Then I went to bed and slept for hours and hours. Next morning from my

window I could see the Alps lying very low on the horizon, like a ball

of fluffy snow. The sun was shining and a fountain was playing in the

garden. I could hardly realise that we had reached, for a moment at

least, a place of peace, where there was no more fighting or retreating.

Our men were worn out, most of them, and slept like logs. They had been

sorely tried. Their pluck and endurance had been splendid. But they got

no message of thanks or praise from the British General who at that time

nominally commanded us. This distinguished man I had last seen in the

Square at Palmanova, amid the smoke and flames, with his car standing

close at hand ready to push off, and he had arrived at Treviso in good

time. He was now comfortably installed at the Villa Passi, and the day

some of our footsore men limped into Treviso, he was lunching with his

Staff, all bright and polished and sleek, in the Hotel Stella d'Oro.

We all expected, for days, that he would call a parade and address the

men who had saved what he used to call "his guns," or at least that he

would send some message. But he made no sign, except to open a canteen

for the sale of the 20,000 cigarettes, which some intelligent

subordinate had saved in preference to valuable gun stores now in

Austrian hands.

* * * * *

The day after my arrival I read a newspaper for the first time for over

a week, but the news was very bad and the retreat still continuing. The

Austrians were across the Tagliamento in strong force at several points.

I tried to reason and make distinctions, but my brain was still too

tired to answer the helm, so I left it. We ate hot polenta and drank

wonderful coffee, having established our Battery Mess in the porter's

lodge at the entrance to the Villa Lebreton, and persuaded the porter's

wife to cook for us. All the Battery had discovered the polenta at the

porter's lodge and our men crowded the kitchen at all hours of the day.

We all appreciated good food after the short rations of the retreat.

Conversation was intensely depressing when not utterly trivial. I

remember walking round and round the vegetable garden at the back of the

Villa with an Italian friend of mine, trying both to face the facts and

to draw some comfort from them. It was an impossible task. My friend was

full of despair and bitterness. "The fruits of thirty months of war all

lost in two days," he said, "and much more lost besides! What will all

the mothers think, who have lost sons on San Michele and Monte Santo? It

is a common thing in Italy now for families to have lost four or five

sons. What will the mothers of Italy think of this? Would not any of

them be justified in shooting Cadorna? The Third Army should not have

been ordered to retire. They should have counter-attacked instead. But

now would it not be better to make peace at once? Is there no man who

will rise up and say, 'Stop, stop, stop this bloody business now, before

it gets any worse?' Some of our soldiers looked quite pleased to be

retreating. Poor children! They thought the war was over and they were

going home. There is a frightful danger that the leaders,--the generals

and the politicians at Rome,--will say 'fight on!' but the rank and file

will go on breaking. 'We are fighting for Trento and Trieste!' they used

to say, and now they say 'we are organising the defence of the Piave

line!' The Regular soldiers never want the war to end. And soon they

will be distributing medals for the retreat. Medals!"

I could find no words worth saying to him in reply. "What will they be

saying about us now in London and Paris?" he went on. "They will be

saying," I replied, "that help must be sent to you," but my answer I

know sounded flat and empty. "Yes," he said bitterly, "perhaps _now_ you

will send some of your generals and your troops to Italy. And so you

will put us under orders and under obligations to you, and we shall

become your slaves. Italians are used to being looked upon as the slaves

of other nations." "No," I said, "all that is over. Those of us who know

the facts, know what Italy has done and suffered for the Alliance in

this war. It will not be forgotten. Moments of supreme crisis such as

this test the value and the depth of an Alliance. And ours will stand

the test."

But that day he was inconsolable. For Italy was wounded and bleeding,

and the dramatic swiftness and horror of the disaster had bent her pride

and almost broken it. But, though the future seemed black as a night

without stars, the hope of a coming daybreak remained strong in the

hearts of a few. But the struggle ahead would be cruelly hard. What had

Italy left to offer those who would still fight in her defence? Still,

as of old,

"Only her bosom to die on,

Only her heart for a home,

And a name with her children to be,

From Calabrian to Adrian Sea,

Mother of cities made free."

Yet this was a rich reward when, a year later, the dawn broke in all

its glory.

* * * * *

I turned over and over in my mind in the weeks and months that followed,

as fresh evidence accumulated, the meaning and the causes of the

disaster of Caporetto, and gradually I came to definite and clear cut

conclusions. It was the Second Army that had been broken, and in the

course of the retreat had almost disappeared. It was a common thing to

hear the Second Army spoken of as a whole Army of cowards and

"defeatists." Many foreign critics, with minds blankly ignorant of

nearly all the facts, seemed to think that the whole business could be

accounted for by a few glib phrases about German and Socialist

propaganda, or the supposed lack of fighting qualities in the Italian

race. Yet it was this same Second Army, which in those now distant days

in August had conquered the Bainsizza Plateau, amid the acclamations of

all the Allied world. Whole Armies do not change their nature in a

night, even when worn out with fighting and heavy casualties. The thing

was not so simple as that.

* * * * *

In fixing responsibility for Caporetto, one must draw a sharp

distinction between responsibility for the original break in a narrow

sector of the line, and responsibility for not making good that break,

before the situation had got hopelessly out of hand. In the former case

the responsibility must rest partly upon the troops and subordinate

Staff charged with holding that narrow sector and partly upon the High

Command; in the latter case the chief responsibility, and a far graver

one, must rest upon the dispositions of the High Command. This was the

view apparently taken by the Commission appointed by the Italian

Government to investigate the whole question, for the three chief

Generals concerned were not only removed from their commands, but given

no further employment and placed upon half-pay.

The original break was due to many causes. The great mass of German

Divisions and Artillery was concentrated in the Caporetto sector. This

fact should have been known to the High Command, and if the Italian

troops holding the line at this point were, for various reasons, of poor

quality, this also should have been known to the High Command, whose

duty it is to know the comparative fighting power of different units.

The High Command, when the battle started, claimed that they had known

beforehand when and where the blow was coming, that all preparations had

been made and that they were fully confident of the result. Such boasts

have been made by other High Commands on other Fronts, on the eve of

other disasters, and even after them. They greatly deepen the

responsibility of those who make them.

The German Batteries on the Italian Front had a much larger supply of

ammunition than the Austrians, including a large quantity of "special

gas" shell. Many Italian troops, both Infantry and Artillery, subjected

to prolonged gas bombardment, found the gas masks provided by the High

Command quite inadequate. It was left for General Diaz some months later

to order the equipment of the whole Italian Army with the British box

respirator.

The number of guns lost by the Second Army was very great. I am told

that one reason for this was the fact that the High Command had for some

weeks been preparing a further big offensive against the Plateau of

Ternova, had concentrated an abnormal number of Batteries on the Second

Army Front, and had pushed the majority of the guns much further up than

would have been justified, if an enemy offensive had been expected.

Then, having made these preparations, the High Command hesitated and

began to change its mind. But the disposition of the forward Batteries,

thoroughly unsound for defensive purposes, was not appreciably altered,

and a quite small enemy advance sufficed to make enormous captures of

guns.

When the attack developed, some of the troops in the Caporetto sector

unquestionably turned and ran, as troops of every great Army in this war

have at times turned and run, under conditions of greater or less

provocation. Then the High Command apparently lost its head, and

attempted to issue to the world a communiqué of a character unparalleled

in the history of this war, naming and cursing, as traitors to their

country, certain particular Infantry Brigades. This document was very

properly suppressed by the Italian Government.

But where were the reserves which the High Command should have had ready

to repair the broken line? And where were the plans for retreating to

prepared positions only a short distance behind? It was well known, and

indeed it used to be another boast of the High Command, that a local

reverse would be of no great importance, seeing that there were no less

than twelve prepared lines between the Front, as it then ran, and Udine.

I have seen some of those lines with my own eyes. I know what great and

patient labour went to the making of them, and I know how strong they

were. But, when the moment came to make use of them, no one outside the

charmed circle of the High Command was in possession of the plans for

their defence, and for falling back upon them in an orderly and

systematic manner. It has been said that these plans could not have been

made known beforehand to the Subordinate Commands for fear they should

fall into the hands of spies. That would have been a small misfortune

compared to what actually befell.[1]

[Footnote 1: In fairness to General Capello, the Second Army Commander,

who had been highly and deservedly praised for the Bainsizza victory in

August, and who was one of the generals removed from his command after

Caporetto, it should be stated that on the latter occasion he was away

from the Front on leave.]

When, owing to the omissions of the High Command, the break in the line

was swiftly widened and the whole defensive scheme of the Second Army

collapsed, it is true that confusion and panic began to spread through

the Second Army like fire through dry grass. But it is not within the

power of common soldiers, and especially of simple unlettered peasantry,

such as most of these soldiers were, to repair the blunders of bad Staff

work, and to make for themselves, on the spur of the moment and in face

of deadly peril, plans which trained brains should have elaborated long

before, at leisure and in safe secluded places. When leadership fails,

the best troops fail too. But let one who comes of a nation, none of

whose troops have ever acted as those troops of the Italian Second Army

acted in those dreadful days, throw the first stone at Italy. That

nation will be hard to find. It is not of this world. Those who know

the Italian soldier know that no soldier in the world responds more

readily to loyal trust, to common kindliness and to efficient and

inspiring leadership. British and French officers, who have had

opportunities of judging, know this as well as Italians. But the Italian

High Command denied these things to the Italian soldier.[1] It is due to

him and to the good name of Italy, which has been damnably traduced by

prejudiced and ignorant men, that the truth should be spoken.

[Footnote 1: Among other charges which may be brought against the High

Command at this time are, first, their failure to make adequate

provision for the amusement and relaxation of the troops when in rest,

such as the Y.M.C.A. and various concert parties provided for British

troops, to combat inevitable war-weariness; second, failure to increase

the most inadequate scale of rations; and, third, the attempt to apply,

with strange disregard of the very different spirit of the Italian

people, some of the worst and most brutal traditions of German

discipline. All this was altered later by General Diaz and the Orlando

Ministry.]

The dark and tragic story of the Italian retreat is lit up by many deeds

of heroism, wherein the Italian soldier showed all his accustomed

valour. And it was only by the valour of the Italian soldier that the

retreat was stayed on the Piave line, which the High Command pronounced

to be untenable and wished to abandon, but which the Cabinet at Rome,

pinning their faith to the qualities of the Italian soldier rather than

to the opinions of the High Command, ordered to be held at all hazards.

And the Cabinet at Rome was right. The Italian line stiffened and stood

upon the Piave, while the Allied reinforcements were still on the

further side of the Alps. If only Lloyd George and Bissolati had had

their way, and these reinforcements had been sent a few months earlier,

if only we had been able to put a British Army Corps, with its full

complement of aircraft, guns and shells, against the Hermada, if only we

had had half a dozen tanks to send down the Vippacco Valley, what a

different story there would have been to tell!

* * * * *

We ourselves were out of the first stages of that great defence. We had

no ammunition, and we were terribly short of gun stores, though the bare

guns had all been saved. And our men were very short of steel helmets

and box respirators, and the boots and clothing of many were in a

pitiful condition. But a small supply of ammunition came through from

France, and it was decided to send one Section of the Battery into

action on the Piave and the remainder back to Ferrara to refit. All gun

stores and men's equipment were to be pooled, and those going back were

to be stripped for the benefit of those going forward. I remember very

vividly our Battery parade on the morning of the 4th of November, when

we had to take from some men their greatcoats and even their caps,

tunics and boots, in order to make up some sort of equipment for the

Right Section which was going forward with the Major. I was put in

command of the Left Section, stripped bare for its journey to Ferrara.

The evening before our departure I walked up and down the avenue outside

our Villa and talked with Venosta, who had done splendid work in the

retreat. He had heard from the survivors of a Cavalry Regiment, who had

passed back along the road an hour before, that a Turkish Division was

in Udine, and Turkish cavalry in Palmanova. Bulgarians also were said to

be on this Front, raping, after Serbs, Greeks and Rumanians, Italians

also. It was said that Turks had been on Faiti and Volconiac at the end.

I had no sure evidence of this, but, if it was true, the Turks'

notorious incapacity for an offensive would help to explain our

surprising escape. What we had needed, all through the days of the

retreat, was enough rain to swell the rivers and make heavy the roads.

What we had got, after the first three days, was brilliant sunshine. The

stars in their courses seemed to be fighting against Italy. "Dio uno ed

unno!" said one Italian bitterly.

CHAPTER XXV

FERRARA, ARQUATA AND THE CORNICE ROAD

We reached Ferrara at 5 a.m. and drove in lorries from the railway

station past the Castello of the d'Estes to the Palestro Barracks, the

Depôt of the 14th Regiment of Italian Field Artillery. Here we were to

be lodged by the Italian military authorities. We were received with

every consideration and great hospitality. Our men had excellent

quarters in the Barracks. Our officers were invited to have their meals

in the Italian Artillery officers' Mess, which was a large and

comfortable place and where the food was not only good, but very much

cheaper than could have been got outside. The Colonel also offered to

put riding horses at the disposal of any of us who should care to ride.

I was much struck by the sensible lack of ceremony of this Italian Mess,

by comparison with similar Depôt Messes in our own Army. There was no

waiting in the anteroom for senior officers who were late, no asking

permission of senior officers to leave the table early. Within the hours

fixed for meals everyone came in and out as they pleased. There was no

special table for the Staff, no rule against bringing evening papers

into dinner, no aloofness, no pomposity. The only un-English formalities

were the habit of turning and bowing as one left the Mess, if a number

of officers were still present, and the universal Italian custom by

which a newcomer at his first appearance would walk round and shake

hands in turn with all those whom he did not know and introduce himself

to them by name.

We were also invited to become members during our stay of the Circolo

Negozianti, or Merchants' Club, of Ferrara. This Club had spacious

premises in an old Palazzo, and was the warmest place in the town,

having a most efficient system of central heating.

Ferrara is spread over a large area relatively to its population; it has

broad streets and very few slums. But it has come down in the world

since the Renaissance. Degenerate descendants of the d'Estes of that

time stripped many of the Palazzi of their artistic beauties and sold

them to help pay their debts. Ferrara is a city of old Palazzi, street

after street of them, inhabited mainly now by well-to-do peasants, who

take a pride in keeping up their exteriors. One of the most interesting

sights in the city is the Palazzo Schifanoia, now used as a museum and

containing frescoes by Cossa and Cosimo Tura. But what most appealed to

me was the superb western façade of the Cathedral.

In peace time Ferrara is prosperous, though a little isolated from the

main currents of Italian life. It is the chief centre of food

distribution for this part of the country, and is well known for its

bakeries. It is also an important centre for the hemp export trade.

After two days at Ferrara I was chosen to go to Arquata Scrivia, a

little town on the main line north of Genoa. This had been selected as

the Base for the British Forces in Italy, and I was to get in touch with

the Ordnance people there, to give them a list of our really urgent

requirements and try to hasten their delivery, so as to get us back into

action as soon as possible. Siramo, an Italian Artillery officer who was

attached to us for _liaison_, accompanied me.

The ordinary passenger train for Bologna was three and a half hours

late. Special trains were coming through every ten minutes from Treviso

and Venice packed with refugees, going southwards. The organisation of

the Italian railways at this time for clearing the refugees from the

righting zone was exceedingly good. Siramo thought that, if Venice had

to be abandoned, the Germans and Austrians would not damage it. I felt

no such security. That night we stopped at Milan. Wild stories of

"tradimento" were in the air. It was being said, for instance, that two

Generals of the Second Army had been marched through their troops in

handcuffs under a guard of Carabinieri. It was also officially

announced that Diaz had replaced Cadorna in command of the Italian

Armies.

Next day we reached Arquata amid the tumble of the Ligurian Hills, whose

sides were clothed with chestnuts and oaks and vine terraces. We found

British Staff, Sanitary Sections and Ordnance already in possession. The

Ordnance were occupying a large villa just outside the town. My old

friend Shield, whom I had known at Palmanova, was there, but most of the

others were new arrivals from France. They were surprisingly full of

cheerfulness, as _imboscati_ are often apt to be, even when things are

going badly at the Front. The Italian disaster evidently meant very

little to them; they hardly realised it at all. They were the first

cheerful people I had seen since the retreat began, and it was no doubt

good for Siramo and myself to be cheered up. But it grated on both of us

a little.

At my first interview I got the impression that the Ordnance were

surprisingly efficient and would be very prompt in giving us what we

wanted. But I gradually discovered that they really possessed very

little of what they first promised me, and that nothing was known for

certain as to when further stores would arrive. I telephoned to Ferrara

that the immediate prospects were poor, and was told in reply to wait

three or four days and see how much turned up. Having pestered various

Ordnance officers to the limit of their endurance, I therefore decided

to go away for two days.

Siramo went for two days to his family at Turin and I took the train to

Genoa, arriving in the early afternoon. After lunch I set out to walk

eastwards along the Cornice Road. It was a relief to my thoughts and

feelings to be quite alone. The day was windy and sunless and rather

cold, but the warm and audacious colouring of the Villas and the little

fishing villages seemed almost to draw sunshine out of the dull sky. I

stopped at Sturla and drank two cups of coffee and ate some biscuits,

and decided to walk on to Nervi. It was now near the hour of sunset and

the sun, having kept invisible all day, half broke through the clouds,

turning them first red and then golden. So the sky was when I came to

Quarto dei Mille, with its monument looking out to sea, that historic

place whence Garibaldi and the Thousand set sail for their great

adventure, the liberation of Sicily and Naples, and the unification of

Italy, with British warships following them, some say by chance, so that

the enemies of Italy dared not interrupt their passage.

Then said I to myself, standing all alone at Quarto, "Italy will not be

defeated, nor even mainly saved from defeat by foreign aid. The

strongest and best of her children will pull her through, even though

they be not all the nation. But the rest will do their share also, and

will follow, when the bravest lead. How young, and how uncertain of

herself as yet, is Italy! And yet, how lovable, how well worth serving!"

The Germans with their "special gas" and with other factors in their

favour, counted on breaking, not only the line of the Second Army, but

the morale of the Italian people. For a moment they seemed to have

succeeded. In the darkest days I talked with many whose stuffing seemed

all gone. But then, with the promise of Allied help, with the sight of

even a handful of new French and British uniforms, and under the spell

of the oratory of their statesmen and their journalists, things began to

change and Italian hearts grew brave again.

The Italians are a mercurial people. If they are more easily cast down

by defeat than we British, they are more easily encouraged by even the

distant prospect of victory, and they react to influences that would

leave us unmoved. The coarse insults of the enemy press were everywhere

angrily quoted, and the national spirit rose to a red glow of passion.

The Socialists Turati and Treves,--the latter the author of the famous

phrase, "nessuno in trincee quest' inverno,"[1]--who before Caporetto

had criticised the war as aggressive, imperialist and unnecessary, said

now that all Italians must unite and fight on to drive back the invader

from Italian soil. And cool brains, such as Nitti and Einaudi,

reinforced all this with logical demonstrations of the economic

impossibility of a separate peace, with the enemy Powers strained to the

utmost by the blockade and Italy dependent on the Allies for shipping,

food and coal. The Germans would have done far more wisely, if, instead

of attacking, they had aimed only at holding the Italian Army along its

old line.

[Footnote 1: "No one in the trenches this winter."]

I walked on from Quarto to Nervi and, as it was getting dark, I decided

to take a tram for the last few kilometres. But all the trams were

standing still, the current having been switched off for several hours.

So I stood on the step of a tram and talked to the conductor about the

war, and tried to cheer him up by telling him that the Germans were on

their last legs, and were making their last great effort, and that the

Allies had only to hold together a little longer, and throw sufficient

force against the enemy here in Italy, in order to see a far bigger and

more precipitate and disastrous retreat than Caporetto, and next time in

the other direction. All this I not only said, but firmly believed (and

it all came true within a year). At first he was very despondent, but he

warmed up as I proceeded, and began to gesticulate again and regain

animation and compliment me on my Italian. And then the current also was

restored, and the tram moved on, and we came to Nervi, where I dined

well and slept at the Albergo Cristoforo Colombo. I am not in general an

admirer of palm trees, but they are sometimes impressive in the dusk,

towering over one's head, as they do at Nervi, in the long mixed avenue

of palms and orange trees which leads down to the station from the town.

Next morning I got up early and walked back towards Genoa along the Via

Marina. The sun was shining on the sea and the dark rocks, the stone

pines and the great aloes and the brightly coloured villas. There was an

exhilaration in the air and I was in the midst of beauty, and, for the

first time for many days, I was for a little while really happy. Later

on I took a tram back to Genoa, and walked up to the tall lighthouse on

the further side of the town, and looked westward at the great curve of

the shore, beyond the breakwater and the sands.

In some of the stations along the line were placards, "Long live great

old England," "Welcome to the valiant British Army," "Vive la France,"

"Vive la victorieuse Armée de Verdun." The first of the Allied

reinforcements were arriving.

At Arquata station I met an advance party of the Northumberland

Fusiliers. They told me that they had been quite moved by their

wonderful welcome on the way through Italy and by all the hospitality

shown to their officers and men at the stations where they had stopped.

It gave me a queer thrill to see British Infantrymen again after many

months, and this time on Italian soil.

* * * * *

After various orders and counter-orders I left Arquata for Ferrara on

the 16th, with two truckloads of stores. But this was only a very small

proportion of the minimum which we required.

CHAPTER XXVI

REFITTING AT FERRARA

I got back to Ferrara on the evening of November 17th, and shared a

bedroom with Jeune, who had returned from leave in England, having

missed all our most unpleasant experiences. Our brother officers of the

Italian Field Artillery were very hospitable and courteous to us through

those weeks of waiting. We could do nothing till the Ordnance sent us

gun stores from Arquata, and these dribbled in very slowly, a few odds

and ends at a time.

I often went out riding on the Piazza d'Arme and along the ramparts and

in the country round Ferrara with Italian officers. Days were still very

anxious, and the news from the Front not always good, and one rather

avoided talking about the war. But one evening at dinner I succeeded in

piercing the polite reserve of a little Captain who was sitting next to

me. "Italy should have made it a condition of her intervention," he

said, "that the other Allies should have sent troops to the Italian

Front. Also more guns and war material. Italy, at the beginning of her

war, had many heroes but few guns. The other Allies, equally with Italy,

are without statesmen. Your Lloyd George is energetic, but----! The

British are not really at war with Austria. They have soft sentiments

towards her and don't want her to lose too much. The Jugo-Slav

propaganda was at its height, and was being encouraged in Paris and

London, at the very moment when Italy was being pressed by the French

and British to enter the war.

"We have made too many offensives on our own, unaided. Cadorna should

have refused, but he went on and on. He sacrificed thousands of lives

uselessly. He demanded too much of his troops. He did not understand

them. This last disaster was caused by Croats and Bulgarians, who spoke

Italian perfectly, having lived among us and taken degrees at our

Universities, getting through our lines in the first confusion, dressed

in Italian uniform, and sending false telephone messages and signals in

our own cipher, ordering a general retreat.[1] It was men from ----,[2]

who first ran away at Rombon and Tolmino. It has been often proved in

the history of our country that those men have no courage. Italians have

too little unity."

[Footnote 1: I heard this story many times and I believe this was one of

the causes of the rapid increase of the first confusion. The Austrians

had tried this trick without success against the Third Army on the

Carso, as had the Germans against us in France. There must obviously be

a certain amount of confusion already existing, if the trick is to have

any chance of succeeding.]

[Footnote 2: A certain province in Italy, not his own.]

He went on to speak of economic difficulties. "Italy is poor," he said,

"and the Allies are rich. Yet coal costs four times as much in Italy as

in France, and shipping is hardly to be had. Our Government has never

driven hard enough bargains with the other Allies. After all, Italy came

into the war as a volunteer, and not under the conscription of old

treaties. But the Allies give her no credit for this. The French, since

the war began, have recovered all their old 'blague.' They talk

incessantly of what they have done, and despise everyone else. But look

how unstable they are politically! They change their ministries, as

often as some men change their mistresses. The Pope, too, is an enemy of

Italy and a friend of Austria. He aims at the restoration of his

temporal power. Many of the priests went about, both before and after

Caporetto, trying to betray their country. Some told the soldiers that

God had sent the disaster of Caporetto to show them the folly and the

sinfulness of loving their corruptible country here below in poor

earthly Italy, better than the incorruptible country of all good

Catholics, God's eternal kingdom in the skies!"

He spoke bitterly, as was not unnatural.

I made the acquaintance also in the Mess of a Medical Officer, named

Rossi, in peace time a University Professor of Nervous Pathology, who

was now in charge of a hospital for "nervosi," or shell-shock cases,

four miles outside the town. One afternoon Jeune and I accepted an

invitation to visit this hospital. We drove out to it in a carrozza,

accompanied by Rossi and a young woman, who went there daily to teach

some of the illiterate patients to read and write.

No one can begin to understand what modern war means without some

personal acquaintance with shell-shock cases. They are, especially for

non-combatants, the most instructive of all the fruits of war, much more

instructive than dead bodies or men without limbs. And then, having

watched and talked or tried to talk with a variety of these still living

creatures, let any man, even a profiteer or a theologian, look into his

heart and ask himself whether he really agrees with the Chaplain, whom I

have already quoted, that "three or four years of war may be

tremendously worth while."

It needs a greater pen than mine to do justice to all we saw that

afternoon, for we went through all the wards and saw all the sights

there were to see. We saw a young Lieutenant, with large staring eyes,

sitting up in bed. When we approached him, he jumped round in his bed

very violently, as though his body had been shot out of a gun, and went

on staring at us, speechless and with eyes full of wild terror. We saw

two soldiers in the corner of a ward, their heads wobbling in perfect

rhythm, ceaselessly from side to side, like the pendulum of a clock,

with dead expressionless faces. We saw men cowering beneath their bed

clothes, trembling with an endless terror. We saw a man who for months

had quite lost his speech, and was now just able to whisper, almost

inaudibly, "papa" and "mama," a middle-aged man with a beard. We saw a

man with frightened eyes, like a child in a nightmare, with many of the

outward signs of having been gassed, struggling for breath,

gesticulating feebly, trying to ward off some imaginary blow. He had not

been gassed, but wounded in the head. He was alone in a blue ward, where

all our faces looked yellow. We saw a youth lying asleep, white as a

sheet and with hardly any flesh left on his bones. He had been asleep

for two months without ever waking. We saw a splendid, tall, bearded

man, a Cavalry Captain, with a deep voice and a firm handgrip, who could

realise the present, but had forgotten all the past. We saw a multitude

of minor "tremblers," and men undergoing electrical treatment for

paralysis and stiffness of various limbs. One little man, another

University Professor, who was almost paralysed in both legs, tried to

advance to meet us and nearly fell forward on the ground at our feet. I

spoke also to a young man with a paralysed back and left arm. I said I

hoped he would soon be better. "Yes," he said, "I hope soon to go back

to the Front." For a moment I thought this was irony addressed to a

countryman of Mr Lloyd George. But it wasn't. He really meant it. We

went into the Convalescents' Mess. There were about twenty present,

smiling and very gentle and quiet, like men who were not yet quite sure

of the world. One elderly man, a Medical Captain, said to me, very

softly, that it was a great pleasure to see visitors from the outside,

"especially our Allies." At that moment I could easily have wept. Such

sights as I had seen did not physically sicken, nor even much horrify,

me. They just tautened all my nerves and made me feel that all my

questions were impertinent, and all my good wishes flat and empty, and

that I resembled a visitor to a Zoo.

On the way back to Ferrara we talked of literature and Rossi, basing

himself chiefly on Wells and Kipling, said that the English, judged by

their modern writers, seemed to be a race "logical, but a little

isolated."

Two days later the Major and the Right Section of the Battery came to

Ferrara, being replaced on the Piave by a section of another Battery. On

the 1st of December British Infantry, belonging to the XIVth Corps,

moved into the lines for the first time, taking over the Montello

sector, to the south of the Italian Fourth Army. This sector was to be

held by British troops for four months, but it is worth while again to

emphasise the fact that nearly a month had now elapsed since the great

Retreat had been brought to an end by the unaided effort of Italian

troops. The situation now seemed well in hand, and a further break not

at all likely.

There had been a striking scene in the Italian Chamber about this time,

when the Prime Minister, Orlando, announced that high military opinion

had been opposed to the holding of the Piave line, recommending a

further retreat to the line of the Mincio, or the Adige, or even the Po,

which would have involved the surrender of Venice, Padua, Vicenza and

Verona. But the Cabinet at Rome had rejected these recommendations and

ordered that the Piave line should be held at all costs, and the valour

of the Italian common soldier had triumphed over the forebodings of the

generals.

On the 8th, our re-equipment being at last complete, we were warned to

join the XIth British Corps on the arrival of our transport. The end of

our stay at Ferrara was now in sight, and our last days were full of

partings. The Major told me how one morning a little old man, apparently

an artisan, ran after him down the road and, speaking excellent French,

said how fine the British soldiers looked, and how splendid the news of

the capture of Jerusalem was, and then insisted on his going into a café

and drinking a glass of vermouth with him and, on parting, held his hand

for several moments, gazing into his eyes with a look of affection and

pride.

On the 9th a little ceremony took place in the Artillery Mess, where the

British officers presented a silver cup, suitably inscribed, to their

brother officers of the Italian Artillery. There was a large gathering.

My own Major, who was in command of British troops at Ferrara, made the

presentation, and the Italian Commandant made an eloquent reply.

On the 10th I told the page boy at the Circolo that the future of the

world was in the hands of himself and the rest of the young, and that

they must see to it that there were no more wars. This speech made him

open his big brown eyes a bit wider! I had often talked to this boy

before, and he was, I think, rather interested in me, thinking me no

doubt a queer and unusual sort of person. He used to steal moments to

come and enter into conversation with me when none of the older club

servants were in sight. If any of them appeared in the distance, he used

to pretend that I had called him for the purpose of ordering a drink,

and bolt to the bar.

On the 11th another presentation ceremony took place, this time at the

Circolo. Those of us who had enjoyed honorary membership here presented

to the Club two small silver clocks. The Major again made a short speech

and the President of the Club replied, expressing the hope that the

hours might be short, which these clocks would record before the hour of

final victory. The cordiality of all the members of the Club at this

meeting was very memorable. One old gentleman of 76 years of age told me

that I was the very image of his son who was serving at the front in the

Artillery, and with tears in his eyes kissed me on both cheeks. "Permit

this sign of affection," he said, "seeing that here we are in the midst

of friends."

That afternoon a few of us had tea for the last time at Finzi's, a

favourite haunt of mine between the Castello and the Cathedral. After I

had said a few words of farewell, Signor Finzi said to me, in one of

those perfectly turned compliments which Italians always pay to

foreigners endeavouring to speak their language, "Lei parla la lingua di

Dante,"[1] and Signora Finzi gave to each of us a small Italian flag.

[Footnote 1: "You speak the language of Dante."]

That night our transport arrived, and our departure was fixed for the

following morning. The 12th of December was a day that I shall vividly

remember for the rest of my life. We left Ferrara about 1 p.m. after

one of the most enthusiastic demonstrations I have ever seen. That

morning the town had been placarded far and wide with the following

poster:--

_Comitato di Preparazione Civile._[1]

CITTADINI,

Stamane alle ore undici e trenta (11.30) gli Artiglieri inglesi

muoveranno dal Quartiere Palestro diretti alia Stazione Ferroviaria.

Essi partono verso il fronte, per difendere cogli eroici soldati

d'Italia e di Francia il conteso e sacro suolo della patria, per

combattere la barbaria tedesca, che tenta invano di avanzare contro il

baluardo offerto dai petti dei soldati di tre nazioni.

CITTADINI,

Vi invitiamo ad accorrere ed a portare il vostro saluto ai fedeli e

valorosi Alleati. Essi debbono sentire che i vostri cuori palpitano, con

loro, di speranza e di fede.

FERRARA. 11-12 dicembre 1917,

IL PRESIDENTE AVOGLI.

[Footnote 1: _Committee of Civilian Preparation._

FELLOW CITIZENS,

This morning at 11.30 a.m. the British Gunners will march out from the

Palestro Barracks to the Railway Station. They are leaving for the

Front, to defend alongside of the heroic soldiers of Italy and France

the disputed and sacred soil of our country, and to combat the German

barbarians, who strive in vain to advance against the rampart which is

formed by the breasts of the soldiers of three nations.

FELLOW CITIZENS,

We invite you to be present and to salute our brave and faithful Allies.

They should be made to feel that your hearts, in unison with theirs,

throb with hope and faith.]

By eleven o'clock a large crowd was already gathering outside the

Barracks. At half-past we marched out into the street. In front of us

went the municipal brass band, gay with cocks' feathers, and

school-children carrying four banners on long flagstaffs. There was

tumultuous cheering and clapping from a dense crowd. Flowers were

showered upon us, and a very handsome girl gave me a bouquet of red

roses. The band played impossible march music, so that we weren't able

to keep much of a step.

But the enthusiasm was intense. Spectators thronged all the windows

overlooking our route, and the cheering crowd stretched thick and

unbroken along both sides of the street all the way. I noticed a

specially enthusiastic group on the steps of the Castello, and several

busy photographers. In between the efforts of the band our men sang.

Outside the station we marched past the Italian General Commanding the

District. Then we were halted and the General made a speech. I happened

to look round, and found standing beside me, looking up at me, wide-eyed

and wondering, the page boy from the Circolo, whom I had harangued on

the destiny of the world's youth, and afterwards tipped. The band was

playing over and over again, at short intervals, God Save the King, the

Marcia Reale, the Marseillaise, the Brabançonne and the Marcia degli

Alpini. Whenever any of these national anthems was played, all the

troops stood at attention, and we officers at the salute.

Then a little man with a black beard and an eager manner stepped forward

and mounted a chair, and on behalf of the Association of Italian

Teachers wished us good luck. He spoke in English. He told us that his

wife was "an Englishman," and recalled the names of Garibaldi and

Gladstone, Palmerston and Cavour. He then presented to the Major an

Italian Flag, which was handed to our Battery Sergeant-Major to be

carried at the head of the troops as they marched into the station. Many

Italian officers were present to say personal good-byes, and an immense

crowd was on the platform cheering and singing, and distributing gifts

and refreshments to our men. One gift was a little piece of tricolour

ribbon, which an old woman gave to one of us. It had a note pinned to it

addressed "to a brave British soldier," saying that she had a son at the

Front who always carried just such a little piece of ribbon as a

talisman, cut off the same roll, and that it had always kept him safe,

and that it would keep the British soldier safe too. The note was signed

"Tua Madrina" ("your god-mother").

At last it seemed that everyone was aboard, and the train started. But

it was then discovered that the Major, Jeune and Manzoni had been left

behind, not expecting the train to start so soon. They had chased it for

a hundred yards down the line, but failed to catch it up. So the

stationmaster telephoned to Rovigo to stop the train there till the

three missing ones arrived, which they ultimately did, riding on an

engine specially placed at their disposal. So ended our stay at Ferrara,

in a blaze of wild enthusiasm. And I believe that, collectively, we left

a very good impression behind us.

PART V

A YEAR OF RESISTANCE AND OF PREPARATION

CHAPTER XXVII

IN STRATEGIC RESERVE

Our train reached Cittadella shortly after dusk. We interviewed a

British R.T.O., who had only taken up his duties five minutes' before

our arrival, and so not unnaturally knew nothing about us. The Major

proposed that the train should be put into a siding and that we should

spend the night in it. This was done. We went into Cittadella, but found

everything in complete darkness, most of the houses sandbagged, and all

shops, cafés and inns closed at dusk by order of the military. We

succeeded, however, in getting a meal of sorts, and then went back to

the train and turned in early. We were woken up a little after midnight

by two British Staff officers, who were very vague and ignorant, but

told us to go next morning to San Martino di Lupari, a little village

midway between Cittadella and Castelfranco. This we did and found pretty

good billets. Monte Grappa loomed over us to the north, deep in snow. I

did not go into Cittadella by daylight, but only saw its battlemented

outer walls.

Then for a few days nothing happened, except that everyone seemed to

have caught a cold. We were now part of the XIth British Corps, who were

concentrated in the surrounding district and formed for the moment a

strategic reserve, which might be sent anywhere according to the

development of the situation. If nothing particular happened, we should

probably go into the line south of the XIVth British Corps on the Piave.

If, on the other hand, the Italians were driven back in the mountains to

the north of us, or were forced to retire down the Brenta Valley,--and

this danger had not yet quite passed,--we should move up the mountains

and take over part of the Italian line, with the French probably on our

right. We received tracings of several possible lines of defence, on the

plain itself and on the near side of the mountain crest, described as

the "Blue Line," the "Green Line," etc., which we were required to

reconnoitre with a view to finding Battery positions and O.P.'s. They

were all very awkward lines to defend, as the enemy would have splendid

observation and we practically none at all.

On the 15th the Major went out in the car reconnoitring to the east. He

met some Alpini on the road to whom he said, "Fa bel tempo,"[1] and they

replied, "Le montagne sono sempre belle;"[2] also an old man who had

never seen British soldiers before, and was tremendously excited and

pleased, and shouted with joy.

[Footnote 1: "It's beautiful weather."]

[Footnote 2: "The mountains are always beautiful."]

On the 16th the Major went out again with Jeune and myself to look for

Battery positions for the defence of the line at the foot of the

mountains. We went through Cittadella and Bassano, then southwards along

the Brenta to Nove, and then back through Marostica and Bassano. Bassano

is a delightful old town, with many frescoes remaining on the outer

walls of the houses, and a beautiful covered-in wooden bridge over the

Brenta.

Marostica charmed me even more. Its battlemented walls are like those of

Cittadella and Castelfranco, but in a better state of preservation and

more picturesque, running up a rocky foothill behind the town and coming

down again,--a most curious effect. These Alpine foothills for shape and

vegetation are very like the Ligurian hills north of Genoa and round

Arquata.

At San Trinità, just outside Bassano on the road to Marostica, is a very

fine cypress avenue. There was a possible Battery position here. I

noticed also a row of cypresses standing at intervals of about fifty

yards along a hillside, dark and tall amid a mass of grass and rocks and

brown fallen leaves. The weather was clear and cold, but the snow had

shrunk to subnormal on the foothills. The Weather God was still

favouring the enemy. It was very still, though occasionally shells burst

over the Grappa. But the hills muffle the sounds beyond them.

On the way back we passed a Battalion of Alpini marching up, many of

them very young. I thought of the Duke of Aosta's latest message to the

undefeated Third Army: "A voi veterani del Carso, ed a voi, giovani

soldati, fioritura della perenne primavera italica."[1] Splendid

Alpini! They are never false to their regimental motto, "di quì non si

passa!"[2] They never fail. But nearly all the first Alpini, who went

forth to battle in May 1915, are dead now.

[Footnote 1: "To you, veterans of the Carso, and to you, young soldiers,

flower of the eternal Italian spring."]

[Footnote 2: "No one passes here!"]

On the 20th I went out in a side-car with Winterton to look for

positions in the hills above Marostica. Reconnaissances of the back

lines were now to be discontinued, a sign, we hoped, of diminishing

apprehension and an improving military situation. At San Trinità on the

way back we collided with an Italian wagon and had to stop for repairs.

A number of Italians gathered round, one of whom I discovered to be a

priest, conscribed to serve with the Medical Corps. I bantered this man

in a friendly way about secret drinking and the confessional and women

and paradise, causing uproarious delight among the bystanders. And the

priest took it all in excellent part.

On the 22nd we heard that, irrespective of the movements of the rest of

the Corps, a special Group of Heavy Artillery was to be formed,

including ourselves, to be lent to the Italian Fourth Army in the

mountains. There began to be rumours of an offensive on our part.

On the 23rd we made a reconnaissance up the mountains to look for

positions. We started through Bassano, which the Austrians had begun to

shell the day before with long range guns, starting a trickling, pitiful

exodus of terrified civilians. Just before reaching Marostica we struck

up a valley running northwards past Vallonara. The road soon began to

rise more steeply. It was a war road, broad and of splendid surface, one

of those many achievements of the Italian Engineers, which entitles them

to rank easily first among the engineers of the great European

Armies.[1] Before the war this road had been in parts a mere mule track,

in parts non-existent. We went through a number of little Alpine

villages, Crosara, Tortima, Fontanelli, Rubbio. We had soon risen more

than three thousand feet above the plain, which lay far beneath, spread

out gloriously like a richly coloured carpet, green, white and brown,

through which ran two broad, twisting, silver threads, the rivers Brenta

and Astico. There had been more than a hundred bends in the road up to

this point, but the gradient was never uncomfortably steep. Snow lay

thick on the higher levels and the pine and fir trees were all

snow-crowned. Sometimes the road ran along the edge of rocky gorges,

dropping sheer for hundreds of feet below, with a great mountain wall on

the other hand rising sheer above us. The air grew perceptibly colder as

we mounted higher.

[Footnote 1: I have seen it stated, by an impartial authority, that

there has been no roadmaking in war time to compare with that of the

Italians on the Alpine and the Isonzo Fronts and in Albania, since the

Napoleonic wars. A distinguished British engineer, with great experience

of roadmaking in many countries, has also told me that in his opinion

the Swedes are the best roadmakers in the world, the Italians a close

second, and the rest of the world some way behind.]

We turned out of view of the plain over undulating snow fields and down

a long valley and came out on a small plateau, screened by a gradual

ridge from the eyes of the enemy. Here we provisionally chose a Battery

position close to a small solitary house, known as Casa Girardi, on the

edge of a pine wood. All round Italian guns were firing in the snow. We

went on to Col. d'Astiago, which would be our probable O.P. The summit

commanded a wonderful view of the high mountains to the northward,

Longara and Fior, Columbara and Meletta di Gallio, and the sheer rock

face of the Brenta gorge, and the stream far below, and the great mass

of the Grappa rising beyond.

As we came down, lorry loads of Italian troops passed us going up,

Alpini, Bersaglieri, Arditi and men of the 152nd Infantry Regiment. They

cheered us wildly as they passed, waving their caps and crying, "Avanti!

Avanti! Viva l'Inghilterra! Viva gli Alleati!" And as the string of

lorries turned round and round the spiral curves of the road, now high

above us, they were cheering and waving still, until they disappeared

from view.

* * * * *

The Battery ate their Christmas dinner at San Martino, though the air

had been thick with talk of an immediate move. On this, as on other,

occasions the Major made an excellent speech, in the course of which he

said: "You will be going very soon into a place where, before this war,

no one would have dreamed that Siege Artillery could go. You were the

first British Battery to be in action in Italy, and you will probably be

the first British Battery to be in action in the Alps. We shall be very

uncomfortable, at any rate for a time, but we shall pull through all

right, as we always have before. It will be an honour to be proud of,

and an experience to remember for the rest of our lives. And I know that

whatever happens to us in this coming year, you will all behave as

splendidly in the future as you have always done in the past."

The enemy was doing a good deal of night bombing at this period. Treviso

and Padua were attacked with great persistency, so much so that the

British G.H.Q. decided to move from the latter city to some smaller and

more peaceful place. We used to hear the bombing planes coming over

nearly every night and explosions more or less distant. They bombed

Bassano, Cittadella and Castelfranco, the latter especially because the

French had their Headquarters there. But luckily they left San Martino

alone, thinking it too small to worry about. There seemed to be no

anti-aircraft defences anywhere. But our Air Force soon mitigated the

nuisance by raiding their aerodromes, and brought down a number of

hostile planes in air fighting.

Our Staff again brought themselves into notice at Christmas by altering

our official address from "B.E.F. Italy" to "Italian Expeditionary

Force." I heard that the distinguished General, who introduced this

reform, estimated that it would hasten victory by several months. But

the stupid soldiers and their stupid relatives at home, having got into

the habit of using the abbreviation "B.E.F.," shortened the new address

to "I.E.F.," and the stupid postal people began to send the letters to

India! And then the distinguished General had to issue another order,

pointing out that "this abbreviation is unauthorised" and that "this

practice must cease."

In the midst of such excitements the New Year began, and the Major was

awarded the D.S.O. for work on the Carso. He was as delighted as a

child, and I too was very glad. This decoration, even more than most

others, has been much too freely dished out during this war among quite

undeserving people, who have simply made an art of playing up to their

official superiors. The Major, however, had always been something of a

thorn in the side of various Headquarters, and seldom hesitated to speak

his mind both to, and of, Colonels and Generals and Staff officers

generally. For this reason, and also for others, I consider that he

deserved a D.S.O. a great deal more than many who received one.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE FIRST BRITISH BATTERY UP THE MOUNTAINS

The Major's words were soon to come true, after many of those delays and

conflicting orders of which the victims of war time "Staff work" have

profuse experience. On the 7th of January we moved up the mountains into

the position previously selected near Casa Girardi. We were the first

British Battery to go up. Two others and a Brigade Headquarters were to

follow, when it had been seen how we got on. When in doubt, try it on

the dog!

It began to snow as we came into Marostica, and we had great difficulty

with the lorries even on gentle gradients. The roads were frozen hard

and in places very slippery. We managed, however, to reach Casa Girardi

before nightfall and found that our advance party had put up some wooden

huts, and cut some trees for fuel. All that night the snow came down in

clouds, but the next day, and the next few following, were very fine.

The sun shone all day long from a cold, cloudless sky upon a waste of

flashing snow, with here and there trees sticking out of it, and strange

red morning lights in the sky behind it, and sweeping winds across it,

and in the sunset the white hillsides slowly changed to a mauve pink. It

was a scene of wonderful beauty. But the temperature was ten degrees

below zero one day at noon, and the next day twenty-four below zero at 9

a.m. and nine above zero at noon.

These conditions were disconcerting to good shooting, the lower

temperatures not having been contemplated by those who compiled our

range table in England. But we got all four guns satisfactorily

registered by the second day, to the evident pleasure of the Italian

Colonel under whose command we were temporarily placed. This man had a

somewhat ferocious appearance and a reputation for great rudeness, both

to his superiors and his subordinates in the military hierarchy. It was

said that, but for this, he would long ago have been a General. To us,

however, he showed his politer side, patting the Major on the back and

repeating several times "buon sistema, buon sistema!"

The physical discomfort of those early days was great, but we were full

of buoyancy and health. Everything froze hard during the night, one's

boots, one's clothing, if damp when taken off, the ink in one's fountain

pen. In the morning water poured into a basin froze hard in a couple of

minutes and the lather froze on one's face before one had time to shave.

The Major, breaking through one of the most fundamental traditions of

the British Army, announced that no one need shave more than once in

three days. The morning after our arrival we had a discouraging

breakfast. No fire could be got to burn and no tea had been made. There

was nothing to eat except a few very hard ration biscuits and some eggs

boiled hard the night before, and now frozen through and through. One

cracked the shell and found icicles beneath, and miserably held

fragments of egg in one's mouth until they thawed!

But gradually, by patient work and organisation, these early troubles

were surmounted. The whole Battery had been provided with Italian

greatcoats and other Italian mountain equipment,--white Alpine boots

lined with fur, alpenstocks, spiked snow grips, which could be fastened

on to one's boots like skates, and white clothing to put on over the top

of everything else, to render us invisible against a snowy background. I

used to hear some amusing comments in the Battery on our Alpine

situation. "This is the sort of thing you see pictures of in books,

but...!" "I suppose folks would pay quids in peace time to see this!"

"Why, it's like a blooming Cook's tour!"

Being the first of the British who had been seen in these parts, we were

objects of great interest to the Italians, who used to collect in crowds

to watch our guns firing. We became great friends with the members of a

mixed Mess not far away, consisting of two Anti-aircraft Batteries and

the personnel in charge of a large ammunition dump. Between this Mess

and our own there were frequent exchanges of hospitality.

One day an Italian General's car skidded into a ditch close to our

position. We supplied a party of men to get it out again and the

General, thanking us, asked if there was anything we wanted. The Major

told him that we should like two or three more huts and two good stoves

for cooking. A few days later these were delivered by the Italian

authorities. Our own Brigade Commander, who had now followed us up the

mountains with his two other Batteries, noticed these things and asked

how we had come by them. When we told him, he seemed displeased, and

next day we got an official letter to inform us that "it has come to

notice that British units have in some cases recently been approaching

the Italian authorities direct.... This practice is irregular and must

cease.... Indents must be submitted through the proper channels." We

smiled and obeyed. But we kept our huts and stoves which were better

than any which we should have been likely to get "through the proper

channels."

We were very short of water except snow water, there being only one

waterpoint for all troops within several miles. Here there was a long

queue waiting most of the day. It is probably not generally known that

it takes ten dixies full of snow, when melted down, to make one dixie

full of water. For this and for hygienic reasons snow water was not much

use to us. We were not at this time required to fire very much, but we

were warned to get acquainted with the surrounding country, as an action

of some importance might be coming off before long. This provided the

occasion for several reconnaissances.

On January 15th the Major and I went up Monte Costahmga, a few miles to

the west. It was a ziz-zag, scrambling track, and it was thawing enough

to make everything rather unpleasant. But we gained some, useful new

knowledge.

On the 24th, Jeune, together with an Italian officer, a telephonist and

myself made a long day of it. Starting early, we were on the top of

Costalunga about 9 o'clock, were given a guide by an Italian Field

Battery on the summit and went on, along a mountain road commanding a

magnificent view, to Cima Echar. Here was a good O.P. from which I got

my first sight of Monte Sisemol and Asiago, of which part of the

_campanile_ was at that time still standing. But it was brought down by

Italian shell fire very soon afterwards. I remember thinking that the

whole Asiago Plateau should be easy to retake, if we only brought up

enough guns. Later on I began to realise that it would not be as easy as

it looked.

It was impossible to get telephonic communication with the Battery from

Cima Echar, so we could not, as we had hoped, do from there some

registrations on wire and trench junctions on Sisemol, which were among

our allotted targets. We therefore went back to Costalunga, where the

Italian Field and Mountain Batteries along the crest were firing away

with great vigour, and after an excellent lunch, which had been

hospitably prepared for us, went down again into the valley and walked

several miles further west to Monte Tondo.

I noticed at lunch, as on several other occasions lately, a change in

the Italian attitude to good weather. They no longer hoped that it would

break and so prevent further Austrian offensives. They hoped it would

continue and so permit offensives of their own. Their morale was rapidly

rising. We had, indeed, received the previous day the artillery portion

of an elaborate offensive plan, but no date had yet been fixed for it.

We climbed up Monte Tondo and down the other side and made our way to an

O.P. in a front line trench. For fifty yards of the way there was a

break in the trench line and we had to run across the open through

knee-deep snow. But the Austrians didn't fire. From this O.P. we had

again a fine view of Asiago and the country round it. After delays

connected with the telephone, we succeeded in registering two targets.

While we were firing, all the woods and houses grew rosy in the sunset.

It was dark when we finished. We went back with a Major of the Pisa

Brigade, a quiet, spare little man, of great energy and exhausting speed

of movement. He gave us coffee and showed us maps at his Brigade

Headquarters and then sent us on to the Regimental Headquarters, further

down the hill, where they gave us rum punch, believing, as all Italians

do, that an Englishman is never happy unless he is drinking alcohol. We

got back to the Battery in the moonlight.

On January 27th the long expected action began, and our Brigade lost one

of its best officers, who was hit in the head in the front line O.P. on

Monte Tondo. His steel helmet and the skill of Italian doctors just

saved his life, but he was permanently out of the war. The Italians put

their best doctors right forward in the advanced dressing stations. All

that day we bombarded enemy Batteries and cross roads and barbed wire.

Next morning the Italian Infantry carried Col Valbella and Col d'Echele

by assault. The day after they took also Col del Rosso, and beat back

very heavy counter-attacks. The Sassari Brigade and a Brigade of

Bersaglieri specially distinguished themselves. It was an important and

useful success. It considerably improved our line between the Asiago

Plateau and Val Brenta, it deprived the enemy of the secure use of the

Val Frenzela, and it was the first offensive operation of any importance

undertaken by the Italians since the great retreat. Its success went to

prove that the Italian Army had been effectively reorganised, and that

its morale was again high.

From my sleeping hut and from the Battery Command Post I used to hear

for days afterwards the Italian Infantry singing in great choruses, far

into the night. There was triumph in their songs, and there was ribaldry

and there was longing. I thought I knew what dreams were in their

hearts, and, if I was right, those dreams were also mine.

The advance left us a long way behind the new front line, and we

expected to move our guns forward; indeed we selected and asked to be

allowed to occupy a very good position behind Montagna Nuova. But this

was not allowed, and we stayed where we were for another six weeks. It

snowed a great deal and we fired very little. But we had plenty to do to

keep pathways dug between the guns and the huts; often we had to clear

these afresh every hour.

During this time I made the acquaintance of several interesting

Italians and Frenchmen. Among these was Colonel Bucci, who had been

attached the year before to the Staff of one of the British Armies in

France. He was now in command of a Regiment of Field Artillery,

including a group of Batteries known as the Garibaldian Batteries, which

were always placed at their own request in the most forward positions. I

heard that, when he took over this command, he sent for all his officers

and said, "Now here we are, some old men and some young men and two or

three boys, and we are all here for the same purpose and I hope we shall

all be always the best of good friends. But, as a matter of convenience,

someone has got to be in command of the others, and I have been chosen

because I am the oldest."

He used to tell an amusing story of an encounter he had in France with a

British officer from one of the Dominions, who walked into his bedroom

late one night, after a liberal consumption of liquor, and said he

"wanted the fire" and asked if Bucci was "that Portuguese." Bucci,

having persuasively but vainly asked him to go away, got out of bed and

genially taking him by the shoulders,--he is a powerful man,--ran him

out into the passage. Whereat the British officer, surprised and

protesting, said, "You have no business to treat me like that. Don't you

see that I am a Major and have three decorations?" pointing to his left

breast. "Yes," said Bucci, "and I am a Colonel, and I have some

decorations too, but I don't wear them on my nighty, and I want to go to

sleep."

He had been in Gorizia before Caporetto, and had kept, as a melancholy

souvenir, the maps showing the line of his own Regiment's retreat. "I

call it the Via Crucis," he said. "I want to go back. I want to see an

advance across the Piave with Cavalry and Field Artillery. I want to

advance at the gallop. I have applied to be sent down there." He was a

natural leader of men, and I felt that I would willingly follow him

anywhere.

We saw a good deal too of the officers of a French Observation Balloon.

One of their officers was a tall man, promoted from the ranks, with big

upturned moustaches, a delightful smile and twinkling eyes. He smoked

more cigars than any man I have ever met. He smoked them, like some men

smoke cigarettes, one after another all the evening, with no interval

between. He came from Marseilles. Another was from Auvergne, always most

elegantly dressed. He never smoked at all, for he was very proud of his

white teeth. He spoke Italian and German, but no English. A third was a

little blonde Alsatian business man. He was usually rather quiet, but

one evening I saw him roused, when someone had said something that

displeased him about Alsace. Then he showed us that he could be eloquent

when he chose.

They are very implacable, these Frenchmen. Undoubtedly Clemenceau spoke

in their name, when he said, "my war aim is victory." Another Frenchman

said to me once, "when Clemenceau is speaking, no one dares to

interrupt, for they know it is the voice of the soldier at the Front

speaking." And one can scarcely wonder that they are implacable. In

Alsace-Lorraine and in the occupied territories of Northern France, they

say that it is known with complete certainty that the daughters and

wives and widows of many French officers and men have been compelled to

take up their abode in brothels, and there to await at all hours of the

day and night the visits of their country's enemies. Is it surprising

that certain French Regiments, knowing these things, never take

prisoners? And can one fail to admire, even if one does not

unconditionally agree with, the soldier who would fight on and on, until

everyone has been killed, rather than accept anything less than a

complete victory?

It is all but impossible for a foreigner to measure the spiritual

effects upon a proudly and self-consciously civilised Frenchman of these

unpardonable, brain-rending, heart-stabbing provocations. But the

statesman at home who, drawing good pay and living in comfort far behind

the Front, is ever ready to declare that his country "shall continue to

bleed in her glory" is a less admirable spectacle. It is his business to

conceive some subtler and more comprehensive war aim than bare military

victory, and to make sure that, when he has died safely in his bed and

been forgotten, other men shall not have to do over again the work which

he complacently bungled. A fighting soldier, who risks his life daily,

may speak brave words, which are indecent on the lips of an _imboscato_,

whether military or civilian.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE ASIAGO PLATEAU

About the middle of March the British Divisions moved up from the

Montello to the Asiago Plateau, and all the British Heavy Artillery was

concentrated in the Asiago sector. We, therefore, moved six miles to the

west and found ourselves in support of British, and no longer of

Italian, Infantry. Our Brigade ceased to be a "trench-punching" and

became a "counter-battery" Brigade. Most of our work in future was to be

in close co-operation with our own Air Force.

My Battery was destined to remain here, with two short interludes, for

seven months. It was in many ways a very interesting sector. The British

held the line between the Italians on their left and the French on their

right. To the right of the French were more Italians. The move had

amusing features. One compared the demeanour of the lorry drivers of

different nationalities. The scared faces of some of the British the

first time they had to come up the hundred odd corkscrew turns on the

mountain roads, taking sidelong glances at bird's eye views of distant

towns and rivers on the plain below, were rather comical. Even the

self-consciously efficient and outwardly imperturbable French stuck like

limpets to the centre of the road, and would not give an inch to Staff

cars, hooting their guts out behind them. The Italian drivers, on the

other hand, accustomed to the mountains, dashed round sharp corners at

full speed, avoiding innumerable collisions by a fraction of an inch,

terrifying and infuriating their more cautious Allies. But I only once

saw a serious collision here in the course of many months.

The Asiago Plateau is some eight miles long from west to east, with an

average breadth of two to three miles from north to south. On it lie a

number of villages and small towns, of which the largest is Asiago

itself, which lies at the eastern end of the Plateau and before the war

had a population of about 8000. Asiago was the terminus of a light

railway, running down the mountains to Schio. The chief occupation of

the inhabitants of the Plateau had been wood-cutting and pasture. In

Asiago were several sawmills and a military barracks. Army manoeuvres

used often to take place in this area, which gave special opportunities

for the combined practice of mountain fighting and operations on the

flat. It was moreover within seven miles of the old Austrian frontier.

Asiago was hardly known before the war to foreign tourists, but many

Italians used to visit it, especially for winter sports.

Across the Plateau from north to south ran the Val d'Assa, which near

the southern edge, having become only a narrow gulley, turned away

westwards, the Assa stream flowing finally into the river Astico. The

Ghelpac stream, which flowed through the town of Asiago, joined the Assa

at its western turn. Apart from these two streams the Plateau was not

well watered. In summer, when the snows had melted, water was even

scarcer on the surrounding mountains. All our drinking water had to be

pumped up through pipes from the plain.

The Plateau was bounded at its eastern end by Monte Sisemol, which

stands at the head of the Val Frenzela, which, in turn, runs eastward

into the Val Brenta near the little town of Valstagna. Sisemol was of no

great height and was not precipitous. It had a rounded brown top, when

the snow uncovered it. But it was a maze of wire and trenches, and a

very strong point militarily. There had been very bitter fighting for

its possession last November and it had remained in Austrian hands.

At the western end the Plateau was bounded by the descent to the Val

d'Astico. On the northern side of the Plateau rose a formidable mountain

range, the chief heights of which, from west to east, were Monte

Campolungo, Monte Erio, Monte Mosciagh and Monte Longara. This range was

thickly wooded with pines, among which our guns did great damage. I

always more regretted the destruction of trees than of uninhabited

houses, for the latter can be the more quickly replaced. This range was

pierced by only four valleys, through each of which ran roads vital to

the Austrian system of communications, the Val Campomulo, the Val di

Nos, the Val d'Assa and the Val di Martello. The Austrians had also a

few roads over the top of the mountains, but these were less good and

less convenient.

Along the southern side of the Plateau ran another ridge, less

mountainous than the ridge to the north, and completely in our

possession. This ridge also was thickly wooded, and pierced by only a

few valleys and roads. The road we came to know best was the

continuation of the wonderful road up from the plain, through Granezza

to the cross-roads at Pria dell' Acqua, and on through the Baerenthal

Valley to San Sisto. Thence it led through the front line trenches into

the town of Asiago itself. At Pria dell' Acqua, a most misleading name,

where there was no water, but only a collection of wooden huts, another

road branched off westwards, running parallel to the front line, behind

the southern ridge of the Plateau.

The Italian Engineers had created a magnificent network of roads in this

sector of the Front. Before the war there had been only one road into

Asiago from the plain. Now there were half a dozen, all broad and with a

fine surface, capable of taking any traffic. And, in addition, there

were many transverse roads, equally good, joining up and cutting across

the main routes at convenient points.

When the British troops took over this sector in March, the whole

Plateau, properly so called, was in Austrian hands. It had been taken

last November in the mountain offensive which followed Caporetto. At one

perilous moment the Austrians had held San Sisto and their patrols had

passed Pria dell' Acqua, but they had been thrown back by Italian

counter-attacks to the line they now held. Our front line ran along the

southern edge of the Plateau, and, on the right, along the lower slopes

of the southern ridge, just inside the pine woods. On the left, further

west, it ran mostly on the flat and more in the open. Where the Val

d'Assa turned west, our front line ran on one side of the shallow gulley

and the Austrian on the other. The Austrian front line was completely in

the open. The first houses of Asiago were only a few hundred yards

behind it.

From the defensive point of view our line was very strong, and the

trenches, particularly at the eastern end, very good, deeply blasted in

the rock. The wooded ridge, running close behind our front line all the

way, completely hid from the enemy all movement in our rear. He could

get no observation here except by aircraft. Even movements in our front

line, owing to the trees, were largely invisible at a distance, and,

owing to the lie of the ground, large parts of No Man's Land could be

seen from our own trenches, but from nowhere in the enemy's lines, with

the result that we were able to post machine guns, trench mortars and

even, for a short time, a field battery there, without being detected,

until these weapons had served their immediate purpose. Our systems of

transport, supply and reliefs of the troops in the line could,

therefore, be carried out at any hour of the day or night with almost

complete disregard of the enemy. His intermittent shelling of the roads

was perfectly blind and haphazard and seldom did us any damage.

He, on the other hand, was in a very undesirable situation. Not only was

his front line all the way in full view from our various ground O.P.'s,

but a long stretch of flat country several miles broad behind his front

line was equally in view. Only a few small folds in the ground were

invisible from all points along our ridge. We could see also most of the

nearer slopes of the northern ridge, though here the thick woods and

breaks in the hillside gave him greater opportunities for concealment.

Taking into account, therefore, ground observation only, we had him at a

tremendous disadvantage. He dared not move nor show himself in daylight

behind his line, and was compelled to carry out all his supply and troop

movements at night, or during fogs that might lift at any moment. One

French Battery did no other work except sweep up and down his roads

throughout the hours of darkness, and it is obvious that the probable

damage done in this way was far greater than anything he could hope to

do to us.

Taking into account the possibilities of observation from the air, the

balance in our favour became even greater. We had a strong superiority

in the air, whenever it was worth our while to enforce it, partly

because our airmen were individually superior to the Austrians, and

partly because we had more and better machines. Our pilots often flew

over the northern ridge, both to observe and to bomb, but the enemy

seldom crossed the southern ridge. His anti-aircraft Batteries were,

however, at least as good as ours, and, in my opinion, better.

Most of our pre-arranged counter-battery shoots were carried out with

aeroplane observation against enemy Batteries situated in the thick

woods on the slopes of the northern ridge, the airman flying backwards

and forwards over the target and sending us his observations by

wireless. But it was often necessary to spend more than half of the four

hundred rounds allotted to a normal counter-battery shoot in destroying

the trees round the target, before the airman could get a good view of

it. Flying, however, was always difficult on the Plateau, especially

during the winter, and more difficult for our men than for theirs, since

there were no feasible landing-places behind our lines. Our nearest

aerodromes were down on the plain, and a big expenditure of petrol was

required to get the airman up the mountains and actually over the

Plateau, and also to get him down again. The time during which he could

keep in the air for observation was, therefore, very limited. Weather

conditions on the Plateau, moreover, were often very unfavourable for

flying even in the spring and summer. The practical importance of our

superiority in the air was thus smaller than might have been expected.

From the defensive point of view, then, our position was pretty strong.

But the sector was important and might at any time become critical, and

much depended upon its successful defence. For the mountain wall that

guarded the Italian plain had been worn very thin in this neighbourhood

by the Austrian successes of last year. An Austrian advance of another

few miles would bring the enemy over the edge of the mountains, with the

plain beneath in full view. Further defence would then become extremely

difficult and costly, and the whole situation, as regards relative

superiority of positions and observation, now so greatly in our favour,

would be more than reversed. We were too near the edge to have any elbow

room or freedom of manoeuvre. Our present positions were almost the last

that we could hope to hold without very grave embarrassment. It would

have seemed evident, then, that to obtain more elbow room and security,

we should not be content with a defensive policy, but should aim at

gaining ground and thickening the mountain wall by means of an early

local offensive, even if larger operations were not yet practicable.

But, from the offensive point of view, our position presented great

difficulties. To make only a small advance would leave us worse off

than now. Merely to go out into the middle of the Plateau, merely to

reoccupy the ruins of Asiago, would be futile, except for a very slight

and transitory "moral effect." To carry the whole Plateau and establish

a line along the lower slopes of the northern ridge would be no better.

We should only be taking over the difficulties of the enemy in respect

of his exposed positions, while he would escape from these difficulties

and obtain an immunity from observation nearly as great as that which we

now possessed. No offensive would benefit us which did not give us, at

the very least, the whole of the crest of the northern ridge. And to aim

at this would be a big and risky undertaking, involving perhaps heavy

casualties and large reserves. We had only three British Divisions in

Italy at this time, the 7th, 23rd and 48th, two of which were always in

the line and one in reserve. The French had now only two Divisions in

Italy and the Italians, when the German advance in France became

serious, had sent to France more men than there were French and British

left in Italy. The large fact remained that, since the military collapse

of Russia the previous year, the Austrians had brought practically their

whole Army on to the Italian Front and established a large superiority

over the Italians, both in numbers and in guns. Considerable Italian

reserves had to be kept mobile and ready to meet an Austrian offensive

anywhere along the mountain front or on the plain. There was not likely

to be much that could be safely spared to back up a Franco-British

offensive on the Plateau. None the less, the value of a successful

offensive here was recognised to be so great, that it was several times

on the point of being attempted in the months that followed. But it did

not finally come, until events elsewhere had prepared the way and sapped

the enemy's power of resistance.

This, however, is anticipating history. In March, when we first arrived,

we moved into a Battery position in the pine woods behind the rear slope

of the southern ridge. Our right hand gun was only a hundred yards from

the cross-roads at Pria dell' Acqua, disagreeably close, as we

afterwards discovered. For the enemy had those cross-roads "absolutely

taped," as the expression went. In other respects the Battery position

was a good one. Being an old Italian position, it had gun pits already

blasted in the rock, though they were not quite suited to our guns and

line of fire, and we had to do some more blasting for ourselves. In the

course of this, a premature explosion occurred, wounding one of our

gunners so severely that he lost one leg and the sight of both his eyes

and a few days later, perhaps fortunately, died of other injuries. He

was a Cornishman, very young and very popular with every one in the

Battery. We missed him greatly. In this same accident Winterton was also

injured, and nearly lost an eye. He went to Hospital and thence to

England, and saw no more of the war, for the sight of his eye came back

to him but slowly.

The Italians had also blasted some good _caverne_ in the position, and

these we gradually enlarged and multiplied, till we had cover for the

whole Battery. Being on the side of a hill, and our guns not constructed

to fire at a greater elevation than forty-five degrees (the Italians had

fired at "super-elevations" up to eighty), we had to cut down many trees

in front of the guns. But this clearance hardly showed in aeroplane

photographs, as there were already many bare patches in the woods. We

had perfect flash-cover behind the ridge and were, indeed, quite

invisible, when the guns were camouflaged, even to an aeroplane flying

low and immediately overhead. From our position we could shoot, if

necessary, right over the top of the northern ridge, on the other side

of the Plateau. And this was good enough for most purposes.

We prepared another position, which was known as the "Forward" or

"Battle Position," at San Sisto, about four hundred yards behind the

front line. This position we never occupied, but we should have done so,

if an offensive had come from our side while we were still on the

Plateau. San Sisto, I was told, was once the centre of a leper

reservation. There is a little chapel there, but no other buildings.

This chapel was used by the R.A.M.C. as a First Aid Post. One day I saw

a shell go clean through the roof of it, but there was no one inside at

the time.

The Battery O.P. was a glorious place, up a tall pine tree on the summit

of Cima del Taglio, a high point to the east of the Granezza--Pria dell'

Acqua road. This O.P. had been built by the French. It was reached by a

strong pinewood ladder, with a small platform half way up as a

resting-place. The O.P. itself consisted of a wooden platform, nailed to

cross pieces, supported on two trees. It was about fifteen feet long and

four feet broad and some ninety feet above the ground. At one end of the

platform a hut had been erected, with a long glass window, opening

outward, on the northern side, and a small fixed glass window on the

western. The other end of the platform was uncovered. When the weather

was bad one could shelter in the hut and imagine oneself out at sea, as

the trees swayed in the wind. The O.P. was well hidden from the enemy by

the branches of the trees. The view was superb. Immediately below the

thick pine forest sloped gradually downwards, the trees still carrying a

heavy weight of snow. Among the trees patches of deep snow were visible,

hiding rocky ground. Beyond lay the Plateau, studded with villages and

isolated houses, with the ruins of Asiago in the centre of the view,

and, to the left of it, the light railway line and its raised

embankment, along which the Austrian trenches ran. And beyond, more

pinewoods on the northern ridge, and beyond, more mountains, one snowy

range behind another, up to the horizon. The visibility was often poor

and variable from one minute to another. Great clouds used to sweep low

over the Plateau, blotting out everything but the nearest trees, and

then sweep past, and Asiago would come into sudden view again, and the

sun would shine forth once more upon the little clusters of white

houses, some utterly wrecked, some mere shells, others as yet hardly

touched by the destruction of war. The prosaic name of this O.P. was

"Claud."

There was another O.P. called Ascot, which we used sometimes to man at

the beginning. It was on, or rather in, Monte Kaberlaba, just behind the

front line, approached through a communication trench and then a long

tunnel through the rock, named by our troops the Severn Tunnel. This

tunnel was full of water and many worse things, and it was impossible to

clean it out properly. The unfortunate telephonists off duty had to

live and sleep in it. The O.P. was a cramped, little, stinking place at

the far end of the tunnel, shared with the Italians, undoubtedly visible

and well known to the enemy, and with practically no view. The Major, by

his usual skilful diplomacy, soon arranged that we should man Claud

permanently, but Ascot never.

My only pleasant recollection of Ascot is that once, about midnight, as

we were keeping watch together, a young Italian gunner from the Romagna

sang to me.

"'Addio, mia bell', addio!'

Cantava nel partir la gioventù,

Mentre gl' imboscati si stavano

Divertire, giornale in mano

E la sigaretta.

Per noi l'assalto

Alla baionetta!

Come le mosche noi dobbiam morir,

Mentre gl' imboscati si stanno a divertir."[1]

[Footnote 1:

"Good-bye, my darling, good-bye!"

Sang the young men as they went away,

While the imboscati were standing about

To amuse themselves, with a newspaper in their hand

And a cigarette.

For us the bayonet charge!

Like flies we must die.

While the imboscati stand about to amuse themselves.

This is one of many front line versions of a patriotic drawing-room

song. It has an admirable tune.]

He sang me also another longer song, composed by a friend of his, which

is not fit for reproduction.

* * * * *

We experienced great variations of weather on the Plateau. When we first

arrived in March the snow was in full thaw, and every road a sunlit,

rushing torrent. We climbed about at that time in gum boots. Later it

snowed again heavily and often. Sometimes for several days running we

were enveloped in a thick mist, and then suddenly it would clear away.

Once, I remember, it cleared at night, and one saw the full moon rising

through the pine trees into an utterly clear, ice-cold sky, and under

one's feet the hard snow scrunched and glittered in the moonlight.

British, French and Italian Batteries were all mixed together in this

sector. On our left came first another British Battery, then two French,

one in front of the road and one behind it, then another British, then

an Italian. On our right, slightly more forward, the Headquarters of an

Italian Heavy Artillery Group, in front of them a British and an Italian

Battery, one on each side of the road leading past Kaberlaba to the

front line. To the right of the Italian Headquarters, across the San

Sisto road, was a French Battery, with two Italian Batteries in front of

it. To our own right rear was one Italian Battery and two French, and in

rear of them, back along the road to Granezza, our own Brigade

Headquarters.

This mixture was a good arrangement, stimulating friendly rivalry and

facilitating _liaison_ and exchange of ideas. Our relations were

specially cordial with the Italian-Group Headquarters and with one of

the French Batteries on our left. The Italian Major commanding this

Group was a Mantuan and he and I became firm friends. It was in his Mess

one night, in reply to the toast of the Allies, that I made my first

after-dinner speech in Italian. I do not claim that it was grammatically

perfect, but all that I said was, I think, well understood, and I was

in no hesitation for words.

Not till the end of May did Spring really climb the mountains, and the

snow finally vanish, and then the days, apart from the facts of war,

were perfect, blue sky and sunshine all day long among the warm aromatic

pines and the freshness of the mountain air. Here and there, in

clearings in the forest, were patches of thick, rich grass, making a

bright contrast to the dull, dark green of the pines, and in the grass

arose many-coloured wild flowers.

The Italians have buried their dead up here in little groups among the

trees, and not in great graveyards. There was one such little group on

the hillside in the middle of our Battery position, between two of our

gunpits. There was another in the middle of our forward position at San

Sisto, and another, where some thirty Bersaglieri and Artillerymen were

buried, in the Baerenthal Valley. It was here one day that an Irish

Major, newly come to Italy, said to me, "I don't want any better grave

than that." Nor did I. It was a place of marvellous and eternal beauty,

ever changing with the seasons. It made one's heart ache to be in the

midst of it. It was hither that they brought in the months that followed

many of the British dead, who fell in this sector, and laid them beside

the Italians, at whose graves we had looked that day.

CHAPTER XXX

SOME NOTES ON NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS

For a week or two in May an Italian Engineer officer messed with us. He

had a sleeping hut on the hill just behind us, and was in charge of a

party of men who were working on British Field Artillery positions. His

men were on British rations and did not altogether like them. They would

have preferred more bread and less meat and jam, and they missed their

coffee. Our tea they did not fancy. The first time it was issued to

them, they thought it was medicine. "Why do the English give us

_'camomila'_?" they asked their officer, "we are not ill!"

* * * * *

I have had, at one time and another, much gay and delightful intercourse

both with Frenchmen and Italians, which has led me to certain

speculative comparisons and to many dangerous generalisations, some of

which I will venture tentatively to set down here. But it is difficult

to find forms of words which are not mere journalism.

Italian humour is more primitive and uproarious than French, and the

Italians seem to present fewer barriers to intimacy, but the proportion

of rational discussion is larger in the conversation of the French. Both

the French and the Italians combine natural and easy good manners with

great punctiliousness in small matters of etiquette. Only very arrogant

or very boorish people find it difficult to get on well with either.

It is idle for any wideawake observer to deny that a certain antipathy

exists between the French and the Italians. Both, I think, generally

prefer the British to their Latin brothers, and I have heard both say

unjust and absurdly untrue things about the other. Their antipathy is

rooted partly in temperament, partly in history, and partly in that

ignorance and lack of understanding which accounts for nine-tenths of

all international antipathies. As Charles Lamb said, in an anecdote

which President Wilson is fond of quoting, "I cannot hate a man I know."

It is sometimes said that the French and the Italians are too much alike

to be in perfect sympathy. The Frenchman has at times an instinct to be

what an Englishman would call "theatrical," which instinct the

Englishman himself hardly possesses at all. But in the Italian this

instinct is even stronger than in the Frenchman, and he gives it freer

play. Thus the Frenchman often notices the Italian doing and saying

things which he himself dislikes, but which it needs a deliberate effort

of self-repression on his part not to imitate. The Englishman has no

inclination to do and say such things, and is, therefore, more tolerant

of them than the Frenchman, thinking them either charming or merely

"queer," according to his temperament.

If the French are the more admirable, the Italians are the more lovable;

if the French are the more creative, the Italians are the more

receptive. In the French, though not so much in the Italians, one does

find that "sheer brutality of the Latin intellect," which, since the

French Revolution, has dethroned many previously dominant ideas and

institutions. One finds in the French a tradition of limpid precision,

of concise and ordered logic, while the Italians are still groping

rather turgidly among those great abstract ideas which the French handle

so easily. The spirit of France shines with the hard splendour of the

noonday sun, of Italy with the soft radiance of the light of early

mornings and late afternoons.

The French are proud and sometimes intolerant, the Italians tolerant and

often diffident. It has been truly said that in every modern Frenchman

there is still something Napoleonic, however subconscious it may have

become. One could never be surprised if, in the midst of conversation, a

Frenchman should suddenly draw himself up and cry "Vive la France,

monsieur!" But one does not expect an Italian in like circumstances to

cry "Viva l'Italia!" In general, the French are the more tenacious and

clear-visioned in adversity, but none are more irresistible in success,

nor more conscious of its drama, than the Italians.

The low birth-rate of France, as compared with Italy, is a fact of deep

and permanent importance. In years to come the French will grow more and

more negligible, numerically, in world politics, but the French spirit

is immortal and unconquerable. It will penetrate the hearts of the best

men for ever, and ideas characteristically and originally French will

continue to mould the world's thought and action till the end of time.

The Italians on the other hand will play in future history a greater

part numerically, and moreover, by a greater intermarriage with other

races, will continue to produce fine and generous human types, not

wholly Italian. Italians will continue to show a shining example to the

world by reason of their gaiety and charm of character, their mental

subtlety, which with time will grow less involved and more lucid in

expression, by their art of life, even now not much inferior to the

French, by their sensitiveness to beauty, by their capacity for

enthusiastic appreciation, and by their technical genius in applied

science.

Italy is a naturally democratic and peaceable polity, and her present

imperfections will diminish rapidly with the increase of her national

maturity and stability. She will be a sane and healthy element in the

future international order.

In some respects, as in their indifference, sometimes excessive, to

foreign opinion, the French resemble the British, just as, in their

excessive sensitiveness on this point, the Italians resemble the

Americans. This is the contrast between age and youth, between nations

with a continuous tradition of centuries behind them and nations born or

reborn only yesterday.

There remains the larger contrast between the Latins on the one hand and

the Anglo-Saxons on the other. At first sight it is the latter who are

the more realistic and the more practical, the former who are the more

effusive, idealistic and poetical. But, as Mr Norman Douglas admirably

puts it in _South Wind_, "Enclosed within the soft imagination of the

_homo Mediterraneus_ lies a kernel of hard reason. The Northerner's

hardness is on the surface; his core, his inner being, is apt to quaver

in a state of fluid irresponsibility." The comparative method of

approach to the institution of marriage among Latins and among

Anglo-Saxons illustrates this truth. And it serves also, perhaps, for an

example that, in the midst of the terrors of war, the dim project of a

League of Nations, the only hope of the world, first took shape in the

minds of Anglo-Saxon dreamers and not of Latin realists. The Latin often

thinks more clearly, but not always more profoundly, than the

Anglo-Saxon. The currents on the surface are not always the same as the

currents in the deep.

CHAPTER XXXI

ROME IN THE SPRING

I was at Rome in May. Of the many things and persons I saw there, not

much is relevant here. But there is an intoxication and a beauty and a

sense of wonder in Rome in the Spring, as great as I have found at any

time elsewhere. Rome grew upon me, rapidly and ceaselessly, during the

few days that I spent there, and sent me back to the mountains, clothed

with their pinewoods and their graves of much brave youth, uplifted in

heart and purified in spirit.

* * * * *

Early one afternoon in the Piazza Venezia I fell in with two Italian

officers, an Alpino and an Engineer, both wounded and not yet fit to go

back to the Front. We rapidly made friends, and, having drunk beer

together, we took a carrozza and drove to the Villa Borghese Gardens,

where we walked and sat for several hours. Then we went back to the

Piazza Venezia, and walked in the neighbourhood and contemplated the

monuments. My friends said that Rome was the capital city of the world,

and praised also the giant memorial to Italian Unity and Victor Emmanuel

II., which, still unfinished, dominates the Piazza, and indeed a large

part of the city. This memorial is, I believe, condemned by the greater

part of foreign aesthetic opinion, the Germans alone conspicuously

dissenting. Personally I like it in the fading light from close at hand,

and in a bright light from a distance, as one sees it, for instance,

from the Pincio.

We spoke a little, but not much, of the war. They were both for fighting

on till final victory, whatever the cost, and both spoke with admiration

of the inflexible and stubborn spirit of the British nation. Very

wonderful too is the spirit which animates the Alpini. My Alpino friend

had been wounded in the leg last August at Rombon, and still walked

lame. He told me of incidents which he had witnessed, of Alpini charging

across and through uncut enemy wire, with the wounded and the dying

crying to their comrades, "Ciao![1] Ciao! Avanti!" He sang me also

certain songs of the Alpini, in one of which they sing that in the

Italian tricolour the green stands for the Alpini,[2] the white for the

snow on their mountains and the red for their blood. O these "fiamme

verdi," who can talk and sing themselves into such transfigured

ecstasies, as to turn, death and pain almost into easy glories!

[Footnote 1: "Ciao" is a colloquialism, much the same as our own "so

long," or "good-bye and good luck!" It is an intimate word, used only

between friends at parting.]

[Footnote 2: The regimental colours of the Alpini are plain green, worn

on the collar.]

The three of us dined at a little restaurant near the Pantheon, and my

friends wrote their names and a greeting to my wife on a post card, and

an old man at the next table ordered a bottle of wine, in which we all

drank the health of the Allies, and a party at another table began to

sing, and went on singing for nearly an hour. We stayed in that

restaurant talking till eleven p.m., when the lights were turned out,

and then my friends demanded that we should make another "giro

artistico," which terminated beneath Trajan's Column, where in the warm

air we sat and talked for half an hour more, and separated about

midnight, I having had eight hours of continuous practice in the use of

the second person singular of Italian verbs.

* * * * *

Next day I lunched with my friends the Marinis, at their charming Villa

on Monte Parioli, and in the afternoon Signor Marini offered to act as

my guide to places of interest. We took the tram to the Piazza del

Popolo, which was laid out in 1810 under the French Empire, perfectly

circular and symmetrical, thus differing from the more Italian of Roman

Piazzas, such as the elongated and quite unsymmetrical Piazza di Spagna.

We passed along the broad embankment beside the Tiber and through the

Square of St Peter's. Just outside the gates of the Vatican, my guide

pointed out to me the little shabby building occupied by the Giordano

Bruno Society, symbolic of the brave defiance thrown out, all down the

ages, by poverty and the spirit of freedom and intellectual honesty, in

the face of wealth and power and oppression, intellectual bondage and

the dead weight of tradition.

My guide thought that, out of the wreck of her material defeat and

disaster, Russia would perhaps give a new spiritual religion to the

western world, to take the place of old forms now dead, and historic

organisations which, having lacked the audacity and the wisdom to remain

poor when riches were within easy reach, had now become visibly and

irremediably detached from the life of the people. He did not fear, as

some did for France, a clerical revival in Italy after the war. For the

Italian branch of clerical power had shown itself in the hour of Italy's

deadly peril to be largely lacking in Italian patriotism, and to have

been scheming for the maintenance, if not the expansion, of Austrian

dominion, and, perhaps, for the re-establishment by the aid of Austrian

and German bayonets, or Turkish, if it had been necessary to solicit

them, of the Temporal Power of the Papacy over Italian citizens and

Italian soil. I saw one of the Swiss mercenaries of the Papacy gazing

forth a little contemptuously through a door of the Vatican upon the

secular outer world.