FEROCIOUS FIGHTING.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 November 1916, Page 6

FEROCIOUS FIGHTING.

1 ' s BATTLEFIELDS OF ITALY, (By Lord Northcliffe). Ison;:o Front, August 1,1. Of lim .eroeious fighting on the Italian front little is understood in England. If the figures of the wounded carried by the British Red Cross ambulances alone could be published, they would, perhaps, open the eyes of the publie. Let me select one battle scene, one in which the crumbling of Austria is visible even without field-glases—on the birdless, waterless Carso. It is certainly the thirstiest battlefield this side of Suez. It can only be compared to a gigantic Shap fell or Devonshire tor. It is not unlike the Arizona, desert without the alkali. ,

As another battlefield, look at the Calvaria position, on the Pedgora Hill outside Gorizia, on the west bank of the IsonzoTUver. Take the steepest wooded hillside you know; put the Austrians, deeply and cunningly entrenched, on the top; and realise that the capture of that one hill has cost Italy fifteen months' bloodshed. The price was great, though the thousand deeds of heroism which resulted in tl* sudden flight of the Austrians should thrill generations of Italians yet unborn. These are but two of the battlefields of Italy which are barely known to the outside world. They deserve to be known.

These sturdy Piedmontese, Lombards, Sicilians, Neapolitans, have all fought with equal, valor. Owing to the preoccupation of the world with the rest of the war and the absence of newspaper correspondents, the impression of the Italian forces received throughout the world has been that of a dilettante army. For'the same reason that at first made the progress of the British Army slow, Italy is only now beginning to put forth something like her rcai strength. She

HAS MUCH STRENGTH IN RESERVE. A most distinguished Italian officer remarked: "What we have done now has been good, useful work which we would have done a year ago had we had guns and ammunition."

Yet there should be no mistake about the strength of the Austrian defensive organisations. They are not of the same nature as those of the Germans, because the terrain here is entirely different. For example, to make an impression on the rocky soil of the Carso, pneumatic drills and dynamite were essential. The Austrian front line has been blasted and drilled out of the limestone rock with machinery similar to that used in making the St. Gothard and Simplon tunnels. The snipers' look-outs ave armored with iron plates an inch thick cemented into the rock. The making of dugouts must have required the labor by night and day with drill and dynamite of hordes of Croats, Magyars, Slovaks, Swabians, Rumanes and other races of the Aus-tro-Hungarian Monarchy. I went out to see 13,000 of these stout fellows just captured in this offensive. Thsy reminded me exactly of the raw, lusty laborers who used to land from emigrant ships at Quebec before the war and were drafted out to make the great transcontinental railways of Canada. Many of them have spent some time in American railroad building, and speak English. Their officers are very good imitations of the closely shorn, square-headed, heel-clicking Prussians in .long-grey cloaks. Though not Prussians, they fight well. The Austrians have had unlimited ammunition, tons of which have been left behind on the battlefield. On the Carso their lines had been supplied with water pumped up from various points by oil engines. Food has been abundant—four square meals daily. They look shabby —all prisoners look shabby—but they have invariably excellent boots, characteristic of the Hun and his dupes, BATTLE LINE GOING EAST. Viewed from the mountain vantage points the thirty-mile battle is a beautiful and grandiose scene. The battle line now runs far beyond Gorizia, which, when you get into it, is seen to be dominated by a fine Schloss which the retreating Austrians shells fitfully with pink and white shrapnel. On the hillsides great shells are bursting and here and there a burning copse or village sends a tall column of smoke into the limpid air. The sound of guns firing from concealed positions reverberates from hill to hill on either side of the Isonzo valley, while great shells which the Italian soldiers call "tramcars" whizz through the sunshine like enormous invisible rockets. The whole line of battle is visibly moving forwards. The Italian projectiles hourly burst a little farther eastwards. The enemy is not running, but is clearly retreating with some speed. The capture of Oppacchiaeella and Hill 121 on the Carso tells its own tale, and, though strong positions like Monte Santo and San Gabrielle still resist to the northward, the Italian advance is steady. Steady also is the inflow of prisoners. Two thousand more were brought in yesterday. Where* will the retreat end? Opinions differ, but the matter is emphatically not one for public discussion.

"It is difficult for me to express my feelings about what we have seen today," said a distinguished young officer who accompanied us and who was the first to enter Oppacchiaeella on Friday. "Italy needs the self-confidence that conies of military achievement. Now she has it. It will broaden her shoulders and steady hei national life in every way. When I think of the transformation these months of war have wrought in me, who am thirty, how much greater must it be in all our young soldiers of nineteen and twenty!"

Italy has, indeed, done herself creditthat is, justice. I have described the Austrian defences. The Italian are no less perfect. Line after line of stronglybuilt works, league upon league it splendid roads, motor transport service, food and water supply, all reveal her POWERS OF ORGANISATION. We toiled yesterday under a burning sun along miles of the rugged Carso—the harsh German name Karst seems apter for this inhospitable, ruck-strewn plateau, where, lizards alone find life bearable —past where last week had been the Italian and Austrian first-line ■positions. In one night the Italian engineers had hammered and hewn across the bare limestone a tolerable road which to-morrow will be smooth enough for motor vehicles. Warm food—the excellent Italian minestrone, a thick soup composed of meat, vegetables, rice and macaroni—was being brought up an mule back to the danger zone and carried thence by hand to the firing line. One gruesome sight in the former No Man's Land between the first positions bore witness to the character of the climate. We crae ""ir i-he re-

mains of a human body in a kneeling posture absolutely mummified by the scorching heat amid the brambles, thistles, wild roses and scraggy mountain ash, which form the only vegetation in this desolate region. While collecting battle souvenirs for a boy friend at home I discovered that during the hot hour* of the day metal objects can only be hai.dlcd with difficulty. A strange feature of the Carso are the dce]i, crater-like depressions called doline, iilled with dark drown, pealy earth, every one of which forms a natural fort. The Austrian troops fortify them and build officers' shelters in their skies. One such group of shelters had been devastated by the. Italian bombardment. The occupants had fled, abandoning vast quantities of ammunition, entrenching tools, whole eases marked "explosive cartridges,' piles of rockets, a rich assortment of hand grenades, lengths of water hose, rolls of wire, and other paraphernalia of this uncanny war. A pestilential odour, proved that not all the inhabitants of these barbaric excavations had fled. 'Letters and relics also showed that ladies from Budapest had been not infrequent visitors. In nothing is the- disorganisation of the Austrian defence more clearly revealed than in the utter absence of aerial observation.. During my whole visit to this front I have not seen an Austrian aeroplane or observation balloon. The Italian captive balloons float serenely in the still air, directing the fire of their own' batteries, but the Austrian* appear to be firing blindly. The Italian heavy batteries are consequently able to do their deadly work,.undisturbed. Their shells search position after position, bursting with marvellous accuracy on selected points miles ahead, and crowning every ridge with dark clouds of smoke, ENEMY'S SAVAGE VENGEANCE. The enemy's bitterness of soul may bo judged by his behaviour. At Doberdo Russian prisoners of war, who had been brought, like so many of their comrades, to make roads for the Austrians, were found hanged—posibly as revenge for the escape of other Russian prisoners, who pluekily swam the Isonzo the other day and reached the Italian lines, after hiding for four nights among the rocks. Italian wounded were found mutilated. I have seen the terrible spiked maces habitually used by the Austrians to break the skulls of the wounded. Equally barbarous are the thongs with leaden balls attached to sticks, which the Austrians use to coerce laggards. A specimen of these thongs found on Friday was shown to me by an Italian commander of high • rank.

The Austrians arc inspired by fierce hatred of the Italians,. and their brutal conduct m'ay well engender the fury of Italian comrades of victims of such ferocity. But it is very difficult to arouse lasting resentment in the Italian soldatini. "You're a filthy dog," said one of them -yesterday to a thirsty prisoner. "Here, have a pull at my water-bottle." ; . •Owing to the fact that so many Italian and Austrian soldiers have worked in the United States' and Canada, it often happens that English is the only language in which they can mutually converse. Yesterday I saw a small band of prisoners being brought in by Bersaglicri, who answered my remarks upon the stout physical appearance of the prisoners by saying in good New York dialect, "They can hollev all right. Mister," at which the prisoners i. GRINNED WITH EVIDENT UNDERSTANDING-. On finding, through prisoners, that the news of the Franco-British successes rm the Sommeand the sweeping Russian advance had been kept from the Austrian rank and file, and that newspapers had long been withheld from the men in the Austrian trenches.. General Cadorna. with his customary shrewd alertness, had millions of little news sheets dropped from aeroplanes among the enemy. The news sheets are printed in all the principal languages of the Hupsburg Monarchy. On the other hand, General Cadorna causes all good Italian or Allied news to be telephoned along the whole Italian front line, and, following the German example, he' encourages the circulation of newspapers among the troops. Unfortunately, the Italian public, while understanding the immense value of our fleet, has no idea of the superb British military organisation, or of the vast assemblage of British and Dominion troops in France. I am repeatedly asked if wo have yet our-army, and while great publicity is given to France and Russia. I find the impression general among educated classes here that our part in the war is practically confined to slow progress duo to inadequate supply of trained officers. Beyond Sir Dougla* Haig'ji, ■official communiques and occasional Correspondents in London, nothing is known here outside high military and Royal quarters of the magnificent work done by our new armies, and those of the Dominions at Fricourt, Poziercs, and Longuc-val. In the highest Royal and military quarters interest, confidence and admiration are warmly expressed, hut unluckily Italian Parliamentary and business circles, and the bulk of the army, know nothing of the meaning of our successes and sacrifices in the Somine offensive. Their eyes are concentrated on Verdun and the Russian fronts.

Yet the importance of thorough mutual comprehension here is manifest. The Isonzo is, so to speak, the western Balkan front. Blows struck here are felt in Sofia'as well as in Vienna, and should encourage the Allies in Salonika as well as Galicia. Co-ordination, of Allied public opinion may be as important as co-ordination of military effort. It is essentialto complete victory that each of the Allies should feel towards the others the trust- and admiratioi: which they all merit, and which knowledge alone can engender and maintain.