THE WAR ON THE ISONZO FRONT
From Monte Nero to the Adriatic the distance is, in a straight line,
some 35 miles. Allowing for the curves of the actual line, the length of
Front is between 40 and 50 miles. This portion of the Italian and
Austrian lines is commonly spoken of as the Isonzo Front. It is not like
the Front in the higher Alps, where, as on the Adamello, trenches are
cut in the solid ice, where the firing of a single gun may precipitate
an avalanche, where more Italians are killed by avalanches than by
Austrians, where guns have to be dragged up precipices and perched on
ledges fit only, one might think, for an eagle's nest, where food,
ammunition, reinforcements, wounded and sick have all to travel in small
cages attached to wire ropes, slung from peak to peak above sheer drops
of many thousand feet, where sentries have to stand rigidly stationary,
so as to remain invisible, and have to be changed every ten minutes
owing to the intense cold, where Battalions of Alpini charge down snow
slopes on skis at the rate of thirty miles an hour, where refraction and
the deceiving glare of the snow make accurate rifle fire impossible even
for crack shots,--the Isonzo Front is not so astounding and impossible a
Front as this, but it is yet a very different Front from any on which
British troops are elsewhere fighting in this war.
It is a country with a strange beauty of its own; it is, in its own
measure, rough and mountainous, and it is within sight of other and
loftier mountains to the north-west. At my first view of it I remembered
a speech of Carlo, the hero of Meredith's _Vittoria_, concerning Lombard
cities away on the other side of the Trentino, "Brescia under the big
Eastern hill which throws a cloak on it at sunrise! Brescia is always
the eagle's nest that looks over Lombardy! And Bergamo! You know the
terraces of Bergamo. Aren't they like a morning sky? Dying there is not
death; it's flying into the dawn. You Romans envy us. You have no Alps,
no crimson hills, nothing but old walls to look on while you fight.
Farewell, Merthyr Powys...." To me those words were always recurring on
the Italian Front. "Dying here is not death; it's flying into the dawn."
I would have liked to have them engraved on my tombstone, if Fate had
set one up for me in this land, whose beauty casts a spell on all one's
senses.
* * * * *
The Isonzo Front is divided into two parts by the Vippacco river, which
flows roughly from east to west and joins the Isonzo at Peteano. Of
these two parts the northern is three times as long as the southern. The
northern part was held by the Italian Second Army, under General
Capello, the southern by the Italian Third Army, under the Duke of
Aosta. In the north the Isonzo runs through a deep ravine, with Monte
Nero rising on its eastern side. Monte Nero is some 6800 feet high. The
Alpini took it by a marvellous feat of mountain warfare in the first
year of the war. South of Monte Nero, also on the east bank of the
river, lies the town of Tolmino, the object of many fierce Italian
assaults, but not yet taken. Here the Isonzo bends south-westward and
continues to flow through a deep ravine past Canale and Plava, with the
Bainsizza Plateau rising on its eastern bank. This Plateau is of a
general height of about 2400 feet, and is continued south-eastward by
the Ternova Plateau, rising to a general height of about 2200 feet.
Bending again towards the south-east, the Isonzo flows out into the
Plain of Gorizia. Here stand Monte Sabotino and Monte Santo, the western
and eastern pillars of this gateway leading into the lower lands. East
of Monte Santo, along the southern edge of the Plateau, stand Monte San
Gabriele and Monte San Daniele. Here the Plateau falls precipitously
down to the Vippacco valley, only the long brown foothill of San Marco
breaking the drop.
Gorizia has scattered suburbs: Salcano to the north, in the very mouth
of the gorge, the fashionable suburb in days before the war; Podgora to
the west, on the other side of the Isonzo, industrial. The Isonzo Front
was the only possible field for an Italian offensive on a great scale,
and the possession of the Carso, of the Bainsizza and Ternova Plateaus
and of Monte Nero are as essential to the future security of the
Venetian Plain as the possession of the Trentino itself. The frontiers
of northern and north-eastern Italy were drawn according to the methods
of the old diplomacy after the war of 1866, when Bismarck, seeking to
keep Austria neutral in the next war on his schedule, that with France,
willingly sacrificed the interests of his Italian Allies. For half a
century Lombardy and Venetia have lived under the continual threat of an
Austrian descent from the mountains, both from the Trentino, thrust like
a wedge into the heart of Northern Italy, and across the Isonzo from the
east. Nor has this threat been remote. When Italy was plunged in grief
at the time of the Messina earthquake, the Austrian General Staff almost
persuaded their Government that the moment had come to strike her down
into the dust, and recover Lombardy and Venetia for Francis Joseph and
Rome for the Pope. And so to-day an Italian Army fighting on the Isonzo
Front fights in continual danger of having its line of communications
cut by an Austrian offensive from the Trentino.
The population of the Trentino is indisputably Italian. East of the
Isonzo the people are mainly Italian in the towns and mainly Slovene in
the country districts. It has been the deliberate policy of the Austrian
Government to plant new Slovene colonies here from time to time and to
render life intolerable for Italians. But, even so, the population is
still sparse, and all the country is infertile, except for the Vippacco
Valley, which, though wretchedly cultivated hitherto, would richly repay
the application of capital and modern methods. Here, I think, is a clear
case where strategic considerations, which are definite, must prevail
over racial considerations, which are dubious. These lands must be
Italian after the war, if, with even the dimmest possibility of war
remaining, Italians are to have peace of mind. Nor does a strong
defensive frontier for Italy here imply a weak defensive frontier for
her eastern neighbours. For the tangle of mountains continues for many
miles further east.
* * * * *
Venosta told me that, when they took San Michele in July 1916, the
Italians lost 7000 in killed alone, seasoned soldiers of their old Army,
whom it has been hard to replace. But when San Michele fell, they swept
on and took Gorizia and all the surrounding plain at one bound, and, in
the same offensive, Monte Sabotino. This victory has a special
significance in modern Italian history, for it was the first time that
an Army composed of men from all parts of United Italy fought a pitched
battle against a great Army of Austria, Italy's secular enemy and
oppressor. Monte Cucco and Monte Vodice were taken in the offensive of
May 1917, and here, as at Monte Nero, the Alpini performed feats of arms
which, to soldiers accustomed to fighting on the flat, must seem all but
incredible. In one case twenty Alpini climbed up a sheer rock face at
night by means of ropes, and leaping upon the Austrian sentries killed
and threw them over the cliff without a sound, so that, when the main
body of Alpini, climbing by hardly less difficult paths, reached the
summit, they took the Austrian garrison in the rear and by surprise, and
the heights were theirs.
Monte Santo was still Austrian when I came, though the Italians held
trenches half-way up. On the summit the white ruins of a famous convent
were clearly visible. Here some of the bloodiest Infantry fighting of
the whole war took place in May 1917. The Italians were on the top once
in the full flood of that offensive, but could not hold it. Four gallant
Battalions charged up those steep slopes only to find that the Artillery
preparation had been insufficient and that the convent wall had not been
destroyed. Austrians poured out from deep caverns in the rock, where
they had taken refuge during the bombardment, and threw down bombs from
the top of the wall upon the Italians below. For these there was no way
round and no question of retreat, so they all died where they stood,
struggling to climb a wall thirty feet high, clambering upon one
another's shoulders.
South of the Vippacco we held the Volconiac and Dosso Faiti, but not
Hill 464, though this had been taken and lost again, nor yet the hills
further east, nor any of the northern foothills of the Carso, except
Hill 123. To the south again the Hermada had proved a great and bloody
obstacle.
* * * * *
Three striking characteristics of the warfare on this Front impressed
themselves upon my mind--first, the shortage of ammunition; second, the
enormous natural strength of all the Austrian positions; third, the
work of the Italian Engineers.
Judged by the standards of warfare in France and Flanders, both Italians
and Austrians were very short of ammunition. For Italy, a young and poor
country, possessing neither coal nor iron and thrown largely on her own
resources for manufacturing munitions of war, this was no matter of
surprise. It was astonishing that the Italian Artillery was so well
supplied as it was. But, to bring out the contrast, one may note that,
whereas in Italy "fuoco normale" for Siege Artillery was six rounds per
gun per hour, in France at this time a British Siege Battery's
"ordinary" was thirty rounds per gun per hour. And one may note further
that the number of Siege Batteries on a given length of Front in France
was, even at this time, more than four times as great as the
corresponding number on the Italian Front. The Austrians to some extent
made up for their small quantity of guns and shells by a high proportion
of guns of large calibre. Their twelve-inch howitzers were disagreeably
numerous. It resulted, however, that neither Italians nor Austrians
could afford to indulge in continuous heavy bombardments, such as were
the rule in France. There was here on neither side a surplus of shell to
fire away at targets of secondary importance, and therefore there was
less destruction than in France of towns and villages near the lines.
Ammunition had to be accumulated for important occasions and important
targets. Thus battles were still separate and distinct in Italy, with
perceptible intervals of lull, less apt than in France to become one
blurred series of gigantic actions. So too counter-battery work on a
great scale was not practised on either side out here, partly for
reasons of ammunition supply, and partly for technical reasons connected
with the nature of the ground. For in a good _caverna_ one was perfectly
safe, though outside high explosive produced not only its own natural
effect, but also a shower of pieces of rock, thus combining the
unpleasant characteristics of high explosive and shrapnel. One of our
gunners had his ribs broken by a blow from a large piece of rock, though
standing three hundred yards away from where the shell burst. But often
after a heavy bombardment it was found that the enemy had been sitting
quietly in _caverne_, ready to emerge with his machine guns when the
attacking Infantry advanced. Aeroplanes also were less numerous than in
France. And, when I arrived, gas was not much employed on either side.
In the second place, I was deeply impressed with the natural strength of
the Austrians' positions. Almost everywhere they held high ground. On no
other Front in this war have stronger positions been carried by assault
than San Michele, Sabotino, Cucco, Vodice, Monte Nero, and, in the end,
Monte Santo. No one who has not seen with his own eyes the heights which
Italian Infantry have conquered, backed by no great Artillery support,
can realise the astounding things which the Italians have performed. The
Italian Infantry have died in masses, with high hearts and in the
exaltation of delirium, crumpled, rent and agonised, achieving the
impossible.
And in the third place I would say something of the work of their
Engineers. Italian Engineers are famous all the world over, but they
have done nothing more magnificent than their swift building of
innumerable roads, broad and well-laid and with marvellously easy
gradients, both in these inhospitable and undeveloped border lands
beside the Isonzo, and along the whole mountain Front. They have made
possible troop movements and a regular system of supply under the most
difficult conditions. It is a work worthy of the descendants of the old
Romans, who by their road building laid the foundations of civilisation
throughout Western Europe. And only second to their road making, I would
place the work of the Italian Engineers in blasting _caverne_ and gun
positions and trenches in the rock, an invaluable and unending labour.
We British Gunners spent our first Italian summer in khaki drill tunics
and shorts[1] and Australian "smasher hats." When these hats were first
issued, one Battery Commander declared them to be "unsoldierly" in
appearance and asked for permission to return them to the Ordnance. But
this was not allowed. The men stood the heat well, though at the
beginning, before they had got accustomed to the change of climate,
there was some dysentery. I myself, a few days after my arrival and
before I had a smasher hat, had a touch of the sun and lay about all day
cursing the flies. But next day I was all right again.
[Footnote 1: Next summer the introduction of mustard gas made it unsafe
to leave our knees uncovered.]
Our rations at this time were a special Anglo-Italian blend; less meat,
bacon, cheese and tea than in the British ration, but macaroni, rice,
coffee, wine and lemons from the Italian. It was a good ration and no
one suffered from eating a little less meat than at home. In order to
check the spread of dysentery, it was ordered by the medical authorities
that no meat was to be eaten at midday.
We were not doing a great deal of firing when I came, though we had
always to be prepared to come suddenly and quickly into action,
especially at night. Most of our prearranged daylight shoots were
observed from an O.P. in a ruined house at S. Andrea, on the plain just
outside Gorizia, where one had a fine view southwards of the Tamburo and
of the whole boundary ridge of the Carso from Dosso Faiti to the Stoll.
Observation was beautifully easy on these high hills and in this clear
air. What worlds away is this country with its wonderful cloudless
sunshine from the dismal flat lands of the Western Front! Said one
enthusiast of ours, "This is a gunner's heaven!" The Austrians fancied,
I think, that we had our O.P. in Vertoiba, which is north of S. Andrea,
for they shelled this frequently, but S. Andrea seldom. They shelled
Vertoiba heavily, I remember, all one afternoon, while I was on duty at
S. Andrea and while the Italian Staff were present in large numbers for
two hours to watch our shooting. I remember thinking what a fine bag
they would have got if they had lifted about four hundred yards! The
Italian Staff were always most complimentary and enthusiastic over the
work of our Batteries.
We had taken part in the Italian May offensive, the results of which had
been claimed by the _Daily Mail,_ with characteristic good taste and
sense of proportion, as a "great Anglo-Italian victory." Our part had
been more justly described by General Cadorna, who in a special Order of
the Day had said that "amid the roar of battle was clearly heard the
voice of British guns," and in his summary of the results of this
offensive, which lasted from May 12th to May 30th, after remarking that
the number of Austrians taken prisoners was 23,681 men and 604 officers,
and that, in addition, at least 100,000 Austrians had been put out of
action, continued as follows, "Our brave Infantry fought indefatigably
for eighteen days, without pause and without proper food supplies, on
difficult ground, in almost mid-summer heat, impetuous in attack and
tenacious in defence. Most effective at all times was the fraternal
co-operation of the Artillery, Siege, Field or Mountain, one Field
Battery not hesitating to push right up to the firing line. Excellent
help, too, was lent by ten Batteries of medium calibre of the British
Army and by the guns of the Italian Navy."
Cadorna had inspected our Batteries soon after their arrival in Italy,
and we had been visited and officially welcomed on behalf of the Italian
Government by the Minister Bissolati, perhaps the most vivid and vital
personality in Italian politics, and a wise counsellor, whose advice has
more than once been disastrously ignored.[1]
[Footnote 1: From the outbreak of war in August 1914, Bissolati strongly
advocated Italian intervention on the side of the Allies. When Italy
declared war, he enlisted in the ranks of the Alpini, although over
military age, was decorated for valour and seriously wounded. He then
became Minister for Military Supplies, and acted as a connecting link
between the Cabinet at Rome and the High Command.]
Addressing at Pec detachments from a number of British Batteries on the
29th of May, Bissolati had said: "Officers and men of the British Force,
I bring you the greetings of the Italian Government and the thanks of
the Italian people. I greet you not only as an Italian Minister, but as
a comrade in arms, for I consider it the greatest privilege of my life
to have been in this war a soldier like yourselves. Our hearts beat with
joy to see you here, because there is no Italian, however humble his
station, who does not know how great is the debt of Italy to Britain for
the brotherly help afforded her during the tragic vicissitudes of the
glorious story of her Resurrection. We all remember how your fathers
helped to create the Italian nation.... To-day we find ourselves
fighting side by side in the same campaign, we to redeem this territory
from the Austrian yoke, you to maintain the liberty of your national
existence from the German menace, both of us, moreover, to set the whole
world free from the peril of falling under the dominion of that race,
hard in temper as a granite rock, which finds in the Austro-Hungarian
Empire a willing ally in its rapes and aggressions. I am here, then, to
thank you, not only as an Italian, but as a man, and I am filled with
joy at the thought that the British, even as the Italians, are showing
themselves to be, now as always, the champions of justice, and the
defenders of liberty and right. The sacrifices which we are making
together, the mingling of our blood upon the battlefield, will render
even stronger the agelong, traditional friendship between our two
nations.
"Viva l'Inghilterra! Viva l'Italia!"