With British Guns in Italy: A Tribute to Italian Achievement Part 16

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

THE MOVE TO THE PIAVE

The second week in October we moved down from the Plateau and lay for a week at Mestre, within sight of Venice. One clear afternoon it looked as though one could throw a stone across the intervening water. Every one took for granted that a big Italian offensive was imminent. The rumour was that it would be timed to begin, as near as possible, on the anniversary of the defeat of Caporetto. In Italy more weight is attached to anniversaries than with us. One felt expectation everywhere in the air.

It was during these days that I fell in with the Rumanian Legion. I had been in Padua and saw a group of them standing on the platform at the railway station. They were obviously not Italians. Their uniform was similar to that of the Italian Infantry, but their collars were red, yellow and blue, and they wore a c.o.c.kade of the same three colours on their hats. They wore Sam Browne belts, too, and carried a _pugnale_ like the Italian Arditi. I asked a Carabiniere on duty who they were.

He smiled but did not know. "Perhaps Yugo-Slavs," he suggested. One of them overheard our conversation and came up to me saying, "Siamo Rumeni, Legione Rumena." Then followed a tremendous fraternisation. We shook hands all round and began to talk. We talked Italian, which, being very like their own language, they all understood. Indeed, for an Italian Rumanian is much easier to understand than many of the Italian local dialects.

They were attractive people, of all ages and very friendly, rather like Italians, but with a queer indescribable racial difference. They were natives, mostly, of Transylvania and had much to say of the oppression of their nationality by the Magyars. Most of them had been conscribed to fight in the Austro-Hungarian Army, but had crossed over to the Italian lines at the first opportunity. One said, "There are four millions of us in Austria and Hungary." Then, with an air of restrained fury, "Is that not enough?" Another said, "But after the war there will be a Great Rumania--great and beautiful." And another said, "We Rumanians must be very grateful to Guglielmone.[1] If he had not made this war, we should not have seen the Greater Rumania in our lifetime. But now, if it was not certain before, the blunders of Carluccio[2] have put it beyond all doubt." And another told me that his father wrote and spoke English very well, having lived for twelve years in America at St Louis. And another explained to me how the Rumanians had retained, more than any other modern nation, the speech and customs and dress and traditions of the ancient Romans, which things they had originally derived from the legionaries of the Emperor Trajan.[3] When we parted I said, "May we all meet again on the field of victory beyond the Piave. Long live the Greater Rumania!" And they all cried, "Long live England! Long live victory!" And so I was going away, when one of them, a little fellow, with a rather sad, earnest face, who had apparently missed a parting handshake, ran after me about twenty yards, and seized me by the hand and cried again, "Long live victory!"

[Footnote 1: "Big William."]

[Footnote 2: "Wretched little Charles."]

[Footnote 3: This common boast of the Rumanians is quite true. It is partly to be accounted for by the fact that they were able to retreat before successive invading hordes of barbarians into the inaccessible valleys of the Carpathians, and come down again on to the plains when the danger had pa.s.sed by.]

From Mestre we moved up through Treviso to a Battery position, on which an advance party had been at work for several days. It grew more and more certain that the offensive was coming at last. Troops of all arms were moving forward in unending streams along every road leading toward the Piave. Prominent among them were many Italian Engineers and bridging detachments with great numbers of pontoons. Beyond Treviso all troop movements took place at night, and our defensive (and offensive) measures against aircraft were apparently sufficient to prevent the enemy from getting any clear idea of what was going on. It seems that he expected an attack in the mountains, but not on the plain. The Italian High Command, on the other hand, considered that the relative strength and morale of the opposing Armies was now such that we could attack on the plain without fear of a successful counter-attack in the mountains, and that, the attack on the plain once well under way, we could pa.s.s to the offensive in the mountains also. This view of things was justified by the events which followed. Two British Divisions were moved down to the plain, and one was left in the mountains. The Heavy Artillery was divided proportionately and, of my own Brigade, one Battery was left in the mountains but the rest moved down.

Our new Battery position lay between the ruined village of Lovadina and the river Piave, about three-quarters of a mile from the nearer bank.

There was a farmhouse, not much knocked about, close to the gun pits and, with the aid of a few tents erected out of sight along a shallow ditch, the whole Battery was very tolerably billeted. Another British Battery was less than a hundred yards in rear of us, and two others not far away on our right flank. We were once more in a land of acacia hedges, beginning now to take on their autumn tints. For miles round us the country was dead flat. Beyond the river we could see, on a little rise, what was left of Susegana Castle, near to Conegliano, and on a higher, longer ridge further away the white _campanile_ of San Daniele del Friuli, above Udine. It was there that, almost a year ago, in the first newspaper I saw after the retreat, I had read that Italian rearguards were still fighting. In the far distance rose great mountain ma.s.ses. Up there were Feltre and Belluno, and behind, just visible when the light was very bright, the peaks of Carnia and the Cadore.

It was an unaccustomed feeling, after months of comparative immunity from observation behind mountain ridges, to be in flat country again. At first we all felt a queer sense of insecurity whenever we walked about, even when thick hedges manifestly screened us from enemy eyes. But the road from Lovadina to the river bank at Palazzon, which ran right through our position and within a few yards of our billet, was in full view, and no movement along it was permitted during daylight. When we first arrived we found a deep sense of gloom prevailing amongst our advanced party. They were convinced that our position had been spotted already, for the Austrians that morning had put down a five minutes'

concentration all round the place. Nothing much heavier than Field Guns had been firing, but it had been lively while it lasted. It seemed probable, however, on further inquiry, that this outburst had been caused by the fact that an idiotic officer belonging to the Battery immediately in rear of us had marched a working party up the road in fours, then halted them and allowed the men to stand about in groups on the road for several minutes. It was at these groups that the Austrians had apparently been firing. A vigorous protest extracted from our neighbours a promise that more common sense should be used in future.

We were to remain a silent Battery until the start of the offensive, and this was to be dependent on the height of the river, which at that time was in full flood owing to heavy rains in the mountains. Our guns were well camouflaged and the chances of our detection seemed small. But one day we had a lucky escape. It was very clear and there had been great activity in the air on both sides all the morning. All seemed quiet again, however, and we had the camouflage off one of our guns, and two small parties working in the open on shelter trenches behind. A plane was seen approaching, but the air sentry, whose duty it was to keep a sharp look out through gla.s.ses and signal the approach of enemy aircraft by two blasts of a whistle, gave no warning. He had been deceived by the marking on the plane, a very thin black cross instead of the thick one usually found on enemy aircraft. Not till it was right upon us did he blow the whistle, and then it was too late. The plane flew very low over us. We could see the pilot looking calmly down at our uncovered gun, and our men trying, ineffectually and belatedly, to take cover. He certainly took it all in and marked us down on his map. The position was 'very easy to identify owing to the solitary farmhouse and the road close by.

A few rifle shots were fired, but they did him no harm, and he sailed away toward the river and his own lines.

We had certainly been spotted. And then we suddenly saw another plane, this time an Italian, coming from the left, flying high, hard in pursuit. The Austrian began to rise, but the Italian outpaced him and got right above him, and pressed him gradually down towards the ground.

We heard the wooden-sounding _clack-clack-clack_ of machine gun fire.

And then we saw the Austrian evidently go out of control, diving toward the ground, more and more rapidly, and the Italian circling downwards above him; and then the Austrian went out of sight behind the acacias and a few moments later a column of smoke began to rise. He had crashed in flames, just this side of the river, and his valuable information with him. The Italian flew back over us, triumphantly and very low this time, and waved his hand to us. And we gave him a grateful cheer.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

THE BEGINNING OF THE LAST BATTLE

By the night of October 24th the river had fallen a few inches, and British Infantry crossed in small boats to the Grave di Papadopoli, a long island of sand in the middle of the stream. On the right a Battalion of the Gordons crossed, rowed over by Venetian boatmen. I met one of their officers afterwards. "Everyone of those boatmen deserved a decoration," he said. "They were all as cool under heavy sh.e.l.l fire as if they had been rowing on the Grand Ca.n.a.l." Our Infantry held their preliminary positions here for two days, in spite of considerable Austrian bombardment and counter-attacks. British aeroplanes flew over the island and dropped rations in sandbags. Throughout the fighting of these two days, we were standing by ready to open fire, if orders should come. But no orders came and we remained a silent Battery.

But on the night of October 26th, half an hour before midnight, the big bombardment opened and our guns spoke again. It was to be their last great oration. It was, of its kind, a fine, thunderous performance, and the Austrian reply, in our own neighbourhood, was feeble. Evidently they had not spotted our position, thanks to that Italian airman. Our targets were enemy Batteries and Brigade Headquarters. We fired gas sh.e.l.ls continuously for many hours, switching from one target to another, until a strong wind got up, rendering gas sh.e.l.ling comparatively ineffective.

Then we got orders to change to high explosive. The gun detachments worked splendidly, as always. We were below strength and could not furnish complete reliefs, but no one spared himself or grumbled.

On the morning of the 27th, just before 7 o'clock, our Infantry attacked, crossing from the island to the further bank of the river.

There were no bridges, and the water was breast high in some places. In places it came right over the heads of the smaller men, but their taller comrades pulled them through. Where the current was strongest, cables were thrown across and firmly secured, and to these men held on, as they forced their pa.s.sage through the water.

About ten o'clock I went forward from the Battery position to the river bank at Palazzon to ascertain the situation. A little man named Sergeant Barini, half an Italian and half an Englishman, but serving in the English Army and attached to our Battery, accompanied me. At Palazzon the river was broad and, under fire, unbridgeable, and we went half a mile down stream along what up to this morning had been our front line trench, to the bridgehead at Lido Island. The islands in mid stream were crowded with prisoners and wounded coming back and fresh troops going forward, and dead bodies lay about, British and Austrian together, of men who had fought their last fight, and two crashed aeroplanes. The Austrians had put up elaborate barbed-wire defences on the island, but these had been pretty well broken up by our fire.

Some enemy guns of big calibre were still sh.e.l.ling the crossings and causing casualties among a Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers, who were in reserve, waiting on the bank for the order to cross. I tried to locate as accurately as possible the direction of these guns and reported them by telephone to our Brigade Headquarters. I saw an Infantry Brigadier, who said that things were going well, but asked for some additional Artillery support for his left flank on the other side, and, if possible, for an enemy Battery, which he thought was near Susegana Castle, to be knocked out. I looked across the river and saw the dense white smoke screen which our Field Guns were putting up to cover the advance.

These Italian rivers of the Venetian Plain, fed by the melting Alpine snows, are not at all like the Thames. Where I was, there were about nine successive channels, varying in breadth and depth, and in between, stones and sand and rough vegetation on islands varying in size and shape and number with the height of the river. And it was no uncommon thing for the river to rise or fall several feet in a night, for whole islands to be submerged, or for whole channels to run dry. The difficulty here of carrying out military operations according to a time table arranged several days in advance was very great.

Over the main channels pontoons had been thrown, over others light plank bridges, less strongly supported, through others everybody was wading.

Large bodies of Engineers, mostly Italian, were ceaselessly working at these river crossings, and working magnificently. For not only was it necessary to be constantly strengthening and multiplying the bridges already made, to take the ever-increasing volume of traffic that would be required to supply the troops across the river, but the enemy's guns were still firing with terrible accuracy at the crossings, and swarms of enemy planes were constantly appearing, bombing the bridges and the islands in a last desperate effort to hold up our advance. Our planes, too, were never far away, and succeeded in driving off or driving down many of these attackers. But others got through and were constantly undoing the work of the Engineers.

When we had got all the information we could, Barini and I went back to the Battery and reported what we had heard and seen. On the way I let myself go and spouted much cheap rhetoric, I am afraid, at the little man. And he laughed rather nervously and thought me, I expect, a queer companion in rather unpleasant surroundings. For several sh.e.l.ls kicked up great clouds of earth and stones pretty close to us. But he too, I know, smelt victory in the air that day.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

ACROSS THE RIVER

Next day I went over the river and right on, one of the two F.O.O.'s (forward observation officers) from my Brigade who were to establish and maintain contact with the advancing Infantry. Three signallers and a runner came with me, carrying rifles, bayonets and ammunition, a day's rations and much signalling gear. The other officer had his own party.

We soon subdivided our work and separated.

The twenty-four hours of my duty do not lend themselves to a sustained description. I pa.s.sed and identified from the map one of the targets of my Battery in the preliminary bombardment, an Austrian Battery position, which we had bombarded for many hours with gas and high explosive alternately. Our shooting had been accurate and deadly. The position was a ma.s.s of sh.e.l.l holes. One of the guns had been blown up, a second badly damaged. A third had been pulled out of its pit and half way up a bank by a team of horses. The enemy had made a desperate effort to get it away. But horses and men and fragments of men lay dead around it. It was a well prepared position, and well concealed by trees. But Italian airmen had spotted it, and marked it down with precision on the map, marked it down for destruction. The enemy had done much work here. There were fine, deep dug-outs, well timbered and weatherproof, comfortable dwelling places in quiet times and strong enough to resist sh.e.l.l splinters and even direct hits by guns of small calibre. But we had got a direct hit on one dug-out and killed half a dozen occupants. And the others had not been proof against our gas. They were full of corpses, mostly victims of gas. Some were wearing their gas masks, but our gas had gone through them. Some had apparently been ga.s.sed outside, some with masks on and some without, and had crawled, dying, into the dug-outs in the vain hope of finding protection there. However hardened one may grow, by usage, to the common facts of war, few can look on such a sight as this, without feeling a queer thrill of very mixed emotion.

My men looked with solemn faces at the work they had helped to do. One said, "poor chaps, _they_ were pretty well done in!" And then we turned and went on.

It was a very rapidly moving warfare that day. One Infantry Brigade Headquarters, with whom I kept in intermittent touch, occupied four successive positions, miles apart, in the course of twelve hours. About noon I came to a ruined village, Tezze. I went on to reconnoitre it with one signaller. In a half wrecked house we heard the voices of Italian peasant women and saw through an open door an ugly, little, dirty child, probably about a year old, crawling among rubbish and refuse. The village was only just ours. On the far side of it men of the Manchester Regiment were lining a ditch, under cover of a hedge, waiting the order to charge. They warned me to go no further along the road which, they said, was under enemy machine gun fire. Every few minutes enemy sh.e.l.ls whistled over our heads and burst in the fields and houses behind us. A wet wind blew down the road. There was no fixed, clearly marked line.

Everything was in movement and rather uncertain....

Enemy guns, captured with their ammunition, swung round and firing at the enemy, big guns and little guns....

On the British left the Como Brigade were advancing rapidly in spite of pretty strong opposition. For a while our left flank had been perilously in the air, but the danger was past now....

All the roads were thick with Austrian equipment thrown away in the confusion of departure, rifles, steel helmets (grotesquely shaped, like high-crowned bowler hats), ammunition, coats, packs (handsomely got up, with furry exteriors), mail bags, maps, office stores, tin despatch boxes, photographs of blonde girls, bayonets, hand bombs, ... everything dead thrust into the ditches, both men and horses, the latter smelling earlier and stronger than the former. (The more I look at dead bodies, the more childish and improbable does the old idea of personal immortality appear to me!) ...

At one cross-roads a huge pool of blood, mingling with and overwhelming the mud. Here a whole transport team of heavy grey horses with wagons had been hit and blown up. Close by, in a ditch, two British wounded lay on stretchers, covered with blankets. One, only lightly wounded, gave us information and directions. The other was very near to death. His face was growing pale already, as only the faces of the dead are pale. He was shifting feebly and ineffectually, with the vain instinct to escape from pain. He was past speech, but he looked at us out of wide open half-frightened eyes that seemed to question the world despairingly, like an animal, broken helplessly in a trap....

There were some civilians wandering on the roads, liberated now but uncertain whither to go or what place was safe, their possessions on carts. But soon the storm of battle will have pa.s.sed well beyond them and they will be able to return to what is left of their homes. One old woman in black, walking lame, asked me if the Austrians would come back, and began to cry. I heard some of our soldiers saying in wonder to each other, "did you see those civies going along the road just now?" Queer, irrelevant creatures in the battle zone!...

Others, more fixed, liberated in their own villages, were eager to talk and to welcome us, but a little lost with the British and their unfamiliar ways and language, full of tales of the lack of food under the Austrian occupation, and the robbery of all their livestock and metal and many other things. But the retreat hereabouts had been too rapid and involuntary for deliberate burning or destruction or trap-setting on an appreciable scale....

That night I made my headquarters in a wrecked church, from the tower of which I sent back signals in the morse code by means of a lamp. I slept for an hour or two under an Austrian blanket, none too clean as it afterwards appeared, and drank Austrian coffee and ate Austrian biscuits....

All through that day and night and the day following the cannonading continued, but with very variable intensity at different points and times. Sometimes a tremendous affair, heavies, field guns and trench mortars all pounding away together, creeping barrage, smoke screens and the rest of it. Elsewhere and at other times, nothing, Infantry well ahead of the guns, going forward almost into the blue, with nothing heavier than machine guns to support them.

British Cavalry went through in the dawn, spectral, artistically perfect, aiming at ambitious, distant objectives, Northamptonshire Yeomanry who had come from France to Italy a year ago and had been kept behind the lines all through the war and were having their first show at last. The next day they suffered many casualties, but they did fine work. Their reconnaissance officer came into the church soon after midnight and asked me if the Austrians still held any part of the village. I told him no, not since yesterday morning.

Later on in the morning great ma.s.ses of Infantry moved up through the village; British Infantry with a look of evident satisfaction in their faces, but unemotional; Italian Infantry, looking usually even less expressive, but ready to burst into electrical enthusiasm at a touch, at a word, at a sign.... A British General, all smiles, rode past on his horse and stopped to ask me a question or two. He tapped me playfully on the helmet with his riding crop. "When will you get your guns across the river?" he asked. "As soon, Sir, as the Sappers can build a bridge that will carry them," I replied....

Now and again Italian planes going on, or coming back from, raids and reconnaissances, flying very low over our heads, the pilots waving their hands over the side and cheering, the troops on the roads cheering back and upwards in return....