AN EVENING AT GORIZIA
On the first day in August I had been doing some observation at S.
Andrea in the afternoon, and, this duty over, I got permission to walk
into Gorizia and visit the section of the British Red Cross stationed
there, several of whose members I knew. It is a longer walk than one
would think, for S. Andrea is practically a southern suburb of Gorizia,
which, however, straggles over a large area of country. The railway
bridge across the Isonzo is broken down by shell fire and so are two
other bridges,--all three of stone,--but these could be soon repaired,
if we made a big advance. It would be wasted labour to repair them now,
for the Austrians would only break them down again. The Italians have
run up a low, broad wooden bridge, sheltered from Austrian view behind
one of the broken stone bridges. From time to time the Austrians hit
this bridge, and then the Italians quickly make it good again. To be
able to cross the Isonzo at this point is a convenience, but not a
military necessity, for all movement of troops and supplies into Gorizia
can be carried out on the left bank of the river and across bridges some
miles further down-stream.
The suburbs of the town were badly knocked about, but the centre was not
at this time much damaged. Gorizia lies in a salient of the hills, with
the Austrians looking down upon it from the tops of most of them. But,
still hoping to win it back, they do not shell it heavily or often.
There are special reasons, too, for their forbearance. For Gorizia is a
sort of Austrian Cheltenham, whither Austrian officers retire in large
numbers to pass their last years in villas which they take over from one
another's widows. So the Austrian officer class has a sort of vested
interest in the preservation of the place. So also have certain Hebrew
Banks in Vienna, which hold mortgages on a great part of the land in and
around the city, which just before the war was being rapidly developed
as a fashionable Spa. It is a well laid out town, with large public
gardens and good buildings, architecturally very like the larger Italian
towns on the other side of the old frontier, Udine for example, but with
a certain element of a heavier and more _rococo_ style, the Viennese.
There is still a fairly large civilian population in the town, and one
restaurant still keeps open.
I found the British Red Cross in the Via Ponte Isonzo, in what had once
been a big boarding-house, with a large untidy garden behind. Most of
those stationed there were motor ambulance drivers, about twenty in
number, some too old to fight, some rejected for health, some Quakers,
unwilling to kill, but willing to risk their own lives on behalf of the
wounded, others again boys under military age, who go, as soon as they
can, to the Navy or the Flying Corps. It is brave and nervous work they
do, driving ambulances in the dark, without lights and under fire.
After dinner I sat out in the garden in the twilight and talked with an
old acquaintance of mine, who has had a large share in the organisation
and daily work of the British Red Cross in Italy. The Italians, he said,
are really beginning to feel their feet, as a united nation, in this
war. Men of all classes from all parts of Italy are meeting and mixing
with one another as they have never done before, and the old
_regionalismo_ is being rapidly undermined. He himself has almost ceased
to think critically of the past or speculatively of the future, but just
lives and works in the present. As to the state of the world after the
war, he is very confident, provided we go on fighting long enough.
Nothing that happens at home is of great importance, all the pressure is
on the Fronts. Everything is looking now in the direction of democracy.
Even Russia, in the long run unconquerable, has got her good out of the
war already, whatever miseries and transitory anarchy she may have yet
to undergo. In England and elsewhere many of the present political
leaders are vile, but we shall all know what we want the world to look
like, and to _be_ like, after the war, and new leaders will arise and
lead us. When the survivors of our smitten generation have grown old,
there must be a peace of hearts, as well as a peace of arms, between the
young of all lands. But our generation can never make personal
friendships again with Germans, seeing that they have killed nearly all
those who mattered most to us, and that we have to spend the rest of our
lives without them.
* * * * *
He motored me back to the Vippacco bridge at Rubbia. When next I heard
of him it was a month later at the height of the Italian offensive. He
had been severely wounded on the Bainsizza Plateau.
The British Red Cross did splendid work in Italy and made a big
contribution to Anglo-Italian friendship and understanding. They began
their operations in Italy in September 1915, and were thus the first
Englishmen to "show the flag" on the Italian Front. Thousands of
Italians will gratefully and affectionately remember them till the end
of their lives. More even than the British fighting troops who came
after them, the British Red Cross will remain a historic legend in Italy
in the days to come.