. It says in part:

"Wounded and diseased British and native troops are arriving from

Kut-el-Amara, having been exchanged for an equal number of Turkish

prisoners. They bring accounts of Townshend's gallant defense of

Mesopotamia's great strategic point. Some are mere youngsters while

others were soldiers before the war.

"All are frightfully emaciated and are veritable skeletons as the

result of their starvation and sufferings. The absolute exhaustion of

food necessitated the capitulation, and if General Townshend had not

surrendered nearly the whole force would have died of starvation

within a week.

"The Turkish General Khalil Pasha provided a river steamer for the

unexchanged badly wounded, the others marching overland. Because of

the wasted condition of the prisoners the marches were limited to

five miles a day.

"When the capitulation was signed only six mules were left alive to

feed a garrison and civilian population of nearly 20,000 persons.

"In the early stages of the siege, the Arab traders sold stocks of

jam, biscuits, and canned fish at exorbitant prices. The stores were

soon exhausted and all were forced to depend upon the army

commissariat. Later a dead officer's kit was sold at auction. Eighty

dollars was paid for a box of twenty-five cigars and twenty dollars

for fifty American cigarettes.

"In February the ration was a pound of barley-meal bread and a pound

and a quarter of mule or horse flesh. In March the ration was reduced

to half a pound of bread and a pound of flesh. In April it was four

ounces of bread and twelve ounces of flesh, which was the allowance

operative at the time of the surrender. The food problem was made more

difficult by the Indian troops, who because of their religion refused

to eat flesh, fearing they would break the rules of their caste by

doing so.

"When ordinary supplies were diminished a sacrifice was demanded of

the British troops in order to feed the Indians, whose allowance of

grain was increased while that of the British was decreased. Disease

spread among the horses and hundreds were shot and buried. The

diminished grain and horse feed supply necessitated the shooting of

nearly 2,000 animals. The fattest horses and mules were retained as

food for forty days.

"Kut-el-Amara was searched as with a fine tooth comb and considerable

stores of grain were discovered beneath houses. These were

commandeered, the inhabitants previously self-supporting receiving the

same ration as the soldiers and Sepoys. It was difficult to use the

grain because of inability to grind it into flour, but millstones were

finally dropped into the camp by aeroplanes.

"In the first week in February scurvy appeared, and aeroplanes dropped

seeds, which General Townshend ordered planted on all the available

ground, and the gardens bore sufficient fruit to supply a few patients

in the hospital.

[Illustration: Kut-el-Amara.]

"Mule and horse meat and sometimes a variety of donkey meat were

boiled in the muddy Tigris water without salt or seasoning. The

majority became used to horseflesh and their main complaint was that

the horse gravy was like clear oil.