THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 14153, 15 April 1916, Page 7

THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN.

■ , . -«. INTOXICATED AUSTRIAN / SOLDIERS. I A correspondent' of the "Mornin;. - Post" (London) writes:—"From :v. Italian officer now on leave from the front 1 learn that during November am I December the Austrians were ver.) - persistent in their night attacks on tK ? Carso Plateau, south of Gorizia. Foj [ these eventualities the Italian soldiers [ are ariued in a ivx-v.liar fashion. Thei: 5 weapon . is-; ri 10-ig Kninan sword —a [ 'daga,' about 4rc long. It is verj heavy, and is carried n:;!.e:! and up- \ right 111 the hand. Th; s is ?'!•■"■•<• o;>h I -weapon on these occasiovis. Ti:o Ausf trians, on the other hand, are '>;jri\ "•' of their allowance of water dur-i; ■■_<. ;!••; . day; at night rum is served om. :,o :;;< ' thirsty men, who ar<? then ii ('•■•.■].!> driven to tho attack in close forvnati-.1! and intoxicated. The small Kalian : mountain-guns —65mm. —rain death 1 upon the column, and the Maxims cut lanes through these packed masses. Nevertheless, some of the assailants stegger on, and these tho Alpini ealtnly pick off. Even then z fen { get as far as the points of the bayonets lining the foremost trench. If they are merely j wounded they are taken prisoner. Some nun-sodden Austrians roll 'down the mouirftiin side ; too intoxicated to keep their feet in tho 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 o.f bodies, and of terribly wounded men that had better have been bodies. The Italians have smarted under tlfe ene-n\y's galling [artillery fire, r.nd still more from the splinters cf rocks sent flying by the cannonade, and they welcome any opportunity of repulsing the Austria as with the cold steel. They fret at their comparative inaction and would dearly like to niusne tiny remnant of each retiring force. Throughout the war,- indeed, as Italian ■officers have repeatedly said, their hardest task has been to hold back their men. "My informant further told me tint the difference between Italian attacks and Austrian attacks lay in this: The Italians, if not the first time, .thcr the second, or at the utmost the third, time1, capture the 'work at wh;ch they have been aiming; and, once taken, they hold it with bulldog tenacity. For seven weeks, he said, the Austrians rushed v.p the 'Trineerono' that they had lost, and they sacrificed numbers oi men time r..fter time in utterly fruitless, efforts to tako it."