At the eastern end of that frontier,
after the terrific strife of August and
September, 1917, "both sides settled
down exhausted on the ground where
they found themselves." The Italian
ITALIAN DOCTOR INOCULATING BERSAGLIERI AGAINST DISEASE
Italian soldiers are for the most part sound and tough in physique, especially the mountain troops. And the
Bersaglieri are particularly uncomplaining when wounded and in pain. In modern warfare no precautions are
spared to prevent epidemics; so inoculation, quarantine, careful supervision over food, drinking water, hygienic
conditions of barracks, etc., are part of the duty of the Sanitary Department. Picture from Henry Ruschin
Third Army, under the Duke of Aosta,
rested along the line they had estab-
lished on the Carso, facing the extreme
left wing of the enemy from Gorizia
to the sea. Flanking them, from
Gorizia and San Gabriele northward
over the Bainsizza to beyond Tolmino
and Caporetto, stood the Second Army,
commanded by General Capello, whose
area of control had been considerably
extended since 1916.
Many in these two armies had sus-
tained the heavy strain of war for
months, had borne the "heat and bur-
den" of long days of furious fighting,
the cold and depression of weeks of
Three months later, when, on Novem-
ber 21, Franz Josef came to the end of
his long career, the hostile feelings of
the Italians for their German antago-
nists grew more intense. The old emper-
or, nicknamed "Cecco Beppe" by his
southern neighbors, had long held the
r6le of their traditional oppressor and
evil genius. At his death the heritage
of hatred passed, not to his young
successor, Karl, but to the German
Empire. Caricatures of "Cecco Beppe"
were then given Prussian lineaments
and crowned with Prussian helmets.
The natural animosity of the race had
been transferred "from the mask to
772
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
winter vigil. With the patience char-
acteristic of their peasant natures they
had toiled and climbed and endured,
although they little comprehended the
purpose and meaning of the conflict in
which they were involved. They came,
for the most part, from country
villages where life was simple
and where they had almost no
touch with great affairs of state
and. of the world at large.
Education had never opened
for them the paths of under-
standing and large enterprise.
Some could indeed read and
write; some could not. The
explanations of the war and of
political questions to which
they listened were conflicting
and confusing. Which should
they believe? After all, govern-
ment and politics belonged to
the towns. It was in the towns
that the decision for war had
been made. They themselves
had had no part in that de-
cision.
AGITATORS APPEAR AND SOW SE-
IX DITION IN THE RANKS.
The patriotism of these sons
of Italy was natural and spon-
taneous rather than a thing of
reason and conviction. Tradi-
tion taught them to hate the
Austrians. Against such foes
they would follow their gallant
officers with spirit and devo-
tion, because in some vague
way they knew that their coun-
try needed them. They saw
their brothers and companions
suffer or die. It was somehow
a necessary sacrifice.
With no apparent need for guarding
against treason among such troops, no
precautions were taken and danger
crept in unnoticed. Propaganda which,
in the months of neutrality, had been
actively at work to prevent Italy's
entering the war, was still abroad up
and down the land sowing seeds of un-
rest. Socialist and pacifist agitators
talked in terms of brotherhood and
amity, making use of the Vatican
Peace Note to support their arguments
for ending the war. When the Russian
millions, lost in anarchy, had scattered
from their place in the Allied ranks,
some members of the Soviet had
pushed in among the Italian armies
to spread unsettling doctrines there.
The Italian soldier heard that the
AN AUSTRO-HTJNGARIAN PATROL
The jagged peaks and crags of the Dolomites called for great moun-
tain prowess. Alpine clubs had been encouraged by the German,
Austrian and Italian governments, as the skill acquired and the
routes discovered were assets in war.
Russians had been wise in abandoning
their arms and going home to seize land
that they might live upon it in peace.
THE ITALIAN AUTHORITIES REFUSE TO
SEE THE DANGER.
Although General Cadorna had sought
to arouse the government to take some
action toward checking the insidious
growth of such pernicious influences,
nothing had been done. Signor Orlando,
Minister of the Interior, did not favor
adopting stern methods of repression;
and Signor Boselli, the Premier, a
773
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
veteran statesman, had undertaken to
shoulder the burden of Government in
wartime at the age of eighty. Warn-
ings of trouble passed unheeded,
though they flamed out in such start-
ling manifestations as the bread riots
in Turin in the month of August, where
the enemy's hand was plainly at work.
Turin, one of the most important cen-
tres in the country for the production
of munitions, had been strangely open
to the propaganda of anarchy. Even
the troops who were set to restore order
became infected with the spirit of
mutiny. Turin was threatened with
martial law before there was an end to
the disturbance.
Thus the enemy operated within the
gates. At the same time he was laying
plans to creep up outside the gates
and force them in with a crushing
blow. By the breaking down of the
Russian front there had been released
Austrian and German forces, ready to
be used on the southern frontier.
Thereupon a composite army, the
Fourteenth, was formed, including six
German and seven Austrian divisions.
Under Ludendorff's direction they were
drilled and equipped for fighting in the
open in hill country. Half of the field
artillery was displaced by . mountain
guns, and among the German divisions
was a Bavarian Alpenkorps. Ostensi-
bly, the Austro-Hungarian Staff con-
tinued in control as before; but the
actual authority and direction had
passed over to the German General
Staff. "It was a thoroughly German
outfit and had been prepared in the
usual thorough German fashion."
THE GERMAN HIGH COMMAND SELECTS
THE WEAKEST SPOT.
The Italian Command failed to per-
ceive these ominous preparations. Lu-
dendorff, on the other hand, seems
carefully to have studied their own
arrangements and to have placed his
finger upon .the weakest spot, between
Plezzo and Tolmino, where the same
Austrian and Italian divisions had for
months been pacific neighbors and had
begun to fraternize, encouraged in
their friendly tendencies by Socialist
agents. The position was considered
so safe that it received little attention
774
from General Capello, even after the
mutinous contingents from Turin had
unfortunately been sent there by way
of punishment. By these combinations
of circumstance it came about that a
"whole sequence of great events" has
been called "by the name of a little
Alpine market-town"; for Caporetto
was the centre of the vulnerable spot
opposite which Ludendorff slipped in
his Fourteenth Army, under the com-
mand of Otto von Below. Around
Gorizia and on the Carso, the Austrian
armies remained, with Prince Eugene
at their head.
Upon that quiet, little-noticed cor-
ner far north on the Isonzo, with the
sharpness and suddenness of complete
surprise, German strategy flung its
attack. The Monte Nero salient there
made an abrupt eastward-reaching
loop in the Italian line, which crossed
the river a little southwest of Plezzo
and again just northwest of Tolmino.
A similar loop in the river, at Tolmino,
enclosed Santa Lucia, which furnished
the Austrians with an excellent bridge-
head, protected on the south by Lom.
It will be recalled that Lom, on the
northern border of the Bainsizza, had
resisted all attacks in August, and that
consequently the enemy position at
Santa Lucia west of the river had re-
mained unshaken. Hence a way to the
Italian position lay open through the
Isonzo Valley itself from Tolmino and
from Plezzo. Halfway between, on the
left bank of the river, little Caporetto
was situated, in the shadow of Monte
Nero but too far below to find protection
from the Italian positions on its heights.
THE GERMAN TROOPS BREAK THROUGH
WITH A RUSH.
Bombardments, by the enemy, open-
ing on October 21, soon narrowed to the
stretch between Saga and Auzza. In
courtyards and on roadways where
all had been secure and peaceful
hitherto, shells burst and confusion
awoke. Under cover of the artillery, on
October 24, the German divisions broke
through, seeking by three routes to
reach the plains below: from Tolmino
and Santa Lucia through the valley of
the Judrio; from Plezzo over into
Saga and thence down the Isonzo to the
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
Natisone; lastly, around Nero and
across the Isonzo to Caporetto, whence
a good road and newly finished railway
followed the valley of the Natisone to
Cividale.
The attacks at both ends of the sa-
lient were met with sturdy resistance.
But the centre drove through at
Caporetto, where were stationed the
newly-drafted, untried elements of
THE GAP AT CAPORETTO FORCES RETIRE
MENT OF OTHER FORCES.
When the first day ended, the Italian
position from Saga to Auzza had been
carried. The Monte Nero garrison,
thus isolated, with characteristic de-
termination fought on for days, until
none were left. Not all the Second
Army failed, in that awful test. There
were those who would die rather than
THE RETREAT FROM THE ISONZO FRONT TO THE TAGLIAMENTO RIVER
From the northeastern section opposite Tolmino the disorganized Second Army fell back in confusion, cross-
ing the Tagliamento at Codroipo on October 30. On the thirty-first, the Third Army began to cross at Latisana,
having made a masterly retreat from the Carso region. Meanwhile, the Fourth Army was moving southwest from
the Carnic front, to join hands with the Third Army. About forty miles lie between the Isonzo and the Tagliamento.
Capello's Army and the disaffected
spirits from Turin. If, as has been
narrated, deluded Italian soldiers sprang
forward to grasp the hands of their
expected Austro-Hungarian brothers,
they had little time to wonder before
they fell under the blows of Prussian
steel. Panic, surrender, flight, were
the natural sequence. General Capello
was ill with fever at the time, and
General Montuori was acting as his sub-
stitute. The weather, with storm and
mist, and, on the mountains, snow,
made for the advantage of the invaders.
The very atmosphere of disaster seemed
to envelop the whole sector.
step back from their hard-won battle-
front. And yet, there were those for
whom war-weariness and ignorance
and discouragement proved too severe
a strain, so that they inevitably became
infected with the spirit of helplessness
and desertion. Unhappily there were
two corps in the Caporetto section
which "melted away" before the
first blast. Neglect, thoughtless com-
plaints of the uninstructed, and hostile
propaganda had worked together to
shake the morale of these men.
The falling in of the salient on the
north left the troops on the Bainsizza
exposed. If the enemy moved on down
775
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
the valleys in their rear, they would be
cut off from communication and supply.
There was but one thing they could do
to avoid being outflanked. On the
twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth they
withdrew from the whole plateau, re-
linquishing, as well, Kuk and Santo and
San Gabriele. During that time, too,
the headquarters of General Cadorna,
which had been at Udine, were removed
to Padua, since Udine could be reached
directly by rail from Cividale, only ten
miles away and already seriously
threatened.
A DISORGANIZED THRONG POURS INTO
1\ THE PLAINS.
On the highroads that led to the
plains a mixed, disorganized, and
wretched throng trailed slowly on-
ward, hour by hour, through mud and
rain. Exhausted, famished, dispirited,
they moved toward the southwest,
with the enemy, almost at their heels,
kept back only by the heroic rear-guard
efforts of regiments that held together
and strove to retard the on-sweeping
German lines. There were among the
multitude soldiers whose Socialist tu-
tors had instructed them to lay down
their arms, since the war was over.
They were simply "going home."
There were civilian refugees from the
districts through which the sad train
was passing, and so the company was
constantly augmented. Carts,- horses,
motor-vehicles, ambulances, lorries,
without official control or guidance,
traveled by tedious degrees, side by side
with the crowds on foot, ever in one
direction and "the slowest set the pace. "
Now and then an aeroplane swooped
near, with terrifying menace, but the
storms provided some protection from
air attack, and the Italian aviators were
valiant in combating enemy airmen, so
preventing much possible horror and
devastation.
The German divisions under von
Below began to pour out upon the
plains, at the mouth of Natisone Valley,
on October 28. They entered Cividale
that day, and left it in ruins. Then
they pushed upon Udine, where the
Arditi disputed their entrance and
withstood them until the twenty-ninth.
The Austrian forces, who had recovered
776
the Bainsizza, took possession of Gori-
zia on the twenty-eighth, when it was
reluctantly evacuated by the last of its
defenders.
THE THIRD ARMY SAVES THE DAY BY
ITS ORDERLY RETREAT.
As the position of the Third Army,
with the Duke of Aosta, on the Carso,
had become untenable before the loss
of Gorizia, it had withdrawn across the
Vallone and started on the brilliant
and orderly retreat toward the Taglia-
mento. This river, some forty miles
west of the Isonzo, was the goal toward
which the, whole retiring mass looked
with hope.' A host of fugitives, includ-
ing what was left of the Second Army,
crossed at Codroipo on October 30.
On the west side of the Tagliamento
they found "a more hopeful and active
world, where officers and Carabinieri
were sorting out the men as they
arrived over the bridge, and orders
were being given and obeyed."
The next day, at Latisana near the
coast, the greater part of the Third
Army crossed to the west side of the
river, with 500 of their guns, and began
to take positions there. "The Duke of
Aosta's retreat was one of those per-
formances in war which succeed against
crazy odds, and which, consequently,
we call inexplicable. It made the
Italian stand possible, and deprived
the enemy of the crowning triumph
which he almost held in his hands."
The British guns had all been saved
and carried from the Carso. "Heaven
knows how it was done," observes one
who took part in the retreat and who
states that, owing to the efficient serv-
ices of the British Red Cross Unit
attending the Third Army, "no British
sick or wounded fell into the hands of
the enemy." The Austro-German
Command was claiming the capture of
200,000 prisoners and 1,800 guns.
Several thousand of the prisoners were
non-combatant workmen who had been
caught in the first rush.
\ TEMPORARY HALT BEHIND THE TAGLIA-
/X MENTO RIVER.
The flooded Tagliamento furnished
the Italians a temporary barrier, which
gave opportunity for the restoration of
order and the preparation of new plans.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
The fighting, up to this point, had been
done in detached sections with, "liter-
ally, hundreds of isolated encircling
movements" by the enemy, resulting
in the seizure of prisoners in large
numbers. But the invading armies
found greater difficulty in moving up
their guns as they advanced farther
over the plains and swollen
streams, while the space be-
tween the Italian Third Army
and the Fourth Army under
De Robilant on the Carnic
front was becoming narrower
and narrower. The two would
soon be "able to link hands
across the gap" created by the
disappearance of the Second
Army.
With no prospect of holding
firmly at the Tagliamento, nor
at the Livenza River, next be-
yond, the banks of the Piave
offered the first promising
ground on which to make a
stand. "There the right bank
was protected by the most
modern and approved practice
trenches, constructed by ' rook-
ies ' before they had been al-
lowed to go to the battle line. "
On November 3, the Germans
and Hungarians crossed the
Tagliamento at Tolmezzo, Pin-
zano, and other points. By the
eighth they had pushed across
the Livenza. At last, on No-
vember 10, the Italians stood
along the Piave, ready to defy
further Teutonic aggression
and to protect Venice from
disaster. In crossing the rivers,
armored motor cars, with quick-firing
guns in their turrets, held the bridges
until all others had passed across.
Then, following the cavalry rear-guards,
they burned the bridges behind them.
'-pHE LINE OF THE PIAVE RIVER IS TAKEN.
It was with utter reluctance and
regret that the Fourth Army had re-
tired from the Carnic Alps, and the
First Army, under Pecori-Giraldo, from
the peaks and passes in the Cadore re-
gion. They now took their places side
by side with the reorganized Second
Army and the Third in the line that
sheltered Venice and her neighbor
cities on the plains. On the Adriatic
side Venetia had been laid open by the
withdrawal of the naval batteries along
the Northern Adriatic coast, conse-
quent upon the loss of the Carso and
the region between the Isonzo and the
GENERAL ARMANDO DIAZ
General Diaz, General Cadorna's successor in command of the
Italian armies, was born and educated at Naples. He had fought
in Africa. After brflliant success on the Carso, he was given com-
ma ad of the 23rd Army Corps on the Isonzo, where he added to his
reputation.
Piave. The Allied Navy was the whole
length of the peninsula away, at
Taranto.
With the realization that the offen-
sive was a serious danger, requiring in-
stant and vigorous action, on October
26 the existing Ministry had been over-
thrown as inadequate. The first of
November found the government re-
constructed, with Signer Orlando as
Premier, Baron Sonnino at the head
of the Foreign Office, Signer Nitti in
charge of the Treasury, and Signer
Alfieri as Minister of War. All parties,
777
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
except the extreme Socialists, laid aside
party issues and devoted themselves
earnestly to the task of saving the
country from calamity.
ALLIED REINFORCEMENTS AND A NEW
I\ ITALIAN COMMANDER.
The first step toward a united com-
mand for the Western Allies was taken
when a council was held at Rapallo,
near Genoa, on November 5, to consider
how best to deal with the perilous situ-
ation in Italy. From England came
Lloyd George, General Smuts, Sir
William Robertson, and Sir Henry
Wilson; from France, M. Painleve and
General Foch. Italy was represented
by Signer Orlando, Baron Sonnino,
and Signor Alfieri. Out of this council
grew a triune General Staff, of which
General Cadorna was made a member,
together with General Foch and Gener-
al Sir Henry Wilson. Headquarters
were at Versailles. General Foch, at
the time, held the post of Chief of
Staff of the French War Office, and Sir
Henry Wilson belonged to the British
General Staff. As Commander-in-
Chief of the Italian armies, General
Cadorna was superseded by General
Diaz, who had as his Chief of the
General Staff, General Badoglio, and
as Sub-Chief of the Staff, General
Giordino.
Reinforcements of French and Brit-
ish troops had already been hastened
into the country, the French I2th
Corps, under General Fayolle, first,
followed, early in November, by a
British corps, the I4th, under Sir
Herbert Plumer. "One of England's
best loans to Italy was General Plu-
mer. " He gave his influence strongly to
the holding of the Piave if it could
possibly be done, although at the mo-
ment the risk involved seemed so great
that the French and British divisions
were stationed near the Adige and on
the hills around Vicenza, to form a re-
serve there in case the Italians should
be forced back. Therefore, the Italians,
alone, except for the British batteries
rescued from the Carso, formed a line
of defense before the Piave. The pres-
ence of the Allies, however, supplied a
moral buttress for the spirits of the
heavily-strained nation. Britons and
778
Frenchmen met with a sincere and
enthusiastic welcome.
THE ITALIAN PEOPLE REALIZE THEIR
DESPERATE SITUATION.
General Cadorna's communique of
October 28 had revealed the very truth
about the situation where the line gave
way. In his rage, at that shocking in-
stant, he had used the plainest terms,
not hesitating at "treason" itself.
Although the message was not made
public until its language had been
modified, rumor got abroad and was
caught up without delay. The effect was
that of an electric current shaking men
and women into consciousness of their
stupid or wilful failure to perceive the
dangers they had been fostering instead
of fighting.
"Now, in the souls of four-and-
thirty millions from the Alps to Sicily,
a decisive battle was waged in the
secular conflict between the persistent
materialism and the no less persistent
idealism of the Italian nature. The
very existence of the idealist principle
in the common life of the race was
threatened, and to some seemed al-
ready doomed. Italy, having striven
for a hundred years to be a great and
free country with traditions and memo-
ries of her own making, had not, it
seemed, the necessary staying power.
Was she, after all, fit only to be a
'museum, an inn, a summer resort'
for German 'honeymoon couples,'
'a delightful market for buying and
selling, fraud and barter, ' as in the
days before Mazzini? Had the fathers
of the Risorgimento been mere sent'-
mentalists, who tried to make the land
of their dreams out of earthen clay?
Had the true decision been, not in 1860,
but in 1849, if only they had had the
sense to accept it? Or had they per-
chance been right after all, those great
ones of old, with that large faith of
theirs? The world would soon know. "
On the heels of the communique fol-
lowed the Propaganda of the Mutila-
ted, launched on the same day, October
28. Both officers and privates whose
injuries had removed them from active
service gave themselves to the work of
reviving a burning spirit of patriotism
in the country. Blinded, lamed, or
779
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
paralyzed, they yet had tongues to
persuade their fellow-citizens to meet
the country's need.
npHE SITUATION OF THE OPPOSING ARMIES
1 IN NOVEMBER.
On November 9, the day before the
Italian armies reached their standing-
ground behind the Piave, the ruined
remnant of Asiago passed again into
the hands of the Austrians. Two days
later, the enemy line was a united
whole, when the eastern and western
ends were knitted together between
the Upper Piave and the Val Sugana.
In that sector, the Fourteenth Austro-
German Army and the Tenth Austrian
Army faced the Italian Fourth Army
under de Robilant, which had moved
southwest from the Carnic front. West
of the Brenta, on the Asiago Plateau,
Pecori-Giraldo, with the Italian First
Army, was prepared to hold those
heights and the Val Frenzela, against
the Austrian Eleventh Army. In the
"bottle-neck" between the Brenta and
the Piave, the Italians occupied the
ridges, of which the Monte Grappa and
Monte Tomba massifs lay nearest the
south. About ten miles southeast,
beyond the Piave's bend eastward, on
its right bank, Montello provided
another ridge to fortify for defense at
a distance of twenty-five miles from
Venice. The Asiago Plateau, Monte
Grappa, and Montello were the north-
ern centres of the struggle that dark-
ened the remaining days of November
and the whole month of December,
while the flood of the Lower Piave was
being disputed hotly by the Italian
right wing under the gallant Duke of
Aosta. At the other end of the
shortened Italian line, the Fifth Army
with General Morrone did not change
its position west of the Trentino; but
its right flank was endangered by the
enemy's presence in the Val Sugana.
THE AUSTRO-GERMAN FORCES MAKE
SLIGHT GAINS.
Working down the Brenta Valley
from the Val Sugana and pressing
eastward from Asiago, the Austrian
mountain troops and some Hungarian
divisions, under von Below, drove the
defenders of the uplands back toward
the last ridges at Monte Tomba and
780
Monte Grappa, and approached the
upper end of the Val Frenzela. Mean-
while, the Italians eagerly watched the
mountains for the first sign of the ex-
pected snows. The storms came late.