With British Guns in Italy: A Tribute to Italian Achievement Part 11

We invite you to be present and to salute our brave and faithful Allies.

They should be made to feel that your hearts, in unison with theirs, throb with hope and faith.]

By eleven o'clock a large crowd was already gathering outside the Barracks. At half-past we marched out into the street. In front of us went the munic.i.p.al bra.s.s band, gay with c.o.c.ks' feathers, and school-children carrying four banners on long flagstaffs. There was tumultuous cheering and clapping from a dense crowd. Flowers were showered upon us, and a very handsome girl gave me a bouquet of red roses. The band played impossible march music, so that we weren't able to keep much of a step.

But the enthusiasm was intense. Spectators thronged all the windows overlooking our route, and the cheering crowd stretched thick and unbroken along both sides of the street all the way. I noticed a specially enthusiastic group on the steps of the Castello, and several busy photographers. In between the efforts of the band our men sang.

Outside the station we marched past the Italian General Commanding the District. Then we were halted and the General made a speech. I happened to look round, and found standing beside me, looking up at me, wide-eyed and wondering, the page boy from the Circolo, whom I had harangued on the destiny of the world's youth, and afterwards tipped. The band was playing over and over again, at short intervals, G.o.d Save the King, the Marcia Reale, the Ma.r.s.eillaise, the Brabanconne and the Marcia degli Alpini. Whenever any of these national anthems was played, all the troops stood at attention, and we officers at the salute.

Then a little man with a black beard and an eager manner stepped forward and mounted a chair, and on behalf of the a.s.sociation of Italian Teachers wished us good luck. He spoke in English. He told us that his wife was "an Englishman," and recalled the names of Garibaldi and Gladstone, Palmerston and Cavour. He then presented to the Major an Italian Flag, which was handed to our Battery Sergeant-Major to be carried at the head of the troops as they marched into the station. Many Italian officers were present to say personal good-byes, and an immense crowd was on the platform cheering and singing, and distributing gifts and refreshments to our men. One gift was a little piece of tricolour ribbon, which an old woman gave to one of us. It had a note pinned to it addressed "to a brave British soldier," saying that she had a son at the Front who always carried just such a little piece of ribbon as a talisman, cut off the same roll, and that it had always kept him safe, and that it would keep the British soldier safe too. The note was signed "Tua Madrina" ("your G.o.d-mother").

At last it seemed that everyone was aboard, and the train started. But it was then discovered that the Major, Jeune and Manzoni had been left behind, not expecting the train to start so soon. They had chased it for a hundred yards down the line, but failed to catch it up. So the stationmaster telephoned to Rovigo to stop the train there till the three missing ones arrived, which they ultimately did, riding on an engine specially placed at their disposal. So ended our stay at Ferrara, in a blaze of wild enthusiasm. And I believe that, collectively, we left a very good impression behind us.

PART V

A YEAR OF RESISTANCE AND OF PREPARATION

CHAPTER XXVII

IN STRATEGIC RESERVE

Our train reached Cittadella shortly after dusk. We interviewed a British R.T.O., who had only taken up his duties five minutes' before our arrival, and so not unnaturally knew nothing about us. The Major proposed that the train should be put into a siding and that we should spend the night in it. This was done. We went into Cittadella, but found everything in complete darkness, most of the houses sandbagged, and all shops, cafes and inns closed at dusk by order of the military. We succeeded, however, in getting a meal of sorts, and then went back to the train and turned in early. We were woken up a little after midnight by two British Staff officers, who were very vague and ignorant, but told us to go next morning to San Martino di Lupari, a little village midway between Cittadella and Castelfranco. This we did and found pretty good billets. Monte Grappa loomed over us to the north, deep in snow. I did not go into Cittadella by daylight, but only saw its battlemented outer walls.

Then for a few days nothing happened, except that everyone seemed to have caught a cold. We were now part of the XIth British Corps, who were concentrated in the surrounding district and formed for the moment a strategic reserve, which might be sent anywhere according to the development of the situation. If nothing particular happened, we should probably go into the line south of the XIVth British Corps on the Piave.

If, on the other hand, the Italians were driven back in the mountains to the north of us, or were forced to retire down the Brenta Valley,--and this danger had not yet quite pa.s.sed,--we should move up the mountains and take over part of the Italian line, with the French probably on our right. We received tracings of several possible lines of defence, on the plain itself and on the near side of the mountain crest, described as the "Blue Line," the "Green Line," etc., which we were required to reconnoitre with a view to finding Battery positions and O.P.'s. They were all very awkward lines to defend, as the enemy would have splendid observation and we practically none at all.

On the 15th the Major went out in the car reconnoitring to the east. He met some Alpini on the road to whom he said, "Fa bel tempo,"[1] and they replied, "Le montagne sono sempre belle;"[2] also an old man who had never seen British soldiers before, and was tremendously excited and pleased, and shouted with joy.

[Footnote 1: "It's beautiful weather."]

[Footnote 2: "The mountains are always beautiful."]

On the 16th the Major went out again with Jeune and myself to look for Battery positions for the defence of the line at the foot of the mountains. We went through Cittadella and Ba.s.sano, then southwards along the Brenta to Nove, and then back through Marostica and Ba.s.sano. Ba.s.sano is a delightful old town, with many frescoes remaining on the outer walls of the houses, and a beautiful covered-in wooden bridge over the Brenta.

Marostica charmed me even more. Its battlemented walls are like those of Cittadella and Castelfranco, but in a better state of preservation and more picturesque, running up a rocky foothill behind the town and coming down again,--a most curious effect. These Alpine foothills for shape and vegetation are very like the Ligurian hills north of Genoa and round Arquata.

At San Trinita, just outside Ba.s.sano on the road to Marostica, is a very fine cypress avenue. There was a possible Battery position here. I noticed also a row of cypresses standing at intervals of about fifty yards along a hillside, dark and tall amid a ma.s.s of gra.s.s and rocks and brown fallen leaves. The weather was clear and cold, but the snow had shrunk to subnormal on the foothills. The Weather G.o.d was still favouring the enemy. It was very still, though occasionally sh.e.l.ls burst over the Grappa. But the hills m.u.f.fle the sounds beyond them.

On the way back we pa.s.sed a Battalion of Alpini marching up, many of them very young. I thought of the Duke of Aosta's latest message to the undefeated Third Army: "A voi veterani del Carso, ed a voi, giovani soldati, fioritura della perenne primavera italica."[1] Splendid Alpini! They are never false to their regimental motto, "di qu non si pa.s.sa!"[2] They never fail. But nearly all the first Alpini, who went forth to battle in May 1915, are dead now.

[Footnote 1: "To you, veterans of the Carso, and to you, young soldiers, flower of the eternal Italian spring."]

[Footnote 2: "No one pa.s.ses here!"]

On the 20th I went out in a side-car with Winterton to look for positions in the hills above Marostica. Reconnaissances of the back lines were now to be discontinued, a sign, we hoped, of diminishing apprehension and an improving military situation. At San Trinita on the way back we collided with an Italian wagon and had to stop for repairs.

A number of Italians gathered round, one of whom I discovered to be a priest, conscribed to serve with the Medical Corps. I bantered this man in a friendly way about secret drinking and the confessional and women and paradise, causing uproarious delight among the bystanders. And the priest took it all in excellent part.

On the 22nd we heard that, irrespective of the movements of the rest of the Corps, a special Group of Heavy Artillery was to be formed, including ourselves, to be lent to the Italian Fourth Army in the mountains. There began to be rumours of an offensive on our part.

On the 23rd we made a reconnaissance up the mountains to look for positions. We started through Ba.s.sano, which the Austrians had begun to sh.e.l.l the day before with long range guns, starting a trickling, pitiful exodus of terrified civilians. Just before reaching Marostica we struck up a valley running northwards past Vallonara. The road soon began to rise more steeply. It was a war road, broad and of splendid surface, one of those many achievements of the Italian Engineers, which ent.i.tles them to rank easily first among the engineers of the great European Armies.[1] Before the war this road had been in parts a mere mule track, in parts non-existent. We went through a number of little Alpine villages, Crosara, Tortima, Fontanelli, Rubbio. We had soon risen more than three thousand feet above the plain, which lay far beneath, spread out gloriously like a richly coloured carpet, green, white and brown, through which ran two broad, twisting, silver threads, the rivers Brenta and Astico. There had been more than a hundred bends in the road up to this point, but the gradient was never uncomfortably steep. Snow lay thick on the higher levels and the pine and fir trees were all snow-crowned. Sometimes the road ran along the edge of rocky gorges, dropping sheer for hundreds of feet below, with a great mountain wall on the other hand rising sheer above us. The air grew perceptibly colder as we mounted higher.

[Footnote 1: I have seen it stated, by an impartial authority, that there has been no roadmaking in war time to compare with that of the Italians on the Alpine and the Isonzo Fronts and in Albania, since the Napoleonic wars. A distinguished British engineer, with great experience of roadmaking in many countries, has also told me that in his opinion the Swedes are the best roadmakers in the world, the Italians a close second, and the rest of the world some way behind.]

We turned out of view of the plain over undulating snow fields and down a long valley and came out on a small plateau, screened by a gradual ridge from the eyes of the enemy. Here we provisionally chose a Battery position close to a small solitary house, known as Casa Girardi, on the edge of a pine wood. All round Italian guns were firing in the snow. We went on to Col. d'Astiago, which would be our probable O.P. The summit commanded a wonderful view of the high mountains to the northward, Longara and Fior, Columbara and Meletta di Gallio, and the sheer rock face of the Brenta gorge, and the stream far below, and the great ma.s.s of the Grappa rising beyond.

As we came down, lorry loads of Italian troops pa.s.sed us going up, Alpini, Bersaglieri, Arditi and men of the 152nd Infantry Regiment. They cheered us wildly as they pa.s.sed, waving their caps and crying, "Avanti!

Avanti! Viva l'Inghilterra! Viva gli Alleati!" And as the string of lorries turned round and round the spiral curves of the road, now high above us, they were cheering and waving still, until they disappeared from view.

The Battery ate their Christmas dinner at San Martino, though the air had been thick with talk of an immediate move. On this, as on other, occasions the Major made an excellent speech, in the course of which he said: "You will be going very soon into a place where, before this war, no one would have dreamed that Siege Artillery could go. You were the first British Battery to be in action in Italy, and you will probably be the first British Battery to be in action in the Alps. We shall be very uncomfortable, at any rate for a time, but we shall pull through all right, as we always have before. It will be an honour to be proud of, and an experience to remember for the rest of our lives. And I know that whatever happens to us in this coming year, you will all behave as splendidly in the future as you have always done in the past."

The enemy was doing a good deal of night bombing at this period. Treviso and Padua were attacked with great persistency, so much so that the British G.H.Q. decided to move from the latter city to some smaller and more peaceful place. We used to hear the bombing planes coming over nearly every night and explosions more or less distant. They bombed Ba.s.sano, Cittadella and Castelfranco, the latter especially because the French had their Headquarters there. But luckily they left San Martino alone, thinking it too small to worry about. There seemed to be no anti-aircraft defences anywhere. But our Air Force soon mitigated the nuisance by raiding their aerodromes, and brought down a number of hostile planes in air fighting.

Our Staff again brought themselves into notice at Christmas by altering our official address from "B.E.F. Italy" to "Italian Expeditionary Force." I heard that the distinguished General, who introduced this reform, estimated that it would hasten victory by several months. But the stupid soldiers and their stupid relatives at home, having got into the habit of using the abbreviation "B.E.F.," shortened the new address to "I.E.F.," and the stupid postal people began to send the letters to India! And then the distinguished General had to issue another order, pointing out that "this abbreviation is unauthorised" and that "this practice must cease."

In the midst of such excitements the New Year began, and the Major was awarded the D.S.O. for work on the Carso. He was as delighted as a child, and I too was very glad. This decoration, even more than most others, has been much too freely dished out during this war among quite undeserving people, who have simply made an art of playing up to their official superiors. The Major, however, had always been something of a thorn in the side of various Headquarters, and seldom hesitated to speak his mind both to, and of, Colonels and Generals and Staff officers generally. For this reason, and also for others, I consider that he deserved a D.S.O. a great deal more than many who received one.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE FIRST BRITISH BATTERY UP THE MOUNTAINS

The Major's words were soon to come true, after many of those delays and conflicting orders of which the victims of war time "Staff work" have profuse experience. On the 7th of January we moved up the mountains into the position previously selected near Casa Girardi. We were the first British Battery to go up. Two others and a Brigade Headquarters were to follow, when it had been seen how we got on. When in doubt, try it on the dog!

It began to snow as we came into Marostica, and we had great difficulty with the lorries even on gentle gradients. The roads were frozen hard and in places very slippery. We managed, however, to reach Casa Girardi before nightfall and found that our advance party had put up some wooden huts, and cut some trees for fuel. All that night the snow came down in clouds, but the next day, and the next few following, were very fine.

The sun shone all day long from a cold, cloudless sky upon a waste of flashing snow, with here and there trees sticking out of it, and strange red morning lights in the sky behind it, and sweeping winds across it, and in the sunset the white hillsides slowly changed to a mauve pink. It was a scene of wonderful beauty. But the temperature was ten degrees below zero one day at noon, and the next day twenty-four below zero at 9 a.m. and nine above zero at noon.

These conditions were disconcerting to good shooting, the lower temperatures not having been contemplated by those who compiled our range table in England. But we got all four guns satisfactorily registered by the second day, to the evident pleasure of the Italian Colonel under whose command we were temporarily placed. This man had a somewhat ferocious appearance and a reputation for great rudeness, both to his superiors and his subordinates in the military hierarchy. It was said that, but for this, he would long ago have been a General. To us, however, he showed his politer side, patting the Major on the back and repeating several times "buon sistema, buon sistema!"

The physical discomfort of those early days was great, but we were full of buoyancy and health. Everything froze hard during the night, one's boots, one's clothing, if damp when taken off, the ink in one's fountain pen. In the morning water poured into a basin froze hard in a couple of minutes and the lather froze on one's face before one had time to shave.

The Major, breaking through one of the most fundamental traditions of the British Army, announced that no one need shave more than once in three days. The morning after our arrival we had a discouraging breakfast. No fire could be got to burn and no tea had been made. There was nothing to eat except a few very hard ration biscuits and some eggs boiled hard the night before, and now frozen through and through. One cracked the sh.e.l.l and found icicles beneath, and miserably held fragments of egg in one's mouth until they thawed!

But gradually, by patient work and organisation, these early troubles were surmounted. The whole Battery had been provided with Italian greatcoats and other Italian mountain equipment,--white Alpine boots lined with fur, alpenstocks, spiked snow grips, which could be fastened on to one's boots like skates, and white clothing to put on over the top of everything else, to render us invisible against a snowy background. I used to hear some amusing comments in the Battery on our Alpine situation. "This is the sort of thing you see pictures of in books, but...!" "I suppose folks would pay quids in peace time to see this!"

"Why, it's like a blooming Cook's tour!"

Being the first of the British who had been seen in these parts, we were objects of great interest to the Italians, who used to collect in crowds to watch our guns firing. We became great friends with the members of a mixed Mess not far away, consisting of two Anti-aircraft Batteries and the personnel in charge of a large ammunition dump. Between this Mess and our own there were frequent exchanges of hospitality.

One day an Italian General's car skidded into a ditch close to our position. We supplied a party of men to get it out again and the General, thanking us, asked if there was anything we wanted. The Major told him that we should like two or three more huts and two good stoves for cooking. A few days later these were delivered by the Italian authorities. Our own Brigade Commander, who had now followed us up the mountains with his two other Batteries, noticed these things and asked how we had come by them. When we told him, he seemed displeased, and next day we got an official letter to inform us that "it has come to notice that British units have in some cases recently been approaching the Italian authorities direct.... This practice is irregular and must cease.... Indents must be submitted through the proper channels." We smiled and obeyed. But we kept our huts and stoves which were better than any which we should have been likely to get "through the proper channels."

We were very short of water except snow water, there being only one waterpoint for all troops within several miles. Here there was a long queue waiting most of the day. It is probably not generally known that it takes ten dixies full of snow, when melted down, to make one dixie full of water. For this and for hygienic reasons snow water was not much use to us. We were not at this time required to fire very much, but we were warned to get acquainted with the surrounding country, as an action of some importance might be coming off before long. This provided the occasion for several reconnaissances.

On January 15th the Major and I went up Monte Costahmga, a few miles to the west. It was a ziz-zag, scrambling track, and it was thawing enough to make everything rather unpleasant. But we gained some, useful new knowledge.

On the 24th, Jeune, together with an Italian officer, a telephonist and myself made a long day of it. Starting early, we were on the top of Costalunga about 9 o'clock, were given a guide by an Italian Field Battery on the summit and went on, along a mountain road commanding a magnificent view, to Cima Echar. Here was a good O.P. from which I got my first sight of Monte Sisemol and Asiago, of which part of the _campanile_ was at that time still standing. But it was brought down by Italian sh.e.l.l fire very soon afterwards. I remember thinking that the whole Asiago Plateau should be easy to retake, if we only brought up enough guns. Later on I began to realise that it would not be as easy as it looked.