II

Since I was well acquainted with the German language, I was assigned

the special task of questioning the prisoners and of translating such

documents and diaries as were often enough found upon them. The work

was interesting and gave me a clear conception of the terrible and

disastrous condition of our lands after the invasion of the enemy.

While reading or listening to the account of some especially frightful

deed, I often asked myself whether, if those of our soldiers who knew

not how to lay down their lives for their country to keep the enemy

from violating their lands, had known some of the facts I know, they

would not have found strength enough to resist. Ought not the Italian

soldiers, who during the terrible days of October were compelled to

abandon the villages which they had won, for which they had suffered

and fought, know what became of those regions and their people, after

their departure? Had not the inhabitants placed implicit faith in the

ability of the soldiers to resist; looking upon them as protecting

brothers? Yet later, these same soldiers were compelled to abandon to

the enemy, one by one, these very towns and villages, whose terrorized

inhabitants were then compelled to fly, so relinquishing the uttermost

of their possessions to the mercy of the invader.

Among the many documents which passed through my hands were not lacking

some of considerable importance. I see before me a letter, found in the

pocket of a subaltern officer of the Fourth German Army, which he had

not had time to dispatch. In part the letter read:

“Dear Friend:

“After a painful time, the good Lord God gave us wings and, from

the icy and snowy caves, has transported us into a magnificent

country. We were half-dead, but now we are beginning to

resuscitate. This is a splendid country. There is everything one

wants; food and drink enough for all to choke on, rice and coffee

in abundance and enough red wine to bathe in.”

Another letter found on a German prisoner reads:

“We are living like princes, we have food and drink, and may it

always continue thus! If only I could send some to my family in

Berlin. But there is not room for much in our packs, and

furthermore, one would have to carry it for days along mountainous

roads a distance of about thirty-five or forty kilometers. Right

now we have before us a whole cheese, round and large as a cart

wheel, and we don’t know what to do with it. No one is hungry, yet

the cheese is good.”

Such acknowledgments filled me with rage. Those who yesterday were

hungry are now full and they have filled themselves by stealing from

our homes!

The many documents which passed through my hands demonstrated how

extensive were the requisitions of the Germans who robbed the poor

peasants of the things they needed most.

From the notebook of a Czech officer, a deserter, under date of

November 15, 1917, I read:

“Everyone requisitions what he pleases. The plowers are busy all

night cooking rice with tomatoes.

“At Villa Santina a supply of foodstuffs sufficient to last ten

days for the entire division was found. Every company formed a

requisition patrol; the very privates go to the peasants and

requisition cattle, pigs, horses, mules, cheese, wine, wheat, etc.

In every patrol there is a soldier who knows Italian. The army,

during its advance lives on the country and eats more than is

necessary. The troops in the rear are always drunk.

“We found and requisitioned from the civilians bicycles, many

motorcycles and automobiles.”

“October 29.—We pass through Colobrida, Prepotto, where we find

wine. We stop at Villa Rubini. The men take advantage to find some

Chianti, which is insuperable, and many get drunk.”

“October 31.—At Carpeneto I requisition a saddle horse and a mule,

and during the stop we refresh ourselves with champagne. At night

Captain Vellsang arrives in an automobile requisitioned for the

command at Udine, where we took a quantity of things.”

“November 24.—Our attendants were continuously cooking corn-meal

and chicken.”

These diaries speak mostly of the greed with which the enemy steals,

destroys and consumes every valuable thing in the land. The voracity

and greed of the Germans and Austrians are such that after continued

debauches of wines and liquors, the provisions are soon exhausted. As

an example of the voracity of these men, I shall quote the report of

one of their meals from the calendar of an Austrian Lieutenant of the

Second Battalion of the 47th Infantry:

“November 11.—We ate splendidly; in the morning—coffee and milk,

half a pound of butter, a pound of bread. In the middle of the

morning—half a pound of Gorgonzola cheese, half a pound of

excellent preserved fruits, a tablet of chocolate. Luncheon—broth,

roast veal with fresh peas and rice, a bottle of excellent wine,

and then coffee (without sugar). In the afternoon—a box of

sardines, bread and butter with honey. Supper—roast pork with

prunes, black coffee. And not on one day only, but continuously;

especially after the requisitions. We seldom have less. At nine in

the evening, we have a can of condensed milk, three boxes of

sardines, a pound of preserved pears, and six candles apiece.”

From questions submitted to an Austrian prisoner, I learnt that the

troops stationed between the Tagliamento and the Piave kept up their

march with supplies taken from the factories and houses. The prisoners

themselves admitted that their lot was hard because they could no

longer get drunk, nor gorge themselves on the chicken, sausages and

fruit which they had found so plentiful in every house and factory.

From a conversation with an officer of the Third Regiment of

Kaiserjäger I learnt, “The foodstuffs found and requisitioned have all

been consumed and wasted. Whatever our soldiers cannot devour or

preserve on the spot is shipped to Austria and Germany. The 94th

Division while at Tolmezzo requisitioned all kinds of woven materials

and the officers sent much of it, as their own private property, to

Kotshach by means of auto-ambulances.

“Captain Opitz sent home two hundred pounds of coffee, which in

Austria is worth about 500 Kronen. Captain Pflanzer collected

precious oil paintings during the offensive. He found the most

precious near Castellavazzo.

“A bicycle of the 7th company of the Third Battalion of trench

diggers was stolen from a civilian by the Captain.

“The officers sent home sacks of rice and coffee. At Timau

everything was taken from the civilians. The horses are fed with

maize.”

From prisoners taken in Val Bella December 24, 1917, I learnt that

there was a rumor current among the officers and men that the Italian

cities had been thoroughly sacked and that the objects collected had

been sent to Germany and Austria through the co-operation of the

military forces. It is said that superior officers offered to buy for a

few pence, whatever booty the soldiers could lay hands upon.

In another diary taken from a German officer of the 5th Division (which

had penetrated to Udine), the following was found under date of

November 6, 1917:

“After we had spent several days at Rovereto on the Tagliamento we

withdrew to Udine. As the command gave me full police powers I had

the authority to enter all the shops which were still furnished

with considerable stocks. I spent my time making raids, and during

one of these I found materials suitable for military and civilian

clothing. I filled three cases full of them and I had them sent

through the military station at Neuhaus. I hope some day I shall

find them at home. I have also secured some material for the

Captain.”

Deserters from the enemy lines confirmed the reports that the Germans

took away and sent to Germany all that could be removed—church bells,

beds, household linens, entire doors and windows. Their pillaging was

so complete that some houses have only the walls and roof left.

Furthermore the Austro-Hungarian authorities organized special squads

to visit every house and requisition foodstuffs, kitchen utensils,

livestock and pack animals. At present the population is compelled to

buy at a high price the supplies which were taken from them.

Proof of this organized thieving which was supported by the enemy

authorities, was obtained not merely from writings and conversations

with scattered individuals but from reports in enemy newspapers. The

_Gazette_ of Veneto which was printed at Udine for the Austrian

government published the following notice, “The Administration of the

Austro-Hungarian Army has ordered the requisitioning of metals in the

occupied regions, to meet the army’s demands for metals. Church bells,

roofs of copper or lead, lightning rods and railings will be

requisitioned.”

A communication received by our command during the first days of our

retreat to the Piave said, “At Graz, and at Vienna, a trade in Italian

products has been begun. Besides the small quantities of rice, oil, and

lemons carried by soldiers on leave and bargained for at the stations

by Jewish speculators, rice is beginning to arrive at Graz in important

quantities. The authorities have been asked to pass measures to prevent

speculation with this rice, and to reserve it for the use of the sick

and for children.” The children and the sick of the invaded territories

were left without these necessary articles of food.

From scattered phrases found in documents, or overheard in conversations

with soldiers and officer prisoners, I gathered a general notion

of the carefree, corrupt life led by the troops in the invaded

regions. A few notes from the diary of the Czech officer who had

deserted follow:

“Lieutenant Skebek and an employee got drunk in a villa at Pelos

with wine requisitioned at Auronzo and later devastated a villa. At

Belluno the gendarmes were supposed to guard the wine cellars; but

in a moment there gathered before the house a mob of soldiers with

pails, basins, and other vessels.

“The artillery officers have organized nightly orgies in a villa

near Feltre; there were more than enough women.

“Almost all the horses have diarrhœa because they have eaten too

much.”

The same spectacle of gluttony and drunkenness at the expense of our

people, is repeated in the diary of the Austrian lieutenant of the

second battalion of the 47th infantry who has already been mentioned.

“December 2.—Visited the Command of the Regiment. Had breakfast

with the commander of the battalion. We drank much excellent wine.

At three in the afternoon, the officers of the command of the

regiment left, hilarious from the wine. The officers of the 16th

company and others withdrew singing, and they would have continued

their orgy at my house had I not made all the wines and liquors

disappear.”

An Italian soldier and an officer, prisoners escaped from the hands of

the Austrians, reported the following:

“The German officers in command lead a gay, carefree life. They do

not mind being seen in public, driving in open carriages with women

of bad repute, brought there from their own country. During the

first days of the occupation, the enemy troops, exalted with

victory, would parade the streets, shouting joyously. They would

enter private houses by forcing doors and windows, and make for

storerooms full of provisions, and for wine cellars, with bestial

avidity.”

In sharp contrast to this life of gluttony and greed was the life led

by the Italian prisoners, both those in the invaded regions and those

transported back to German prison camps. The following extract is taken

from a report of Lieutenant Massa Antonio, a physician who was sent

back to Italy after a term in a prison camp:

“By a long and weary journey we were taken to Trento, then to

Gardolo and finally to Sigmundsherberg, to a camp of Russian

prisoners. The physicians were at once invited to take care of

their own soldiers. Captain Luigi Ferrero, the head physician,

entrusted me to take care of Group IV. I therefore found myself

living side by side with our own soldiers, suffering their physical

and mental tortures and hardships.

“There I saw a pitiable spectacle. Our own soldiers were left for

whole days without a bit of food. Hungry and sad they would stand

against the wire railings begging for food, for a morsel of bread.

Daily, fifteen or twenty soldiers who had fallen from sheer

exhaustion were brought into the hospital. Gradually the entire

camp was cleared of grass by our hungry men who avidly plucked and

chewed it in an attempt to allay their hunger.

“During the first days our soldiers were submitted to extremely

strict discipline. The punishment posts were always occupied, and

the prisons rapidly filling, for the Austrians believed in giving

vent to their hatred against us by floggings and beatings.

“The enemy soldiers and petty officers became vile merchants who

robbed our poor soldiers of whatever little money they had by

selling them pieces of bread at exorbitant rates. Because of the

bad quality of the food there were many cases of auto-intoxication.

The soldiers welcomed a chance to go and work for they hoped for

better treatment.

“Besides acting as journeying physician I was also entrusted with

the inspection of the mess and of the discipline of our soldiers.

“I cannot express how painful, how agonizing a task that was.

Daily, soldiers would come to me with tales of incredible

treatment, with their bodies livid from the cruel and fierce blows

of the Austrians. Exhausted, worn-out, veritable bundles of human

rags, they would tell me of the incredible labors expected of them;

how, among the snow of the Carpathians, half-naked, without shirts,

while the cold which was far below freezing point, stiffened their

bodies, they were compelled to start out at three or four in the

morning and walk until eight, after having had only a cup of tea;

and how they were then forced to work until night. As payment for

their superhuman labors, the poor wretches received a cheap

substitute for coffee with one-quarter of a pound of bread.

“During a meal of the officers in Bucovina an Italian violinist was

compelled to play the Italian national hymn, and while he was

playing he was made the target for all sorts of table rubbish:

left-over bits of food and the dregs of beverages. Some of our

soldiers were compelled to drag for fifty miles a car in which was

the baggage of an Austrian officer. Did one of the tired prisoners

attempt to stop a moment for rest, the officer leveled his revolver

at him.

“With my very eyes, I saw Grenadier Dantin die some minutes after

he had been badly beaten. A special report of his case was made to

Captain Ferrero. I made another report against a wealthy Hungarian

undertaker who said to our soldiers, ‘You did not die at the front,

but you will die here.’

“In the marshes of the Danube our prisoners are placed in the hands

of war contractors who treat them like veritable slaves. They try

to get the maximum labor from them. Our prisoners were given to all

those who asked for them, without any control from the government

as to the way in which they were to be treated. They were sent to

the squares of the cities, and there exposed for public choice,

just as though they were cattle.

“In the camp of Sigmundsherberg the sanitary service is completely

in the hands of the Italians who do all they can to alleviate the

ills and pains of the soldiers. There are absolutely no medicines,

surgical tools and sterilizing apparata. The sick are fed with corn

meal, sour cabbages, and dried codfish.

“There are very many sick, especially of tuberculosis, which

assumes every form. Statistics show that this disease was found in

thirty cases out of a hundred visited, and that it was continually

increasing because of the scarcity of food.”

We learnt of the treatment of Italian prisoners taken during the

Austrian invasion from escaped Italian prisoners and from reports from

captured Austrians. The Czech officer, mentioned in the foregoing,

wrote in his diary: “While the Italian prisoners were passing through

the city (of Feltre) the women along the streets wept.”

The following information I received from two automobilists, by name

Ventura and Gandolfo, with whom I was able to speak:

“The life of the Italian prisoners is most terrible. They are

treated with scorn, are scantily fed, and are compelled to work at

nerve-racking tasks. The harshest kind of a life would be welcomed

by them to-day as a liberation.”

The two automobilists on December 13 saw the fresh grave of two Italian

infantrymen, taken prisoners. They both affirmed that the prisoners had

died of hunger. The Italian soldiers had not been thought worthy of

burial in sacred ground, despite the protestations made by a worthy

priest, therefore their graves were out upon a common field.

Finally, here is the story of two Italian prisoners who escaped from

the enemy—Lieut. Mario Zannini of the Second Battalion, 245th

Infantry, and Private Tortoriello Domenico of the Third Battalion, 21st

Infantry.

“There are still many of our men wandering round the country. Some

of them have not as yet been arrested and others are escaped

prisoners. Their condition is most miserable. They have about one

two-pound loaf of bread to divide among six. The under-nourishment

weakens the organs and they can no longer work. Several have taken

sick, and a few have died from exhaustion.

“Those who belong to the invaded regions try to escape to their own

homes, where relatives and friends do all they can to protect them,

though, often enough, they fall again into the hands of the

tyrants, who then make them pay for their flight with all sorts of

torment, ill-treatment, and injury.”

What sort of an existence did the people of the invaded lands lead;

those people who so long tranquilly waited in the hope that we would

forever drive away from them the eternal menace of the enemy ready to

pounce upon them?

The diary of the Czech officer says, “The civilians are living in a

most critical condition. The passing troops have taken everything from

them, edibles, horses, mules, wagons, kitchen utensils. Whatever

remained, especially objects of copper, were seized by the gendarmes.”

The Germans do their requisitioning in the following manner: they

order, at the point of a gun, the peasants to open their doors, and

when they have thus frightened them, succeed in getting everything from

them. Enemy deserters who have come to our lines have confirmed the

vexations to which the troops subject the people of the invaded lands.

According to them, the cruelest and most savage are the Slovenes, the

Bosnians and the Croatians, especially the Croatians who have indeed

been known to enter a home, and at the point of a gun, take away the

few provisions left to a family by the rationing committee. Often the

Croatian officers themselves incite the troops to pillage and plunder.

Wherever the Croatians pass they leave traces of their brutality not

only on property but also on the people, both men and women, whom they

treat with violence.

The same report was confirmed by a deserter from the second battalion,

23rd Regiment of chasseurs, who said:

“The people of the occupied lands are continually subjected to

injuries. Almost all the food they have has been taken from them.

Wherever anything is left by the official requisitioning

committees, the soldiers, especially the Slovenes, steal the rest.

Near Sesto al Roghena several Slovenes fired fifteen shots at a

civilian who refused to let them remove his goods. He was seriously

wounded.

“With my own eyes I saw near the Tower of Mos, two drunken

Hungarian soldiers beating an old man who would not let them steal

his cow.”

The Croatian troops were ready to steal and plunder wherever they

passed. A Hungarian volunteer, taken prisoner, assured us he had seen

at Rivarotta (Palazzolo) a group of Croatians threatening a priest with

a stick unless he immediately procured them some girls. At Portogruaro

a woman threatened to wound with a stick a corporal who attempted to do

her violence.

The following impressions are taken from the afore-mentioned

automobilists. Ventura and Gandolfi, who as prisoners were placed in

the postal service by the Austrians, but who succeeded in escaping:

“We entered for the first time into Udine under the hands of the

Austrians, on November 3, at about three in the afternoon. The

city’s wounds were all still open and bleeding. There were still

smouldering fires along the outskirts. Houses were thrown open,

stores shattered; all that which made for a prosperous, wealthy

trade, turned out onto the streets—furniture, linen, utensils,

crockery, broken bottles, old papers and families keepsakes. Over

the smiling, peaceful city, it seemed as if a destructive squall

had swept. The automobile stopped at the hospital of the seminary.

In one corner of the street three young Italian women were offering

such little comfort as lay in their power with their scanty food

and their most welcome presence.

“The city was full of German and Austrian soldiers hunting from

house to house and from store to store for booty. The officers took

part without a shame in the pillaging.

“Doors to houses were thrown in and the inhabitants compelled, by

threats, to help in the plunder of their own belongings. After a

short time, there was not a single family which had not been robbed

and plundered.

“In the country regions the soldiers rush with impunity from one

farmhouse to another leaving everywhere the traces of their rapine.

The military authorities encourage the soldiers to send home to

their families packages of provisions, knowing well enough that

such have not been bought, but have been seized by violence.

Furthermore the authorities themselves leave behind them, in

exchange for horses and provisions requisitioned, receipts either

with illegal signatures or irregularly compiled, or with ridiculous

phrases, as for instance, ‘Fulle Kusse,’ or signed, ‘Cadorna will

pay you.’

“Between San Fior and Monticella, near the inn of Gai, a detachment

of German soldiers who wanted to occupy a house inhabited by about

forty old persons, women and children, not only entered with

violence, but in a spiteful, bestial mood, threw all the furniture

from the windows.

“Near the headquarters of the 51st corps, a peasant family had

succeeded in saving from theft a cow. One night, a group of

soldiers entered by sheer force and took her away.”

Two other prisoners who succeeded in escaping after many adventures,

Lieut. Zannini and Private Torotoriello, formerly mentioned, added the

following details to the account of the life of those in the invaded

districts:

“The enemy troops, drunk, entered the houses and dwellings and

broke and burnt the furniture which was thrown out of the windows.

“The young women, terrorized by the looks of the barbarians,

barricaded themselves behind piles of furniture. Many deeds of

violence were attempted and accomplished.”

Lieutenant Zannini told me how he took by the chest and hurled out of

the door, at San Michele di Piave, a German soldier who in the presence

of her mother tried to seduce a young girl, after having wounded with a

knife an old man who had tried to defend her.

Private Torotoriello told me he saw one day, the body of a girl on the

street near Polcenigo. She had thrown herself from the window in an

attempt to escape from two German officers. The same soldier at Stevenà

di Caneva, was threatened with a revolver by two other German officers,

because he would not forsake a young woman whose mother had entreated

him to protect her. He later learnt of the violence done and the wrath

of the entire population which openly revolted against the authorities.

In the face of such violence, thievery, bestiality and rape, the

Italian people reacted.

The population of Fouzaso composed largely of women and children lived

apart in silence, maintaining a dignified, proud demeanor in front of

the Austrians. There was a look of sadness on the face of every

Italian. Every day the church was crowded with worshippers. One could

often see, along the street, women, who when they stopped to talk to

one another could not keep back the tears. The children sang a ditty

with the refrain, “Mount Grappa you are my country.” The song is

forbidden. From the belfry the bells have been removed. That was a

painful occurrence, for the bells were hurled from the belfry and broke

into a thousand pieces right before the eyes of the people. Some of

them, weeping, gathered a few of the broken bits of bronze and

cherished them as though they were sacred relics. The fragments of the

bells were at once loaded on automobiles and sent to Primolano.

Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the village were ever discussing an

Italian counter-offensive to drive out the Austrians.

Such are the documents I gathered while I remained one month with the

Intelligence Division of the Third Army.

Meanwhile my thoughts ran somewhat as follows:

“I have as yet no plan, as yet no definite program, but everything

must be tried, everything must be risked against this vile enemy

which devastates our properties, steals all that which we hold most

beautiful and sacred, violates our women, and commits every kind of

abomination. Of what value is my life when compared with the good

which our command might derive from having on the other side a

trusted person, capable of sending to it daily detailed reports on

the location of troops, on the condition of the enemy troops, on

the plans of the enemy? My plans will take shape gradually, but

meanwhile I am certain of one thing—I am going to try everything,

I am going to dare the incredible, I am going to make real the

fantastic. The enemy! He is destroying my houses; the paintings,

the tapestries, the relics of our church at Vittorio have been

taken from their frames and sent towards the far-off ways of

Austria. If they are pillaging my house and destroying with it all

which memory holds most sacred, then I want to assume the great

risk and the great honor of attempting to destroy their army.”

And so one morning I presented myself before Colonel Smaniotto and said

in a steady voice, “Sir, I have as yet no definite plan, but I am

disposed to accept in broad terms your proposition. At first the

undertaking seemed inconceivable, but after what I have seen and

heard about the way in which the invader is treating our lands and

the inhabitants who have remained there, nothing is any longer

inconceivable to me, nothing is unattemptable.”

The Colonel grasped my hand, smiled good-naturedly, and said, “That is

why I placed you among the prisoners; that is why I gave you access to

such important documents. I knew that your sturdy type of citizen and

soldier could not remain insensible to the cry of pain which comes to

us from every land across the Piave. And now let us get to work. We

must plan and organize the undertaking.”