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The Italians at Bay: German

On October 22 we learned at Italian head-quarters that ten German divisions, about one hundred and twenty thousand men, had arrived behind the enemy front on the Isonzo and were concentrated in reserve round Laibach. This was the first time in the whole war that German troops had met the Italians on this front. The number of new Austrian divisions was reported to be even greater. Many new batteries of heavy caliber had also arrived and were registering their ranges; indeed, when the attack actually came, it was found that the number of fresh guns was even greater than had been thought, for some of them did not reveal their position by registering, but, taking their ranges from guns earlier in position, fired not a round until they joined in that terrific first bombardment with which the attack opened on the morning of October 24. Italians expect to hold west side of Isonzo.

Most serious was the situation, but even yet no one grasped how bad the reality was going to be. It was generally accepted that all ground beyond the Isonzo would have to be abandoned, but it seemed beyond all doubt that the Italians would be able to make good their defense along the steep ridge that forms the western side of the Isonzo valley. As you looked from those heights across the river, it was like looking from the wall of a medieval castle; you dominated everything, and behind you were great Italian guns ready to fill the gorge of the Isonzo and the slopes beyond with a barrier of bursting steel. But one of those combinations that have often helped the Germans in this war helped them to the success that seemed impossible. It was made up of the secrecy with which they had been able to complete their preparations, of the luck of surprise and bad weather, and above all of the fatal failure in their duty of certain detachments of the Italian forces.

German propaganda has created disaffection is every Allied country Soldiers every-where are weary of war.

One of the successes of this year's German offensive was the creation in the heart of an efficient and gallant army of this canker of disaffection by propaganda that has been as energetic and as dangerous to our cause as any of the enemy's operations in the field. In every Allied country it has been active; among the English it is at work corrupting labor, preying on the nerves of the overstrained worker, and whispering any subtle lie that will sap his will and undermine his spirit. In France one fractional part of the widespread organization that carries on this treacherous work is being exposed by the revelations in the Bolo case. In Italy the Germans cunningly twisted fanatics, both socialist and clerical, into agents for forwarding their work, and they had flooded the country with money to corrupt the army which they had not been able to beat in the field. The individual soldiers of every country, including above all the Central empires themselves, are dead-weary of the war, but the enemy alone has had the cunning and the baseness deliberately to exploit this feeling to his profit, working through the agency of bought traitors and hired spies. And so the Austro-Germans had managed to imbue a limited part of the Italian Army with the distorted idea that the quickest way to regain the longed-for comforts of peace was to refuse to fight and thus open the way for a rapid Austrian victory.

When this ferment of disloyalty had done its work, the Germans were ready to attack the particular sector of the line held by the troops that it had most affected. These were on the left wing of the Italian Second Army, which held the front of the Isonzo from Plezzo down to Tolmino, and it was on that point that the enemy directed his first thrust.

The news of the taking of Caporetto.

The news of the taking of Caporetto on the morning of October 24 had about as startling an effect at Italian headquarters as would be produced on the British front if it were suddenly announced that the Germans were in Ypres. Not only was Caporetto a town on the Upper Isonzo which the Italians had seized by dashing forward across the frontier the very morning that war was declared, but it also stood at the head of a most important strategical valley leading back into the mountains on which the Italian main line lay, and from the town lead several easy roads that follow various routes into the plain beyond. Already the enemy was pressing in force along those roads. The Italians had, indeed, fallen back to reserve positions, but were the enemy to win through--as he did within two days--he would be on the flank and almost in the rear of the whole Italian Army of a million men. Rapid progress of the Germans is difficult to explain. Just how the Germans progressed so fast that by noon on October 24 they had a machine-gun posted on the square in Caporetto still remains, eight days later, incompletely explained. All that is really known is this: at 2 a.m. they started a very violent bombardment. When the shelling suddenly stopped after only two hours, the Italians regarded the interruption merely as a lull, for the artillery preparation for an infantry attack in force usually lasts much longer. With the valley hidden by darkness, mist, and rain, and seeing more dimly than usual through the mica of their gas-masks, the Italians knew nothing of the German infantry's advance up the valley from the Santa Lucia bridgehead, south of Tolmino, until the enemy had actually reached their wire. In this way the Plec line of defense across that reach of the Isonzo known as the Conca di Plezzo, a line specially designed to check an offensive from Santa Lucia, was captured by surprise, and then German troops poured down into the river gorge from Mrzli on its eastern side, until the valley was full of the enemy, and Monte Nero and the other Italian outpost positions on the heights beyond the Isonzo were completely surrounded. Italian outpost positions are surrounded.

Violent fighting on the Bainsizza plateau.

The valley being in their possession, the Germans wasted no time. Pushing northward along the river, one detachment occupied Idersko and Caporetto; another proceeded to assault the height of Starijok, just above Caporetto; yet another strong force made a frontal attack on the ridge of Zagradan, which runs like a wall along the Italian side of the river, and after fierce fighting took Luico, one of the pivots of the defenses upon it. Elsewhere he had attacked at the same time with less definite result. Mount Globocak was seized by surprise. It was an Italian big-gun position, and orders were given for it to be retaken at any cost. So a distinguished brigade of bersaglieri was sent up to counter-attack, and drove the Germans from the captured guns down the slopes of Globocak again. North of Caporetto, too, the angle of the Italian line at Zaga had been as-sailed, but had resisted, and across the river on the Bainsizza plateau the most violent fighting of all took place, as a result of which the Italian line was withdrawn from Kal, and the heavy guns and equipment were sent back across the Isonzo, though the Italian counter-attacks on the Bainsizza were carried out with such dash that they captured several hundred Austrian prisoners.

Danger that the Italian Army may be srapped.

Now the enemy's plan stood out in all its formidable strength and strategy. He had opened a gap in the Italian front; through this gap he was pouring overwhelming forces. Already the rest of the Italian Second Army and the Third Army on the Carso to the south of it were outflanked. If the whole of that great force was not to have its line of communications cut and be surrounded, it must be immediately and rapidly withdrawn for a great distance. An immense sacrifice of Italian territory was imperative if the Italian Army was to be saved from a trap by the side of which the fall of Metz was the capture of an outpost. During the afternoon of October 25 the general order of retreat was given.

Austrians use seventeen-inch howitzers.

I went up again to visit the British batteries which were with the Third Army on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth, and from one of their observatories watched the heavy shelling. The Austrians were using huge seventeen-inch how-itzers, and the explosions of their gigantic shells, each weighing a ton, was like a small eruption. A solid block of piebald smoke as big as a cathredal sprang into the air and it was a minute or more before the last of it had drifted away.