GATEWAY OF ITALY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13701, 3 June 1915, Page 6

GATEWAY OF ITALY.

TROOPS ON THE FRONTIER

sleepy towns awake,

-Preparations for war are described by the special correspondent of the Daily Chronicle,, who. completed a. tour along the north-eastern frontier of Italy on April 15. Everywhere, he said, I found military preparations very satisfactory. One has only Vo> spend a night m such a, town as Verona, to realise it. Indeed) throughout Venetia the quiet of the night ib broken by the rumbling of gun trains, the clatter of horse hoofs, «nd the tramp .of men on march. The great movement goes on by night. To-day the town is full of soldiers of certain regiments* To-morrow they are gone, and their places taken by others. Jjike-itoeks of migratory biixls, troopd arrive suddeuly hy night, rest n few nJours, ;%nd ( 'pas^ "on northwards.' Throughout - Ven'elia men are marching under the peach and. cherry, blossom towards tlie snow. .

, If .pn^, could .fly Jo>v m an/ aeroplane aLonff the mountains dividing Italy from Austria, one would see them swarming with, litle men m grey. Between the Austro-Swiss frontier, and Lake Garda tliQ mountains are so/ high and the passes so few that the,' region is not ot much military importance. Not. a single railway line crosses the Italian frontier, till the eastern shove of . Garda is reached. :

Here is the. narrow, Adige Valley, down which, .comes the railway from Brenner and Trento to Verona. , This is the single entrance from Germany and Austria into Italy m this region, and it. is the road by which invaders havo frequently come m the pasV At the extreme north-eastern corner of the frontier is another railway line j which, coming from Tarvis, crosses the bridgo from Pontafel 1 to Pfbntebba, ami ro enters Italian territory./ This is the Valley of Fella, also extremely narrow till it turns west below Ghiusaforte and joins the Tagliamen to. From there it is an easy run down to Udine. Here 4it last one comes to an open plain stretching across the frontier to the River Isonzo, and beyond Udine stands at the junction of tho lines from. Vienna, via Pontebba, Venice an~ Trieste, and is within ten miles of, tiie frontier. From Udine to the sea the road is open into Austria. Udine is a sleepy little town, with narrow,, porticoed streets, a Piazza Vittaria Emanuele, and an archbishop's palace. It is accustomed to the military, but is rather overwhelmed by the presence of the sixty «foiir colonels that it ia said at present to contain, not to mention the periodic visits of a generalissimo and his staff.

Every rank- ami ivgiini'iit must be repie.-sinuu aL, L«.t.n«. i'ie are olacliplumcd Bersaglieri. deep-chested men lroni the south, who never- walk, but always advance at the double, lithe Alpini with a single feather stuck into their slouched hats and iron-bound mountain boots, .innumerable infantrymen of the liriOj artillery, Red Cross and engineers. Aow and 1 again one sees the Hashing golden helmet of a dragoon, but for the most part men and officers of every rank are . m sober green-grey service uniforms. Every, day there arrive at Udine,-, Verona, and other frontier towns refugees from Austria-, many of the deserters from the army. . Since the beginning of the war it 'is estimated that over four thousand men of military age have arrived at Veroaa from Austria. Recently three deserters were brought •m, having*, been discovered half-frozen on the summit of Monte Baldo. Shepherds constantly find Austrian caps and tunics m the mountains, and it is feared ', that many have perushed m an attempt to reach the free soil of Italy. ,