World's War Events Volume II Part 6

11. _Sparrowhawk_, Destroyer, 935 tons.

12. _Nestor_, Destroyer, 1,000 tons.

13. _Nomad_, Destroyer, 1,000 tons.

14. _Turbulent_, Destroyer, 1,430 tons.

Total, 113,300 tons;

[Sidenote: Distinguished officers who went down.]

[Sidenote: Gallantry of officers and men.]

and still more do I regret the resultant heavy loss of life. The death of such gallant and distinguished officers as Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Arbuthnot, Bart., Rear-Admiral the Hon. Horace Hood, Captain Charles F.

Sowerby, Captain Cecil I. Prowse, Captain Arthur L. Cay, Captain Thomas P. Bonham, Captain Charles J. Wintour, and Captain Stanley V. Ellis, and those who perished with them, is a serious loss to the navy and to the country. They led officers and men who were equally gallant, and whose death is mourned by their comrades in the Grand Fleet. They fell doing their duty n.o.bly, a death which they would have been the first to desire.

[Sidenote: Fighting qualities of the enemy.]

The enemy fought with the gallantry that was expected of him. We particularly admired the conduct of those on board a disabled German light-cruiser which pa.s.sed down the British line shortly after deployment, under a heavy fire, which was returned by the only gun left in action.

[Sidenote: Heroism of the wounded.]

The conduct of officers and men throughout the day and night actions was entirely beyond praise. No words of mine could do them justice. On all sides it is reported to me that the glorious traditions of the past were most worthily upheld--whether in heavy ships, cruisers, light-cruisers, or destroyers--the same admirable spirit prevailed. Officers and men were cool and determined, with a cheeriness that would have carried them through anything. The heroism of the wounded was the admiration of all.

I cannot adequately express the pride with which the spirit of the Fleet filled me.

[Sidenote: Work of the engine room department.]

[Sidenote: No failures in material.]

Details of the work of the various ships during action have now been given. It must never be forgotten, however, that the prelude to action is the work of the engine-room department, and that during action the officers and men of that department perform their most important duties without the incentive which a knowledge of the course of the action gives to those on deck. The qualities of discipline and endurance are taxed to the utmost under these conditions, and they were, as always, most fully maintained throughout the operations under review. Several ships attained speeds that had never before been reached, thus showing very clearly their high state of steaming efficiency. Failures in material were conspicuous by their absence, and several instances are reported of magnificent work on the part of the engine-room departments of injured ships.

[Sidenote: Valuable work of artisans.]

The artisan ratings also carried out much valuable work during and after the action; they could not have done better.

[Sidenote: Success of the medical officers.]

The work of the medical officers of the Fleet, carried out very largely under the most difficult conditions, was entirely admirable and invaluable. Lacking in many cases all the essentials for performing critical operations, and with their staff seriously depleted by casualties, they worked untiringly and with the greatest success. To them we owe a deep debt of grat.i.tude.

[Sidenote: Ships that sustained hardest fighting.]

It will be seen that the hardest fighting fell to the lot of the Battle-cruiser Fleet (the units of which were less heavily armored than their opponents), the Fifth Battle Squadron, the First Cruiser Squadron, Fourth Light-cruiser Squadron, and the Flotillas. This was inevitable under the conditions and the squadrons and Flotillas mentioned, as well as the individual vessels composing them, were handled with conspicuous ability, as were also the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Squadrons of the Battle Fleet and the 2nd Cruiser Squadron.

I desire to place on record my high appreciation of the manner in which all the vessels were handled. The conditions were such as to call for great skill and ability, quick judgment and decisions, and this was conspicuous throughout the day.

The campaigns carried on by Italy against Austria were, as had been noted in a former chapter, among the most difficult of the war. The Italian troops fighting with the greatest gallantry in a mountainous and, in places, an impa.s.sable country, continued to capture Austrian fortified places, along the entire Isonzo front. One of the most daring and most brilliant of their exploits is told in the following pages.

TAKING THE COL DI LANA

LEWIS R. FREEMAN

Copyright, World's Work, June, 1917.

[Sidenote: A hot wind from the Mediterranean.]

[Sidenote: Thaw and avalanches in the Alps.]

Once or twice in every winter a thick, sticky, hot wind from somewhere on the other side of the Mediterranean breathes upon the snow and ice-locked Alpine valleys the breath of a false springtime. The Swiss guides, if I remember correctly, call it by a name which is p.r.o.nounced as we do the word _fun_; but the incidence of such a wind means to them anything but what that signifies in English. To them--to all in the Alps, indeed--a spell of _fun_ weather means thaw, and thaw means avalanches; avalanches, too, at a time of the year when there is so much snow that the slides are under constant temptation to abandon their beaten tracks and gouge out new and unexpected channels for themselves.

It is only the first-time visitor to the Alps who bridles under the Judas kiss of the wind called _fun_.

[Sidenote: A hot wind in January.]

It was on an early January day of one of these treacherous hot winds that I was motored up from the plain of Venezia to a certain sector of the Italian Alpine front, a sector almost as important strategically as it is beautiful scenically. What twelve hours previously had been a flint-hard, ice-paved road had dissolved to a river of soft slush, and one could sense rather than see the ominous premonitory twitchings in the lowering snow-banks as the lapping of the hot moist air relaxed the brake of the frost which had held them on the precipitous mountain sides. Every stretch where the road curved to the embrace of cliff or shelving valley wall was a possible ambush, and we slipped by them with m.u.f.fled engine and hushed voices.

[Sidenote: Skirting a lake.]

Toward the middle of the short winter afternoon the gorge we had been following opened out into a narrow valley, and straight over across the little lake which the road skirted, reflected in the shimmering sheet of steaming water that the thaw was throwing out across the ice, was a vivid white triangle of towering mountain. A true granite Alp among the splintered Dolomites--a fortress among cathedrals--it was the outstanding, the dominating feature in a panorama which I knew from my map was made up of the mountain chain along which wriggled the interlocked lines of the Austro-Italian battle front.

"Plainly a peak with a personality," I said to the officer at my side.

"What is it called?"

[Sidenote: The Col di Lana an important position.]

"It's the Col di Lana," was the reply; "the mountain Colonel 'Peppino'

Garibaldi took in a first attempt and Gelasio Caetani, the Italo-American mining engineer, afterward blew up and captured completely. It is one of the most important positions on our whole front, for whichever side holds it not only effectually blocks the enemy's advance, but has also an invaluable sally-port from which to launch his own. We simply _had_ to have it, and it was taken in what was probably the only way humanly possible. It's Colonel Garibaldi's headquarters, by the way, where we put up to-night and to-morrow; perhaps you can get him to tell you the story." . . .

[Sidenote: The story of the Col di Lana.]

By the light of a little spirit lamp and to the accompaniment of a steady drip of eaves and the rumble of distant avalanches of falling snow, Colonel Garibaldi, that evening, told me "the story:"

[Sidenote: _Legion Italienne_ withdrawn]

"The fighting that fell to the lot of the _Legion Italienne_ in January, 1915, reduced its numbers to such an extent that it had to be withdrawn to rest and reform. Before it was in condition to take the field again, our country had taken the great decision and we were disbanded to go home and fight for Italy. Here--princ.i.p.ally because it was thought best to incorporate the men in the units to which they (by training or residence) really belonged--it was found impracticable to maintain the integrity of the fourteen battalions--about 14,000 men in all--we had formed in France, and, as a consequence, the _Legion Italienne_ ceased to exist except as a glorious memory. We five surviving Garibaldi were given commissions in a brigade of Alpini that is a 'lineal descendant'

of the famous _Cacciatore_ formed by my grandfather in 1859, and led by him against the Austrians in the war in which, with the aid of the French, we redeemed Lombardy for Italy.

[Sidenote: Defensive and offensive advantages of the peak.]

[Sidenote: Bitter struggle for the Col di Lana.]

"In July I was given command of a battalion occupying a position at the foot of the Col di Lana. Perhaps you saw from the lake, as you came up, the commanding position of this mountain. If so, you will understand its supreme importance to us, whether for defensive or offensive purposes.

Looking straight down the Cordevole Valley toward the plains of Italy, it not only furnished the Austrians an incomparable observation post, but also stood as an effectual barrier against any advance of our own toward the Livinallongo Valley and the important Pordoi Pa.s.s. We needed it imperatively for the safety of any line we established in this region; and just as imperatively would we need it when we were ready to push the Austrians back. Since it was just as important for the Austrians to maintain possession of this great natural fortress as it was for us to take it away from them, you will understand how it came about that the struggle for the Col di Lana was perhaps the bitterest that has yet been waged for any one point on the Alpine front.

[Sidenote: The Alpini get a foothold.]

[Sidenote: Col. Garibaldi takes command.]