With British Guns in Italy: A Tribute to Italian Achievement Part 5

WE SWITCH OUR GUNS NORTHWARD

On the 22nd of August we got for the first time definite news of the Italian advance on the Bainsizza Plateau. The day was rather hotter than usual, and on our own sector there was still no appreciable progress.

Hill 464 had been won and lost three times since yesterday morning, and, to the south of it, Hill 368 also had been won and lost again. Up there it must be a vain and shocking shambles. It was claimed for Cadorna's communiques, I think justly, that at this time no others were more moderate and truthful. No point was claimed as won, until it was not merely won but securely held.

The Italian Battery beside us were moving north that night to the Tolmino sector and next day our Left Section was to move out into a position in the open, in order to switch north and sh.e.l.l S. Marco, which we could not reach from our present gun pits. S. Marco, being north of the Vippacco, was in the area of the Italian Second Army, commanded by Capello, which had been performing the great feats of these last days.

It was clear that, for the moment, the main Italian effort was being made to the north.

Indeed by the 24th all the British guns of our Group were pointing north-eastward, firing at S. Marco and neighbouring targets. British casualties and those of the Italian Heavy Artillery had been very light, the Austrian having concentrated practically all his Artillery fire, in addition to his machine guns, on the Italian Infantry, amongst whom there had been hideous slaughter.

But in the early morning of the 23rd an Austrian sh.e.l.l killed a Sergeant and two men in one of our Batteries. The Sergeant was torn into several pieces, one of which landed on the top of the Officers' Mess and another in a gun pit 150 yards away. One of his legs could not be found, so they had to bury what they could, an incomplete set of torn fragments. But three or four days later the smell of the lost limb came drifting down a ravine above their guns, and following the scent, they found it, black with flies among the stones.

In my old Battery, too, four hundred cartridges went up with a direct hit, and the Austrians then sh.e.l.led the smoke with unpleasant effect. A twelve-inch sh.e.l.l also burst very close to the Battery's Mess, killing a number of Italian telephonists next door.

Throughout these days, periods of very heavy firing alternated with periods of comparative quiet.

On the 25th a party of nearly thirty British officers and men, a procession of two cars, three side-cars and twelve motor bicycles, went up Podgora Hill. The Italian Second Army, to whom we were strangers, watched us with interest as we went past in a cloud of dust. On the top of Podgora Hill was a series of O.P.'s, known collectively as Maria O.P., hollowed out of the rock, approached through rock pa.s.sages, and in front a wide rocky platform commanding a splendid panorama. At our feet was a precipitous descent, clothed with acacias, at the bottom Podgora with its gutted factories, then the broad stream of the Isonzo, and Gorizia on the further side. To the left we could see the Isonzo winding down out of the mountains, between Monte Sabotino and Monte Santo, the latter hiding from our sight the Bainsizza Plateau. In the centre of our view rose the great ma.s.s of San Gabriele; Italian patrols were out on its southern slopes, clearly visible through field-gla.s.ses. Then Santa Catarina and the long low brown hillside of San Marco. Away to the right the flat lands of the Isonzo and Vippacco valleys, and beyond these again the northern ridge of the Carso, from Dosso Faiti to the Stoll, beautifully visible. On the right everything seemed quiet, but there was tremendous Allied sh.e.l.ling of San Gabriele, Santa Catarina and San Marco. French Gunners also were here with fifteen-inch guns firing on San Marco, and two of their officers were at Maria O.P. that day. It was symbolic that from this height, for the first time on the Italian Front, Gunners of the three Western Allies were looking out eastward together toward the Promised Land.

The enemy trenches on San Marco lay out of view behind the crest, and our registration point, a white house on the top of the ridge, was almost completely blown away by a big French sh.e.l.l while we were watching, and waiting our turn to fire. We saw another sh.e.l.l burst in the Isonzo just above Gorizia, causing a huge waterspout. Colonel Ca.n.a.le arrived while we were firing. His white gloves were a little soiled, and he seemed rather worried and more serious than usual. He was disappointed at the stoppage of the offensive on the Carso.

CHAPTER XVI

THE FALL OF MONTE SANTO

Even when our guns were turned against San Marco, we continued to man Sant' Andrea O.P., for one could get good general observation to the northward from the other side of the ruined house which was the old O.P., and most of the trenches on San Marco were invisible except from aeroplanes. I spent the night there several times during the August offensive, watching by turns with one of our Bombardiers, to whom I explained that wars were made by small groups of wicked men, generally also rich, sitting and planning in secret. I proposed to him the need to sh.e.l.l such groups, while they were yet forming, with the shrapnel of public opinion.

It was also at Sant' Andrea that I met a young Lieutenant of Italian Field Artillery, a Sardinian from Cagliari. He had still the face of a child, and he had, too, that perfect self-possession and that wonderful, soft charm which are so often found together in the Italian youth. I think of him often with affection, and with an eager hope that he pa.s.sed unharmed through all the vicissitudes which were to follow.

He and I spent many hours together, watching those b.l.o.o.d.y, memorable hills. I met him first on the 24th of August, and we drank a bottle of Vermouth together, and discussed with enthusiasm many subjects. We even worked out in detail a scheme for the interchange of students, for periods of a year at a time, between Italian and British Universities after the war. We then turned to modern history and I noticed that he did not respond as much as I had expected to the name of Garibaldi. He held the historical theory that, broadly speaking, there are no really great men, but only lucky ones. He put forward in support of this view the distribution of death, wounds and decorations in this war. This theory of history has in it larger elements of wholesomeness and truth than has, for instance, the pernicious bombast of Carlyle. I told my Sardinian friend that I had once heard it said by a most learned man that, if Rousseau had never lived, the world would not look very different to-day, except that probably there would be no negro republic in the island of Haiti. This saying pleased him and he was inclined to think it plausible.

He told me that day that Monte Santo was reported taken, but the news was not yet sure.

I saw him again three days later and by then all the world knew that Monte Santo had fallen. For Cadorna in his communique of the 25th had cried: "Since yesterday our tricolour has been waving from the summit of Monte Santo!" Already we could see the flashes of Italian Field Guns in action near the summit. All day I was buoyant, exhilarated, and as absorbed in the war as any journalist.

Victory has an intoxicating quality in this bright clear atmosphere, and among these mountains, which it has, perhaps, nowhere else. All day there seemed to be in the air a strange thrill, which at evening seemed to grow into a great throbbing Triumph Song of the Heroes,--incomparable Italians, living and dead. The emotion of it became almost unbearable.

"Our tricolour is waving from the summit of Monte Santo!"

Here on the night of the 26th there occurred a scene wonderfully, almost incredibly, dramatic. The moon was rising. Sh.e.l.ls pa.s.sed whistling overhead, some coming from beyond the Isonzo toward the Ternova Plateau, others in the opposite direction from Ternova. Rifle shots rang out from beneath Monte Santo, along the slopes of San Gabriele, where the Italian and Austrian lines were very close together, where no word on either side might be spoken above a whisper. Suddenly there crashed out from the gloom the opening bars of the Marcia Reale, played with tremendous _elan_ by a military band. The music came from Monte Santo. On the summit of the conquered mountain, the night after its conquest, an Italian band was playing amid the broken ruins of the convent, standing around the firmly planted Italian flag. It was the Divisional Band of the four Regiments which had stormed these heights. On the flanks of the mountain, along the new lines in the valley beneath, along the trenches half-way up San Gabriele, Italian soldiers raised a cry of startled joy.

Below the peak an Italian Regiment held the line within forty yards of the enemy, crouching low in the shallow trenches. Their Colonel leaped to his feet and his voice rang out, "Soldiers, to your feet! Attention!"

All along the trench the soldiers, with a swift thrill of emotion, sprang to their feet. Then again the Colonel cried, "My soldiers, let us cry aloud in the face of the enemy, 'Long live Italy! Long live the King! Long live the Infantry!'" Loud and long came the cheers, echoing and re-echoing from the rocks, taken up and repeated by others who heard them, first near at hand, then far away, echoing and spreading through the night, like the swelling waves of a great sea.

The Austrians opened fire on Monte Santo. But the music still went on.

The Marcia Reale was finished, but now in turn the Hymn of Garibaldi and the Hymn of Mameli, historic battle songs of Italian liberty, pealed forth to the stars, loud above the bursting of the sh.e.l.ls. And many Italian eyes, from which the atrocious sufferings of this war had never yet drawn tears, wept with a proud, triumphant joy. And as the last notes died away upon the night air, a great storm of cheers broke forth afresh from the Italian lines. The moon was now riding high in the heavens, and every mountain top, seen from below, was outlined with a sharp-cut edge against the sky.

Four days after, not far from this same spot, General Capello, the Commander of the Italian Second Army, decorated with the Silver Medal for Valour some of the heroes of the great victory. Among these was a civilian, a man over military age. It was Toscanini, Italy's most famous musical conductor. It was he who, charged with the organisation of concerts for the troops, had found himself in this sector of the Front when Monte Santo fell, and, hearing the news, had demanded and obtained permission to climb the conquered mountain. He reached the summit on the evening of the 26th and, by a strange chance, found his way among the rocks and the ruins of the convent, to the place where the band was playing. His presence had upon the musicians the same effect which the presence of a great General has upon faithful troops. They crowded round him, fired with a wild enthusiasm. Then Toscanini took command of what surely was one of the strangest concerts in the world, played in the moonlight, in an hour of glory, on a mountain top, which to the Italians had become an almost legendary name, to an audience of two contending Armies, amid the rattle of machine guns, the rumble of cannon, and the crashes of exploding sh.e.l.ls.

"Our tricolour is waving from the summit of Monte Santo!"

If the souls of poets be immortal and know what still pa.s.ses in this world, be sure that the soul of Swinburne sings again to-day, from h.e.l.l or heaven, the Song of the Standard.

"This is thy banner, thy gonfalon, fair in the front of thy fight.

Red from the hearts that were pierced for thee, white as thy mountains are white, Green as the spring of thy soul everlasting, whose life-blood is light.

Take to thy bosom thy banner, a fair bird fit for the nest, Feathered for flight into sunrise or sunset, for eastward or west, Fledged for the flight everlasting, but held yet warm to thy breast.

Gather it close to thee, song-bird or storm-bearer, eagle or dove, Lift it to sunward, a beacon beneath to the beacon above, Green as our hope in it, white as our faith in it, red as our love."

CHAPTER XVII

THE CONQUEST OF THE BAINSIZZA PLATEAU

The Italian advance on the Middle Isonzo in the early days of the August offensive reached a depth of six miles on a front of eleven miles. The Italians had swept across the Bainsizza Plateau, and had gained observation and command, though not possession, of the Valley of Chiapovano, the main Austrian line of communication and supply in this sector. This advance and the resumption of the war of movement raised, for the moment, tremendous expectations, which were destined, alas, to die away without fulfilment.

The pa.s.sage of the Isonzo, here a deep cleft in the mountains, from Plava to above Ca.n.a.le, had been accomplished by the combined skill and valour of Infantry, Artillery and Engineers. The preliminary work of the Engineers in roadmaking on the western side of the river had been, as always, worthy of the highest praise. A great ma.s.s of bridging material had had to be acc.u.mulated in the valley, alongside camouflaged roads.

The Austrians must have been on their guard, but it seems probable that they did not expect a big attack to be made here. For they were fully conscious of the natural strength of their positions.

First to cross the river on the night of the attack were boats carrying Engineers and detachments of Arditi. As they crossed, the river gorge was full of mist and they were not detected. But when the work of bridging began, and sounds of hammering and the dragging of planks into position could be clearly heard, suddenly all along the further bank the Austrian machine guns began to spit fire, and red rockets went up calling for the Artillery barrage. Many boats were hit and sank, and the Bridging Detachments suffered severe casualties. One bridge, half built, was set on fire, and one could see dark shadows, lit up by the glare amid the darkness, darting forward to extinguish the flames. Fourteen bridges were thrown across under heavy fire, and, as the Infantry began to cross, Platoon after Platoon, the Austrian Machine Gunners fired at the sound of their footsteps, and many Italians fell, especially officers leading their men. But the crossing went on and, when dawn broke, the attackers had a firm footing on the left bank of the river.

They swept round the flanks of those machine guns which had not yet been put out of action, and making use of the subterranean pa.s.sages which the enemy had pierced in the cliffs for sheltered communication between the higher and the lower levels of the mountain, began to pour forth upon the crest of the ridge which overlooks the river. Then, as the advance continued, the Austrian right wing above Ca.n.a.le gave way in confusion and the Italians pressed forward on to the Bainsizza Plateau.

But their difficulties were tremendous. When they left the valley of the Isonzo behind them, they entered a waterless land, without springs for some four miles. In the early stages of the battle all water for the troops had to be brought up by mules, and likewise all food, ammunition and medical supplies, until the Engineers could get to work with road-building on the left bank of the river. The Bainsizza Plateau itself, lying amid a ma.s.s of barren mountains, contains woods, pastures, springs, small villages, a few roads and many tracks. The Italians swept over it on the 21st and 22nd of August, but soon found themselves once more in difficult country. In the days that followed the advance was slower and more spasmodic, but it still continued. By the 27th, 25,000 Austrian prisoners had been taken, together with a great quant.i.ty of material, and several whole Austrian Divisions had ceased to exist.

It had been a wonderful feat of arms, finely conceived by the Staff, magnificently executed by the rank and file. It opened out a great vista of new possibilities, but, for the moment, it was over. Before any further advance was practicable, the positions won had to be consolidated, roads had to be built, dumps and stores of every kind to be moved forward.

In a village on the Bainsizza Plateau, half wrecked by sh.e.l.l fire, two old peasants were sitting outside their house. Austrian sh.e.l.ls whistled through the air and burst a few hundred yards away. "These are not for us," said one of the old men to an Italian soldier, "the sh.e.l.ls and the war are for the soldiers, not the civilians."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FIGHTING DIES DOWN

On the 28th of August the offensive was really beginning again. We were firing on San Marco at a slow rate from six a.m. for an hour, then "vivace" from seven till noon, and at noon we lifted and continued vivace. San Marco was not rocky, and the trenches there should be bombardable into pulp. In the early morning from Sant' Andrea the hills all round were clearly outlined, except where some long belts of motionless, white, low-lying cloud partly hid the Faiti-Stoll range.

Later, with the sun up, a warm haze hid everything. Firing continued heavy till six p.m., and then slowed down. The attack on San Marco had failed.

Next day there was a good deal of sh.e.l.ling and some torrential showers.

We set fire to some woods on the lower slopes of San Daniele, with a high wind blowing.