with tar. They serve as ferries from one bank of the Tigris to the other. In the city there are wonderful monu-
ments, vestiges of ancient splendor: mosques with gilded cupolas, fretted minarets, high walls moat-encircled.
The most animated part of the town is the bazaar, for Bagdad, situated on the caravan route between Aleppo and
Damascus on one side and the Persian Gulf and India on the other, is an important industrial and commercial
centre.

763



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR



After a stiff fight, with severe casual-
ties and great suffering from thirst
(for the troops had had thirty hours'
marching and fighting with only the
water they had started with), they
drove the enemy from the place in
precipitate retreat so that airmen
on the morning of the 2Oth reported
them spread over a depth of twenty
miles. Further advance along the
railway, however, was impossible until



left General Baratov just east of
Hamadan. As General Maude ad-
vanced, the Turks fell back from Ha-
madan in an endeavor to reach
Khanikin, and the Cossacks followed
hard upon them. Maude's eastern col-
umn advancing up the Diala captured
Bahriz and Bakuba. The former place
was the end of a mountain road neces-
sary to the Turkish retreat, and by
his manoeuvre they were forced to




TWO AND A HALF YEARS IN MESOPOTAMIA

In this map may be followed the story of the Mesopotamia!! operations from the landing of General Delamain's
force in November, 1914, up to General Maude's triumph at Bagdad, March 11, 1917. In it, too, may be seen
where Russian pressure on the retreating Turks was exercised from Persia and the Caucasus.



operations on the left bank were equally
advanced, and there the Turks were
concentrating in order to ward off
attack upon their railhead.

THE COMBINED RUSSIAN AND BRITISH
EXPEDITION FAILS.

It was hoped that the Russians ad-
vancing from Persia and the British
up the Diala might seize the 1 3th Turks
Corps in a nutcracker. This hope was
not realized. It failed because the
political situation that had developed
in Russia left Baratov's force starved
of reinforcements and supplies, and
because of the fine generalship of the
Turkish general in charge of the retreat-
ing forces. In a former chapter we

764



abandon their guns and endeavor to
cross the mountainous country between
Karind and the Upper Diala. In this
impasse their leadership saved them.
Strong rearguards or screens were
placed by the Turkish Commander
against the weaker Russian forces in
the Pia Tak Pass, and against the
British on the ridge of the Jebel Ham-
rin range. While these rearguards
held off attack, the main body by way
of Khanikin was making for the
crossing of the Diala and the road to
Mosul.

Thus Maude in the torrid heat of
the desert was attacking at Kizil Robat
and Deli Abbas, while seventy miles



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR




bar*)*



COMMUNICATIONS IN MODERN WARFARE
This map illustrates the advantage possessed by the Central Powers over the Allies in respect of communications
with the forces fighting in Mesopotamia. From Zeebrugge to Nisibiu, above Bagdad, Germany had 3,000 miles
of railway secure from all save an attack. From London to Basra the steamship route is 7,680 miles, all exposed
to submarine dangers.



away Baratov's Cossacks were strug-
gling amid the snows of the Pia Tak
Pass. By the end of the month the I3th
Corps had eluded their vise: Maude
had carried Deli Abbas, and Baratov
his pass, but this was because the
screens were being withdrawn as the
main army crossed the Diala. Baratov
reached Khanikin and, April 2, an
advance sotnia of Cossacks joined
hands with the British force at Kizil



Robat. Persia was now cleared of the
Turk and there was no enemy east of
the Diala. Nevertheless, the I3th
Army Corps had been extricated from
grave peril. If the Russian force had
had half of the vitality it had had
eighteen months previously the enemy
could not have got away as he did.
In purport the advance on Bagdad
was a two-fold operation; in reality
the heavy end had fallen upon the

765



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR



British forces. A Turkish counter-
attack delivered by the I3th Corps
developed about the yth of April, and
fierce fighting which began in a mirage
lasted until the I3th, when the Turks
were driven back into the Jebel Ham-
rin range once more.

q^HE LAST TURKISH POSITIONS ARE TAKEN
1 AT THE END OF THE SUMMER.

The column on the west bank of the
Tigris had made good progress, and
reinforced by the Diala troops who left
the Russians to hold this sector, were
ready by the iyth for the final attack
on Samarra. After six days of unin-
terrupted fighting the railhead was
captured. Khalil made a last effort.
The i8th Corps intrenched 15 miles
north of Samarra; and the I3th Corps
on its left flank emerged from its hill
fastnesses, striking against the two
forces of the British on the Tigris
which had now joined. It was driven
back but again emerged to meet the
same fate. The i8th Corps fell back
on Tekrit; in every direction Bagdad
was cleared of the enemy for a radius
of 50 miles, while the enemy corps was
driven back on divergent lines.

General Maude could afford to take
a rest in the terrible summer heat
the season was the hottest known for
years, the temperature often rising
above 120 Fahrenheit. It was unfortu-
nate, in view of the hot season, that a
campaign was planned on the Eu-
phrates in July. The Turks were com-
fortably established at Ramadiya and
the Arabs downstream, encouraged by
their proximity, made hostile demon-
strations against the British at Feluja.
The operation failed for the troops could
make no headway in a blinding dust-
storm and intense heat and the enter-



prise was abandoned. Two months
later, in September, a successful attack
had as its objectives not only Ramadi-
ya but the capture of the whole enemy
force and attained them.

/GENERAL MAUDE FALLS A VICTIM TO
V_J HIS COURTESY.

The Turks had designs for the re-
capture of Bagdad, and two German
divisions reached Aleppo early in No-
vember. Just then came news of Sir
Edmund Allenby's victories in South-
ern Palestine (November 7, 1917) and
General von Falkenhayn, then acting
as the Turkish military adviser in
Asia, drafted the divisions to that front.
On the iQth of the month the Mesopota-
mian Army lost its great commander,
General Maude, who fell a victim to
the cholera his courtesy forbidding
him to refuse a draught of cold milk
offered by a native.

So perished a great soldier and a
great organizer. Bagdad was won by
gallantry and endurance, but equally
by organized transport, commissariat
and medical departments. With a gift
for detail and a tireless energy, Maude
had also the rarer faculty of vision
which could see the whole situation in
true perspective. He was succeeded
by Lieutenant-General Sir William
Marshall, who had already rendered
valuable service in the campaign against
Bagdad. The Palestine victories had
changed the plans of the Turkish Staff,
and henceforth the chief task of the
British commander-in-chief was to
continue to strengthen his position.
The danger of a Turco-German offen-
sive was now slight, although unable to
withstand the summer heat in the Di-
ala triangle, Saratov's Cossacks had
withdrawn to the Persian hills.



766




Bridge of Vidor over the Piave, Where Italy Halted the Invader

CHAPTER XLVII

The Italian Disaster at Caporetto

THE ITALIANS LOSE WHAT THEY HAD GAINED, BUT RALLY

AND HOLD FAST



CTERN, silent, immutable, amid the
shifting tide of human concerns, the
Julian Alps have looked upon strange
scenes. Long centuries ago, barbarian
hordes of Goth and Hun and great
imperial armies battled in their gate-
ways. Yet, in all the flow of years,
perhaps no stranger spectacle of man's
ingenuity and endeavor can be con-
ceived than that which was staged over
and around those wardens of the Isonzo
region in 1917, leaving them with new
scars which they must carry for the
rest of time.

THE ALLIED NATIONS PROMISE TO SEND
AID TO ITALY.

In January, during the mid-winter
lull in fighting operations, a conference
of distinguished military and political
representatives from the four leading
Allied nations met for three days at
Rome. There Italy was promised
assistance by the French and British.
As a consequence, France sent guns,
to be manned by Italian gunners, and
England sent batteries of six-inch
howitzers, with 2,000 men.

Until May the Italian High Com-
mand had to wait until the late spring
floods subsided. There were evidences
that their opponents were preparing
for a new offensive; therefore, General
Cadorna laid plans for an attack to
* anticipate it. The main attack was to
fall on the middle Isonzo. A supplemen-



tary movement in the Carso had for
its aim to gain new territory on that
forbidding plateau in the direction of
Hermada.

THE ITALIAN ATTACK IS DELIVERED ON
THE ISONZO.

The Italian artillery bombarded the
whole Isonzo front, from May 12 until
the morning of May 14, in preparation
for an infantry attack from Plava and
Gorizia upon Kuk, Monte Santo, and
the hills along the edge of the Bain-
sizza Plateau. After the first day,
General Capello, commander of the
Second Army, placed the artillery com-
mand of the 2nd Corps in the hands of
Major-General Badoglio, whose plans
for taking Sabotino had been so suc-
cessful. Under his direction, the
Italian guns seemed to be "driving nails
along given lines" of the Austrian
positions, "and the hammerstrokes
were delivered with unfailing skill."

On the night of May 15 a diversion
was created about eight miles south of
Tolmino, where Bersaglieri and Alpini
forced a passage across the Isonzo and
improvised a bridgehead on the east
bank. They held it under fearful odds
until the eighteenth, when, deeply cha-
grined at having to abandon the attack,
they were withdrawn, as the purpose
of the action had been accomplished.
In the first stage of the offensive,
sections of Kuk, Vodice, and Santo

767



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR



were taken, as well as several hamlets
and hills east of Gorizia and Plava.
The Plava bridgehead had by this time
been strengthened by the building of
the "Badoglio Road," the "road of the
thirty-two hairpins," which dropped
by successive zigzags down from Monte
Corada. As to Kuk, a distinguished
English author writes: "A few days
after its capture I saw on the top of
Monte Kuk some Italian 'seventy-
fives' that had been dragged up,
Heaven knows how, by sheer strength
of arm and will during the melee it-
self."

''pHE ITALIANS SUFFER VERY HEAVY
1 LOSSES ON THE ISONZO.

"The Italian losses were, of course,
very heavy. The attacking troops had
carried positions that might well have
been thought impregnable, and they
had paid the price. When the Avel-
lino and Florence Brigades were taken
out of the line to rest and re-form after
three and four days' fighting respective-
ly, the Avellino had lost over 100 offi-
cers and nearly 2,700 men, out of 140
officers and 5 ,000 men ; and though the
casualties in the Florence Brigade were
not quite so heavy, they lost nearly
50 per cent of their strength." The
Austrians attempted a diversion on
the Trentino at this juncture, opening
heavy fire in the Val Sugana, on the
Asiago Plateau, and in the Adige Valley.
There was vigorous fighting on Monte
Colbricon and the " Den te del Pasubio."

Necessity for economizing in military
supplies forbade General Cadorna's at-
tempting to attack simultaneously on
two sectors of any great width. Con-
sequently, the stroke upon the Carso
was not delivered until May 23. It
fell with such overwhelming force that
in a few hours the Austro-Hungarians
had been driven back nearly a mile
beyond their immensely strong front
lines from Kostanjevica to the sea,
and had yielded Hudi Log ("the Evil
Wood "), Lukatic, Jamiano, and several
hills. At the southern end, on the
coast, Bagni was taken in a battle that
engaged 130 airplanes and a group of
the Royal Navy seaplanes. The first
day's contest gave the Italians 9,000
prisoners. By May 28, the line had

768



moved still farther east, across the
Timavo River to San Giovanni, at the
southern end; and proportionately all
the way. Hermada was nearly taken.
Unhappily, the Italian supply of shells
was falling so low that the advance
had to stop at the very moment when
it seemed most likely to break through
the opposing line.

THE AUSTRIANS STRIKE BACK IN THE
CARSO.

The inevitable counter-attack, occu-
pying the first week in June, was most
violent from San Marco southward.
From Fajti Hrib to Jamiano, the bom-
bardment and infantry drives did not
make much impression; but farther
south the Italians fell back from one-
third of a mile to a mile and a quarter
on a three mile front, recrossing the
Timavo and dropping behind Flondar.
The fighting was fierce and terrible.
Yet there was one strange stain on the
great record of valorous endeavor. A
brigade, engaged on the slopes of
Hermada, surrendered without any at-
tempt at real resistance and so made
way for the enemy. It was composed
of men newly drafted from a region
where pacifist propaganda was astir.
A danger from within, more baleful
than any host of tangible warriors
however armed, had begun to raise its
head. General Cadorna at once wrote
to the Government with warning and
appeal.

In the whole spring offensive the
Italians lost nearly 130,000 men, of
whom about 6,000 were prisoners. They
had taken, in return, 24,260 Austro-
Hungarian prisoners, and had reduced
the enemy fighting forces by something
less than 100,000 in killed and wound-
ed. In mid-summer, the glacier-fed
flood of the river was rushing through
gorges between lofty cliffs, or roll-
ing beside occasional narrow plains.
Far to the north, it passed towering
Monte Nero, overlooking Caporetto on
the west, with its peaceful Italian garri-
son, and Tolmino on the southeast, with
its unmolested Austrian inhabitants.

HERMADA SHAKEN, BUT NOT CAPTURED
BY THE ATTACK. .

Less than twenty miles farther down
the stream, close behind the Italian



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR



position at Gorizia, rose the sheer preci-
pice of Monte Santo, on whose summit,
lifted "like a church spire," lay the
ruins of a shrine. There, at the out-
break of hostilities, the aged emperor
of Austria-Hungary had been carried in
a sedan chair, to pray for the success
of his Imperial arms. Now, Franz
Josef had passed beyond the bounds
of human history, and the shrine had
crumbled into a heap of white marble
under shell-fire from Sabotino, only a
half-mile away across the river. Still
farther southward, where Isonzo meets
the sea, across the blue gulf one could
gaze along the Carso to "ugly turtle-
backed Hermada Mountain blocking
the road to Trieste." But the boast
of Hermada was partly silenced. Not
all its guns could speak as they had
done.

After the unavoidable check in the
vigorous Italian offensive of May, 1917,
General Cadorna was unable to press
for further progress until summer had
begun to wane. His allies could not
spare him sufficient aid for a great
offensive movement, while his adver-
saries were enabled to build up their
resistance by transferring troops from
the demoralized Russian front, no
longer formidable since the collapse of
the Russian government in the spring.

THE BATTLE RESUMED ON THE ISONZO
IN AUGUST.

After mid-summer had passed in
comparative quiet, a month of con-
tinuous and intense conflict was in-
augurated on August 1 8 by a great
bombardment from Tolmino to the sea.
North of Gorizia, where the Isonzo
makes a bend that points westward, lies
Plava, which had been steadily useful
to the Italians since its capture in June,
1915. Again it was to be employed as
a starting place for an important at-
tack, this time, upon the Bainsizza
Plateau. Fitting into the angle of the
river and stretching eastward as far as
the Chiapovano Valley, the Bainsizza
is an elevated region with surface
broken by rock masses, glens, and
doline, or depressions, somewhat in the
same way as that of the Carso.

The Second Army, under General
Capello, was operating from Gorizia



northward, with General Badoglio in
command of the left wing near Santa
Lucia and Tolmino. In that position
there was such concentration of Austrian
artillery that General Badoglio's forces
were compelled to leave the enemy in
possession of the Lom Plateau, a
stronghold whose strategic value was
startlingly revealed a few weeks later.




AUSTRIAN DEFENSES ON THE CARSO

T) RIDGES CONSTRUCTED AT NIGHT UNDER
13 GREAT DIFFICULTIES.

But from Plava, on August 18, a
sally was made to the northeast, re-
sulting in the seizure of a valley
situated between Kuk and the Bain-
sizza. A short distance farther up the
river, where as yet the Italians had
found no foothold upon the eastern
bank, a crossing was accomplished on
the night of August 19. In preparation
for this feat, the river had been nightly
diverted from its channel until ten
foot-bridges had been constructed. By
day the stream flowed as usual, show-
ing no sign of change. On the evening
of the nineteenth, four pontoon bridges
were added, though the cliffs were so
abrupt that the boats had to be dropped

769



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR



on skids, and ladders had to be used to
get the men to the level of the river and
up again on the opposite side. To
screen the movements on the river, a
great battery of search-lights, ranged
along the heights of the western shore,
was turned upon the Austrian gunners,
and heavy firing covered the sound of
work upon the bridges.

By their impetuous and unexpected
rush up the declivity, in the face of
machine guns, the heroic fighters of
Capello's army drove their way through
the front lines of the enemy, then pushed
on north and east across the plateau
until, by August 24, they could look
across to the edge of Lom in the one
direction, and were within range of
the Ternova batteries in the other.
On the Bainsizza they soon were be-
yond-all points where artillery or trucks
and ambulances could accompany them.
The engineers followed as fast as was
possible, in an effort to keep communi-
cations open; but the Austrians had
not made good roadways leading to
their own front lines and the poor
approaches were now ploughed up or
encumbered with wreckage. There-
fore, there were several days during
which the advance of the Italian army
could be supplied only by carriers on
foot, and the wounded had to be borne
back for miles over the rough ground
by their companions. Water also was
lacking. It was a time of great danger,
but the venturous battalions held their
own until the paths had been leveled
sufficiently for guns, lorries, and am-
bulances to carry them relief. Always
the reliable Fiat cars, with their in-
trepid drivers, and the British Red
Cross units arrived as near the front
as might be and at the earliest moment
possible. Further relief was furnished
by a diversion in the form of attacks in
the middle Isonzo region, around San
Gabriele.

MONTE SANTO SURROUNDED AND
FORCED TO SURRENDER.

In that sector, northeast of Gorizia,
on August 23, Monte Santo had been
threatened from the rear, and its
garrison isolated by the capture of
Sella di Dol, "the saddle " connecting
Santo with San Gabriele. Thus cut

770



off and surrounded, Monte Santo
yielded, on the twenty-fourth. Above
its summit, more than 2,000 feet high,
the Italian tricolor floated out, while
regimental bands celebrated there the
victorious hour, playing under the
direction of the great Toscanini.

During this first week of the offen-
sive, the Duke of Aosta and the Third
Army had been doing admirable work
on the southern Carso, where the 23rd
Corps, under Diaz, demolished the
Austrian I2th Division and secured
Selo. Very quickly the ground that
had been lost in June was recovered,
and the Austrian line forced back from
Kostanjevica (Castagnevizza) across
the Brestovica Valley. Nearer the
sea, an advance was made beyond San
Giovanni and Medeazza, and attacks
on Hermada reopened.

In that sector, British and Italian
monitors took part in the bombard-
ment. The Italian monitors, it is said,
were of a sort never before used in war,
and employed shells of greater calibre
than had ever before been fired from
warships. Around the head of the
Adriatic and on the Bainsizza as well
Caproni airplanes, too, furnished ad-
mirable assistance in the offensive,
flying forward by swarms, in advance
of the infantry, and dropping tons of
bombs upon the enemy positions.

THE SAN GABRIELE RIDGE THE NEXT
OBJECT OF ATTACK.

The first week of September, 1917,
marked the beginning of "a fight for a
natural fortress within as narrow limits
of movement as any old battle for
town or castle." It was a struggle for
the possession of San Gabriele ridge,
which, by the fall of Santo, had be-
come an Austrian salient surrounded
by Italians everywhere except on the
northeast. For ten days the contest
seethed. A correspondent writes:

"When first I looked down (from
Santo) upon the battle for San Gabriele
I seemed to hang directly over the
crater of a volcano. A matter of
40,000 Italian shells on a daily aver-
age are bursting over San Gabriele's
crest. In addition, are the Austrian
shells, for the lines on San Gabriele are
now so close that the topmost positions



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR



have been taken and retaken half a
dozen times."

THE AUSTRIANS DECIDE TO CONCEN-
TRATE THEIR FORCES.

By September 7, the losses were so
appalling that the Austrians called a
War Council, where they decided to
hold the eastern ridges of the Bainsizza
and concentrate attacks against the
army of the Duke of Aosta. Over
30,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners, of
whom 848 were officers, had been taken
in the engagements of August and



peril, since it had reached a depth of
7>^ miles on an eleven-mile front. In
reviewing the situation, on September
15, 1917, one correspondent wrote.
"The Isonzo, excepting one little por-
tion opposite Tolmino at the northern
extremity of the offensive line, is now
well within Italian possession. " Scarce-
ly more than a month passed before that
"one little portion " began to loom into
a significance that made the world
catch its breath in astonishment and
suspense.




SAND-BAG TRENCHES ON THE CARSO TABLELAND

That forbidding plateau, the Carso, "yields as little shade or water as the Sahara." Its stunted vegetation
reminded the South Africans of their veldt. In places, great natural hollows in the rock furnished ready-made
shelters for men and guns; but in other parts, where digging was an impossibility, sand- bag trenches were used.



September; 145 cannons, 265 mitrail-
leuses, and great quantities of other
guns and materiel had fallen into the
hands of the victors. But on the oppo-
site side of the account were written
155,000 Italian casualties.

Under the Austrian counter- strokes,
the Italians fell back from Hermada
and San Giovanni, though they re-
linquished no ground in the vicinity
of Kostanjevica. San Gabriele was
still divided. Not yet was the road
from Gorizia to Trieste opened, when
in mid-September the offensive died
away. General Capello's Bainsizza
position had been reinforced, but it
was a salient of peculiar difficulty and



AR IS FINALLY DECLARED UPON THE
GERMAN EMPIRE.



W

Not until August, 1916, was the last
link of the Triple Alliance formally
severed. Up to that time, Italy had
declared war against Austria-Hungary,
against Turkey, even against Bul-
garia, but not against Germany. The
situation was anomalous and com-
promising, for there was no question
that Germany stood behind Austria-
Hungary with support and direction
in her warfare upon Italy. Moreover,
the Prussian power was continually
committing unfriendly acts, in viola-
tion of all agreements with its Latin
ally. The atmosphere was cleared by

771



HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR



the Italian Government's denunciation
of the Commerical treaty with Ger-
many, which had been made on May
21, 1915, and finally, on August 27,
Victor Emmanuel made proclamation
that Italy declared war upon Germany.
No change of plans was involved. The
only difference in the situation was
that, in name, as well as in fact, Italy
and Germany were thenceforth at war.



the face behind it. " Yet, the war had
gone on without bringing forward any
German army upon the Italian frontier.

''"pHE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE ITALIAN PEAS-
JL ANT SOLDIER.