[Copyright, 1918, by THE NEW YORK TIMES Company and CURRENT HISTORY
MAGAZINE]
[SEE MAP OF ITALIAN FRONT, PAGE 15]
_An offensive was launched June 15, 1918, by the Austrians against the
Italians with an army estimated to number 1,000,000 men. The attack
was on a front from the Asiago Plateau to the sea, a distance of
ninety-seven miles. The course of the struggle in the first four days
indicated the failure of the drive. The details of the earlier stages
of the battle are given herewith._
According to statements of prisoners, the Austrian objectives on the
first day of the attack were Bassano, eight miles down the Brenta, and
Treviso, eight miles west of the Piave. The attack along the Piave from
the Venetian lagoons to Montello was aimed at possession of the main
roads leading to Montebelluna, Treviso, and Mestre, five miles west of
Venice, thereby cutting off Venice and thrusting toward the heart of
the Venetian Plain.
In the meantime General Conrad von Hoetendorf's armies from Monte
Grappa to Asiago were to sweep down upon Asolo and Bassano to prevent
the retreat of the 3d Italian Army from the Piave and complete the
march of invasion from the north.
Austria's hopes and aims are reflected very strikingly in an Order
of the Day, dated June 14, compiled from Field Marshal Boroevic's
proclamation and circulated among the troops of the 3d Regiment over
Commander Mitteregger's signature. A copy has just fallen into Italian
hands. It runs as follows:
From the Adige to the Adriatic the Austrian Army descends into the
field against Italy. All the forces and all the material of the
monarchy are for the first time massed against one single enemy as
the outcome of preparations begun many months ago. Tomorrow the
Italian command will learn this tremendous news from the mouths of
our guns. The entire Italian front will be attacked, and to free
himself from our iron grip, which will encircle his whole front,
the enemy would be obliged to engage reserves far vaster than
those at his disposal.
From trench warfare we shall pass to that of movement and shall
occupy a country abounding in victuals and stores of every sort.
Let us therefore press forward resolutely toward the City of
Verona, where a century ago the august founder of our regiment
stood victor against the combined armies of France and Italy.
Today, (June 17,) nevertheless, after forty-eight hours of fighting,
the enemy still is held upon his first lines.
The British forces regained all the positions they held on the eve
of the battle. The French contingents southeast of Asiago on Turcio
Road recaptured Pennar in a bayonet charge and drove the Austrians
back far beyond their starting point. Counterattacking at Cornone, our
allies stopped effectually the enemy's dash toward Valstagna and took
500 prisoners. Fenilon and Moschin Mountains, overlooking the Brenta
Valley, which the enemy overwhelmed in his first onrush, have also
been retaken at the point of the bayonet, with 200 prisoners and forty
machine guns.
Along the Piave enemy masses concentrated, chiefly on the eastern
slopes on Montello and west of San Dona. In both districts passage
across the river was facilitated by a heavy rain of tear shells and
smoke bombs, and amid the smoke pontoons and rafts were taken down
to the water's edge. Three divisions got across from Colfosco and
Ilas, fronting Nervesa, but they were hemmed around at the foot of
Montello, at Fagare and Zenson, where the Austrians had penetrated some
way ahead. The Italians, after thrusting them from the latter place,
encircled some detachments in the river bend.
Croce Village, west of San Dona, was rewon and lost twice over, and
now rests in the possession of Italian bombardiers, Bersagliere, and
cyclist corps. But the best stroke of luck on the Piave occurred in
the Saletto sector. Taking advantage of numerous islets at this point,
where the river is nearly two miles wide, one Hungarian battalion of
the 96th Regiment had safely crossed, and was being quickly followed by
another. Italian gunfire smashed its boats, flinging the occupants into
the water. Many were carried away and drowned in the rapid currents,
while over a thousand survivors, including a Lieutenant Colonel,
a Major, and thirty other officers, out of the haul of 3,000 odd
prisoners taken during the day, were made captives by the Italians at
that spot.
The Austrians employed such a large amount of gases that the whole
battleline was enveloped in dense, impenetrable clouds. Fortunately,
a heavy rain fell in that region, which lessened to some extent the
effects of the gases.
The Italians fought fiercely with great dash, glad to get at the enemy
after so many months of forced inactivity and with an intense desire to
regain the country desecrated by the enemy's invasion.
The Austrians kept the Italians under deadly fire, especially aiming
at their second lines, to prevent the arrival of reinforcements. This
bombardment has small effect in the mountains, as, owing to the limited
number of men one can employ at one time, these are able to protect
themselves in dugouts excavated in the solid rock.
Snow, which is still lying on the mountains, is heaped up into immense
mounds by the bombardment. Italian troops, clothed in white overalls
to prevent their being seen against the whiteness, slowly advanced to
engage the enemy in hand-to-hand fighting.
Despite the rain, the work accomplished by the English and Italian
aviators was above praise. Flying low over the enemy troops, they
brought confusion and terror into their midst, intrepidly engaging the
Austrians in aerial combats, and bringing down in twelve hours many
enemy planes, while also collecting invaluable military information.
The English and French contingents co-operated with the Italians in
perfect accord and a splendid spirit of camaraderie.
Except for lack of secrecy, the Austrians organized this supreme effort
of theirs better than might have been expected. It was well planned
and resolutely delivered. The credit due the Italians is all the
greater for repulsing it completely in many places, containing it in
others, and nowhere allowing it to break through.
The sector on which the enemy gained most ground is on the Piave.
There the Austrians made three principal crossings of the river and
established three bridgeheads or salients into the original Italian
line.
To make this possible they blinded the Italian artillery and airplanes
by using great quantities of smoke shells which covered the river and
the Italian trenches on its bank with a dense black fog. Thus hidden,
the Austrian patrols hurried across the water in boats and on rafts
under no more than a random fire from the defense.
Having reached the western bank they pulled pontoon bridges across
and pushed reinforcements rapidly forward. The most notable of these
crossings was the enemy's penetration in the Montello sector, the
position which the British forces held all last Winter.
This sector is the hinge between the mountain and the Piave sectors;
it stands at the angle where the Piave leaves the mountains and enters
the Venetian Plain. It is an isolated hog's back, 700 feet high in the
middle and seven and a half miles long, running almost east and west,
with the foot of its northern and eastern slopes washed by the river,
its surface undulating, dotted with farms and little woods--an unusual
feature--crossed from north to south by no fewer than twenty-four
roads. The value of Montello to the enemy would have been that it would
dominate from the flank and rear all the Italian positions defending
the line of the Piave in the dead flat plain to the south.
The British, after reconquering the advanced positions, momentarily
abandoned on June 15 with a view of strengthening the line, not only
resisted all Austrian attempts, but counterattacked in a fashion that
caused an Italian superior officer to remark: "They are slamming the
gates of Italy in the face of the invader."
_In a dispatch on June 19 Mr. West recorded the fact that the enemy,
while maintaining pressure on the mountain front and Montello district,
was redoubling his efforts on the Piave especially west of San Dona.
The dispatch continues:_
The Austrian hold of the last-named vicinity, also in the Zenson bend
and at Saint Andrea, southeast of Montello, is being considerably
weakened by the Italian artillery fire and constant counterattacks.
Saint Andrea itself, with the adjacent villages of Giavera, Bavaria,
and Sovilla, has changed hands ten times over. The railroad running
thence toward Montebelluna is hidden under a litter of dead bodies for
a length of several kilometers. The haul of prisoners has risen from
6,000 to 9,000, General Diaz announced last night--an almost unique
fact in an offensive of this nature and undoubtedly the fruit of
Italy's immediate readiness for an energetic reaction.
Stupendous acts of heroism are recorded. Gunners of an Alpine regiment
stationed at the foot of Montello Hill, after being twice driven from
their batteries, united themselves to some storm troops, fought the foe
in a hand-to-hand encounter with daggers, and, recovering the cannon,
readjusted the breechlocks, which they had taken away with them, and
then fired pointblank into the adversary's ranks.
At Fagare two Hungarian battalions were annihilated amid the ruins of
houses where they had taken refuge. At Candelu an enemy machine-gun
corps, which had transformed the village into a fort, were killed by
Italian mountain artillery, and in the neighboring sector of Salettuol
the 3d Austrian Division lost 60 per cent. of its effectiveness.
Many of the prisoners at the moment of capture present the appearance
of Bedouins, being clad merely in tattered shirts, with their rifles
slung over their shoulders and a dagger in their hand. Nearly all
carried postcard maps marking out their journey, with a program
inscribed: "June 15, halt at Treviso. June 16, occupation of Venice."
They also carried little packets of money coupons printed in Italian
for spending in those cities.