and many of these trenches have been dug out of snow and ice or blasted out of solid rock. In the valleys the Italians have fought in a burning heat, in the lowlands they have fought in water up to their waists. The Italian mountaineers, the wonderful Alpini, are not only experts on skis, but they know how to drive iron pegs into rocky walls and so clamber up precipices. They can make their barracks in caverns of ice, and more than once sudden storms have shut them up on their mountain peaks from December to April. In the struggle for Trieste the Austrians quietly brought their troops from Russia to Trent, and collected supplies and ammunition in that place. They had the great advantage of being on high land, while the Italians were on low land. Suddenly the Austrians attacked their adversaries with heavy bombardment and drove them back to their frontier. General Cadorna was now made commander-inchief. His plans did not include retreating, and before long he pushed forward, and now it was the turn of the Austrians to retreat. The Italians drove onward, and soon did part of what they had wanted to do, they captured Gorizia, thirteen miles from Trieste, and detachments of Italian cavalry entered the city in triumph with the King of Italy at their head. But they had only begun to carry out their plans. Trieste, the port that they had longed for, was so near that they hoped to push on and capture it. But the winter came upon them and the fulfillment of their hopes was delayed. Rumania had been hesitating whether to join Germany or the Allies. She knew just what she wanted, and she was trying to select the winning side so as to get it. Like Serbia, she wanted to bring under one rule all neighboring people of her blood. The Russians, her next-door neighbors, had been meeting with much success, and the Germans had not succeeded in taking Verdun; therefore she decided to join the Allies. Many Rumanians lived in Transylvania, just across the Hungarian border. Poor Rumania did not stop to consider what her allies were doing, or whether she was planning the wisest course that could be taken; she dashed across the border into Transylvania so suddenly that the Austria-Hungarian forces retreated before her. Then came fierce counter-attacks under Generals Von Mackensen and Von Falkenhayn. The Russians had come to Rumania, but they were in the extreme southeast of the land. The full force of a terrible drive came upon the little country. Early in December the Central Powers captured Bucharest, the Rumanian capital, and imposed upon its people a tax amounting to $380 a head. Straight through the land they went, from Hungary to the Black Sea; they had won rich wheat-fields and oil-lands. Little Montenegro, too, had been overcome, and King Nicholas had departed for France. Neutral countries had been shown what fate would befall them if they ventured to oppose the Central Powers. This was the story of the year 1916. It was as a whole favorable to the Allies. They had had the |