The flying spy

The German troops, drunk with the wine from our cellars, and fattened with the rich products from our fertile fields, were in a few instances, held back without aid of munitions, as without support of artillery, by mere stones and rocks hurled upon them by our men inexorably determined not to let the enemy pass. Again I took courage. I had never doubted the fate of our army, but in the rarer and more hazardous moments, had none the less been compelled to question my own convictions, since events scarcely justified my boundless optimism. This optimism depended in some measure upon the fact that I was an officer of the Third Army, the army which, under the command of the Duke of Aosta, had numerous times endeavored to open up a way toward Trieste, and which had occupied, little by little, the land of the Dolina and the rocky regions of the Carso. We of the Third Army had never considered ourselves beaten; we had been compelled to submit to inevitable events; we had been compelled to withdraw, against our wishes, lest we had been surrounded, and to the end that the stream of Germans which had penetrated from Caporetto, might not cut off our road to the Piave. But the heroes of Faiti, the heroes of Hermanda, even on the day when the retreat was determined upon, repulsed more than thirty attacks of the enemy, and in a final magnificent play, in defiance of the enemy pressing them on all sides, made a desperate assault in which they conquered new trenches and made several prisoners.

Those soldiers wept as they abandoned their huts. On our front the enemy had always been held back, and when it did advance, its journey was slow and costly. We aviators, who had been absolute masters of the air over the Isonzo, who had traversed with unswerving flight the enemy sky where hostile machines had in vain attempted our territory, who a thousand times had brought a greeting to the City of Grief, Trieste, seeming ever to be waiting for us there at the end of the Gulf at the foot of the hills—we aviators of the Third Army had even in our retreat inflicted such great damage on the enemy, that our troops, our ordnance, our supplies were enabled to move slowly on the muddy, congested roads, without fear of any harm from the wings of the enemy. Although the enemy planes were supported on land by the slow, persistent advance of their troops, they never dared nor risked firing on our slowly retreating column. A feat which but for us would have been easy, and would have shaken seriously the morale of our soldiers.

The officers of the Austrian staff were confident that they would find our army in the low spirits in which they found it at the battle of Caporetto.

“Quick, give me the bulletin.” He handed me the precious sheet and I read it with avidity. The Austrians had been driven back to the other side of the Narvesa Montebelluna railroad and were being pressed by our men who were gaining ground on all sides and were approaching the village of Narvesa. The enemy command, in view of the torrential condition of the Piave had decided to retire. Five divisions which were in the vicinity of Belluno were being transferred towards Susegana to cover the retreat and to defend the left bank of the river in case the Italians decided on a counter-attack. All the Austrian attacks in the region of the lower Piave near Capo D’argine and Candulu had failed.... I could scarcely believe my own eyes, I wanted to die, I wanted to cry my joy to all, and throwing my arms about the neck of Bottecchia who met us, I told him the comforting news. Then they really had not passed; then the battle on which we had concentrated all our efforts, all our sacrifices for several months, was about to end more advantageously than I had ever dared to hope! In these four days of battle the Austrians were bound to have lost the flower of their troops. All their vain glory had been drowned forever in the whirlpools of the Piave and it was now for us to finish them. I thought of the poor dead we left in the distant trenches of the Carso, of all those whose sacrifice seemed useless to me during the terrible day of Caporetto and I felt they had been vindicated, that the hour was not far distant in which the great destinies of Italy would be fulfilled.

January 15, 1918.—The command of the Third Army has stationed its headquarters in the village of Mogliano, near Venice. The troops of the Third Army, which for the past two months have been successfully resisting the continual thunderous attempts of the Austrian troops to cross the Piave, have established a front extending from the bridge of the Priula to the sea. Fortunately the region along the coast is flooded. Our other troops hold the old Piave line. Even in the mountain regions, events seem to favor us. After the first moments of confusion had passed, the new recruits, especially the youths of nineteen, exhibited once more all the boldness, all the pugnacity which had brought them distinction on the Carso. In vain did the Germans hurl their divisions, from the Lake of Garda to the Montello, against the light line recently reinforced by the foot soldiers of our company. The very troops which were unable to resist the forces of the enemy in the trenches of the Carso, although supported by thousands of mouths of every caliber belching forth fire, here on the rocky precipices of the Grappa, with a few wire entanglements and a single line of uninterrupted trenches, formed a barrier insurmountable by the violent enemy.

The German troops, drunk with the wine from our cellars, and fattened with the rich products from our fertile fields, were in a few instances, held back without aid of munitions, as without support of artillery, by mere stones and rocks hurled upon them by our men inexorably determined not to let the enemy pass. Again I took courage. I had never doubted the fate of our army, but in the rarer and more hazardous moments, had none the less been compelled to question my own convictions, since events scarcely justified my boundless optimism. This optimism depended in some measure upon the fact that I was an officer of the Third Army, the army which, under the command of the Duke of Aosta, had numerous times endeavored to open up a way toward Trieste, and which had occupied, little by little, the land of the Dolina and the rocky regions of the Carso. We of the Third Army had never considered ourselves beaten; we had been compelled to submit to inevitable events; we had been compelled to withdraw, against our wishes, lest we had been surrounded, and to the end that the stream of Germans which had penetrated from Caporetto, might not cut off our road to the Piave. But the heroes of Faiti, the heroes of Hermanda, even on the day when the retreat was determined upon, repulsed more than thirty attacks of the enemy, and in a final magnificent play, in defiance of the enemy pressing them on all sides, made a desperate assault in which they conquered new trenches and made several prisoners.

“Situation on the Montello unchanged. The greatest effort of the enemy has been on the lower Piave. Ten enemy divisions have engaged in a terrific struggle and have occupied Fagaré and Bocca di Collalta from which they had been driven. The resistance of the Italians continues to be strong. Archduke Joseph this morning was supposed to be present at a great meeting rendering thanks to God for the victory of the Piave, but instead the meeting has been postponed.”

It was really diverting to read the comments in the Austrian newspapers on the failure of the Piave offensive. The _Gazetta del Veneto_ said that events had followed exactly their outlined plans, that the aim of the offensive was not absolutely to break through the line, but to compel all the Italian troops to congregate on their front so that no reinforcements might be sent to the French that the Germans might thereby be enabled to obtain decisive results. These decisive results, however, had still to come to pass. The _Alkotmany_ of Budapest found solace in the fact that the Austrian command had been more considerate of the safety of the troops than of gaining tactical points. The _Az Uisag_ said that while the Italians had used their reserves, the Austrians still held theirs intact. The _Pesti Naplo_ wrote, “Our infantry did its best to try to achieve brilliant successes during the first days, but if the Italian artillery bombarded all our bridges and so made it impossible to send reinforcements of munition and food and heavy artillery, it certainly is not the fault of the Magyar troops.” Truly elegiac is the tone with which the _Budapesti Hirlap_ described the battle of the Montello: “Among the precipices of the Montello the horrors of the battle of Doberdó were renewed; there were Italian mortars of 40 cm., fire hurlers, heavy grenades, and above reappeared the reckless Italian aviators from whom it was impossible to find a refuge in the cruel ground.” The Italian aviators did not “re-appear,” they have always been active and the Austrian aviators, who at the time of Caporetto tried to be audacious, know something of the result of their activities.