ITALY’S ACHIEVEMENT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 4930, 25 July 1918, Page 6

ITALY’S ACHIEVEMENT.

FINE WORK ON NEW PIAVE

STRENGTH OF ENEMY POSITION

LONDON, July 5. Mr Ward Price, official correspondent on the Italian front, telegraphs. Before their ejection from the canals and dykes within the twin courses of the Piave, the Austrians fought doggedly for three days. They held strong machine-gun positions over 30 square miles, in a labyrinth of marshland, more formidable because it could he approached only in straight lines along the idyke roads. The battle at last became a series of isolated rushes in which the Italian Marines and Bersaglicri showed the greatest gallantry. Tile stoutest troops among the enemy were Austrian Bosnians, halfsavage shepherds and peasants. The Italians quickly followed up their first successes, and penned, the enemy against the bridgehead on the right bank of the new'Piave. The barrage cut off supplies from the rear, and forced the enemy to retire to nandglicecg F sydh 0 djiebo-Psha kb the left bank. Numerous incidents of personal courage and in native marked the progress of the battle, and showed the access of Italian confidence and sense of asccncancj, since the defeat of the Austrian offensive. , , Bersaglicri boldly rushed and captured an entire enemy battery ot four-inch guns. AtlhoUgla surrounded by almost impassible wire, supplemented bv machine guns the attackers smashed through, and found the battery red hot. and the gunners running to'the cover of the woods to the rear. The Austrians have been pushed four miles further from Y onice and have lost the whole of the Piave delta, which they had held since November.