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The Italians at Bay: Venice

But all preparations are being made to face the conceivable eventuality of another retirement. The most serious consequence that this would entail would be the abandonment of Venice and the necessity of bringing that inestimable city within close range of the destruction of war. Even at this early stage, therefore, while the danger to Venice is as yet not urgent, the Italian Government is doing its best to surround her with the protection of such neutrality as the conventions of war, for what they are worth, secure to undefended and unoccupied towns. No person in uniform is allowed to enter the place and the civilian population is being encouraged to leave by free railway transport and subventions to support them until they can settle elsewhere. Even in such tragic hours Venice keeps up her old tradition of light-heartedness. The cafes round the great piazza are full in the evenings with a cheerful crowd. Moreover, to go into St. Mark's is to enter a sort of neolithic grotto; the pillars, set about with sand-bags, have the girth of the arcades of a Babylonian temple; bulging poultices of sacks protect each fresco; as a building it reminds one of a German student padded for a duel. The Doge's Palace, too, is more hidden with scaffolding than it could have been when it was being built; each of those delicate columns of different design is set around with a stout palisade of timber balks. Venice, indeed, looks like a drawing-room with the dust-sheets on the furniture and the chandeliers in bags, and to complete the parallel, the family is going away before one's eyes.

Sad days for Italy, days unimaginable a month ago. There must, indeed, be virtue in the Allies' cause since such ordeals as these still leave our courage high.

The bottling up of the Harbor of Zeebrugge and the attempted closing of the Harbor of Ostend formed what was probably the most brilliant single naval exploit of the war. These daring and successful attempts are described in the narrative following.