Part 1 (1/2)
Italy at War and the Allies in the West.
by E. Alexander Powell.
AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT
For the a.s.sistance they have given me in the preparation of this book, and for the countless kindnesses they have shown me, I am indebted to many persons in many countries.
His Excellency Count Macchi di Cellere, Italian Amba.s.sador to the United States; Signor Giuseppe Brambilla, Counsellor of Emba.s.sy; Signor A. G. Celesia, Secretary of Emba.s.sy; his Excellency Thomas Nelson Page, American Amba.s.sador to Italy, and the members of his staff; Signor t.i.ttoni, former Italian Amba.s.sador to France; Signor de Martino, Chef du Cabinet of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; his Excellency Signor Scialoje, Minister of Education; Professor Andrea Galante, Chief of the Bureau of Propaganda; Colonel Barberiche and Captain Pirelli of the Comando Supremo, and Signor Ugo Ojetti, in charge of works of art in the war zone, all have my grateful thanks for the exceptional facilities afforded me for observation on the Italian front.
His Excellency M. Jusserand, French Amba.s.sador to the United States, General Nivelle, General Gouraud, and General Dubois; Monsieur Henri Ponsot, Chief of the Press Bureau, and Professor Georges Chinard, Chief of the Bureau of Propaganda of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Commandant Bunau-Varilla and the Marquis d'Audigne all helped to make this the most interesting and instructive of my many visits to the French front.
To General Jilinsky, commanding the Russian forces in France, and to Colonel Romanoff, his Chief of Staff, I am grateful for the courtesies extended to me while on the Russian front in Champagne.
Lord Northcliffe, who on innumerable occasions has shown himself a friend, Lord Robert Cecil, Minister of Blockade, and Sir Theodore Andrea Cook, Editor of _The Field_, put themselves to much trouble in arranging for my visit to the British front. Nor have I forgotten the kindnesses shown me by Captain C. H. Roberts and Lieutenant C. S.
Fraser, my hosts at General Headquarters.
For the many privileges extended to me during my visit to the Belgian front I take this opportunity of thanking his Excellency Baron de Broqueville, Prime Minister of Belgium; M. Emanuel Havenith, former Belgian Minister to the United States, Lieutenant-General Jacquez, commanding the third division of the Belgian Army; Capitaine-Commandant Vincotte, and Capitaine-Commandant Maurice Le Duc of the etat-Major.
To Lieutenant-Colonel Spencer Cosby, Corps of Engineers, United States Army, I owe my thanks for much of the technical information contained in Chapter V, as he generously placed at my disposal the extremely valuable material which he collected during his three years of service as American Military Attache in Paris.
James Hazen Hyde, Esq., who accompanied me on my visit to the Italian front, has, by his hospitality and kindness, placed me under obligations which I can never fully repay. I could have had no more charming or cultured travelling companion.
I also wish to acknowledge the information and suggestions I have derived from Sydney Low's admirable book, ”Italy in the War”; from R.
W. Seton-Watson's ”The Balkans, Italy, and the Adriatic”; from V.
Gayda's ”Modern Austria”; from Dr. E. J. Dillon's ”From the Triple to the Quadruple Alliance”; from Pietro Fedele's ”Why Italy Is at War,”
and from E. D. Ushaw's ”Railways at the Front.”
And, finally, I desire to thank Howard E. Coffin, Esq., of the Advisory Board of the Council of National Defence, for his hospitality on his sea island of Sapeloe, where most of this book was written.
E. ALEXANDER POWELL.
WAs.h.i.+NGTON,
April fifteenth, 1917.
ITALY AT WAR
I
THE WAY TO THE WAR
When I told my friends that I was going to the Italian front they smiled disdainfully. ”You will only be wasting your time,” one of them warned me. ”There isn't anything doing there,” said another. And when I came back they greeted me with ”You didn't see much, did you?” and ”What are the Italians doing, anyway?”
If I had time I told them that Italy is holding a front which is longer than the French and British and Belgian fronts combined (trace it out on the map and you will find that it measures more than four hundred and fifty miles); that, alone among the Allies, she is doing most of her fighting on the enemy's soil; that she is fighting an army which was fourth in Europe in numbers, third in quality, and probably second in equipment; that in a single battle she lost more men than fell on both sides at Gettysburg; that she has taken 100,000 prisoners; that, to oppose the Austrian offensive in the Trentino, she mobilized a new army of half a million men, completely equipped it, and moved it to the front, all in seven days; that, were her trench lines carefully ironed out, they would extend as far as from New York to Salt Lake City; that, instead of digging these trenches, she has had to blast most of them from the solid rock; that she has mounted 8-inch guns on ice-ledges nearly two miles above sea-level, in positions to which a skilled mountaineer would find it perilous to climb; that in places the infantry has advanced by driving iron pegs and rings into the perpendicular walls of rock and swarming up the dizzy ladders thus constructed; that many of the positions can be reached only in baskets slung from sagging wires stretched across mile-deep chasms; that many of her soldiers are living like arctic explorers, in caverns of ice and snow; that on the sun-scorched floor of the Carso the bodies of the dead have frequently been found baked hard and mummified, while in the mountains they have been found stiff, too, but stiff from cold; that in the lowlands of the Isonzo the soldiers have fought in water to their waists, while the water for the armies fighting in the Trentino has had to be brought up from thousands of feet below; and, most important of all, that she has kept engaged some forty Austrian divisions (about 750,000 men)--a force sufficient to have turned the scale in favor of the Central Powers on any of the other fronts. And I have usually added: ”After what I have seen over there, I feel like lifting my hat, in respect and admiration, to the next Italian that I see.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: The _Teleferica_.
”Many of the Italian positions can be reached only in baskets slung from sagging wires stretched across mile-deep chasms.”]