THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN.

Marlborough Express, Volume L, Issue 85, 10 April 1916, Page 5

THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN.

INTOXICATED AUSTRIAN

- SOLDIERS.

A corresDondent of the Morning I Post (London) writes:—" From an I Italian officer now on leave from the front I learn that during November and I>eeeniber . the Austrians were [very persistent in their■ night attacks on the Oarso Plateau, south of Gorz. For .these eventualities the Italian soldiers are armed in a '•■• peculiar | fashion. Their -weapon is a long i Roman sword—a 'daga,' about 4ft. long. It is very heavy, and is car-ried'-naked and upright in the hand. This is their only weapon on these oo casioris. The Austrians, on the other hand, are deprived of their allowance of water during the day; at night rum is .served out to the thirsty men, who are then literally driven to the attack in close formation ami intoxicated. The" small Italian" mountain guns—6smm.—rain death1 upon the column, and the Maxims, cut lanes through these packed masses. Nevertheless, some of the assailants stagger on,'and these the •Alpiiii calmly pick off. Even then a few get as far as the points of the bayonets lining the, foremost trench. If they are merely wounded they are taken prisoner. Some runi-soddbn Austrians roll down the mountainside, -too intoxicated to keep, their feet in the charge! Invariably the prisoners fall into a drunken sleep, and next morning remember nothing of their night's adventures. The dawn of daylight, after each of these attempts,' revealed veritable mounds of- bodies, and of terribly wounded men that had better have been bodies., The Italians have smarted under the enemy's galling artillery lire, fl/rid still more from t)\e splinters of rocks sent flying by the cannonade, and they welcome any opportunity of repulsing the Austrians with the cold steel. They fret at their comparative inaction, and would dearly like to pursue am- remnant of each retiring force. Throughout the war, in-, deed, as Italian officers have repeatedly said, their hardest task has been to hold back their men.

"My informant further told me that the 'difference between Italian attacks and Austrian attacks lay ill .this. The Italians, if not the first time, then the second, or at the utmost the third, time, capture the 'work''at which they have been'aiming: and. once, taken, th«v hold Hi with bulldog tenacity. For seven weeks, he paid, the Austrians rushed upon the 'Trincerone' that they had lost, riml tJW KacriiWd numbers of men Hme after time, in utterly fruitless efforts to take it."