against their will and were determined not to fight. According to the Italian statements, the Austrians and Germans had cleverly exploited this pacifist sentiment among the Italian troops by encouraging fraternizing, which the Italian commanders were unable to stop. Many of the opposing Austro-Hungarian troops were members of nationalities oppressed under Austrian and Hungarian rule and were thus no more enthusiastic about continuing the war than were many of their Italian comrades. The fraternizing groups spoke long and fervently of the brotherhood of the international working-class; of its stupidity in fighting its own comrades instead of its true enemies, the capitalist and governing class; and of an impending international Socialist state where control would be in the hands of the workers and purely national political divisions would be obliterated. And the Russian Revolution, with the evident withdrawal of Russia from the war, had greatly stirred the masses in all lands to hope for peace. It is possible that the Austro-Hungarians were sincere in their determination to disobey future orders to fight, but the German General Staff was far too wily to entrust its plan to them. When Ludendorff was ready to strike, he replaced most of the fraternizing troops with fresh German divisions, who were kept in ignorance of the situation in the Italian ranks.

The Italians

Ludendorff was ready toward the end of October. had an inkling that a heavy attack was about to be made against them. but they were ignorant as to its location and strength and equally. ignorant as to the extent of the pacifism among the Italian soldiers. On the evening of October 23, the Austro-Germans let loose a bombardment along the entire Isonzo front, followed on the next day by a concentrated avalanche of shells. With most of the Italian positions destroyed, the Austro-Germans advanced. South of Gorizia and directly north of it, to the Bainsizza plateau, the Italian lines held; but in the sector marked off by the Austro-Germans for their entering wedge, from Tolmino to Plezzo, the Italian positions were carried after several hours with little trouble. By the afternoon of October 24, the Italians had been driven across the river, closely followed by their pursuers. The Austro-German attack consisted of three main

thrusts. After being driven across the Isonzo, the Italians held the northernmost enemy group; but the two lower thrusts succeeded in continuing to eat into the Italian lines, and by the morning of October 25 they combined at Caporetto. They met little resistance worthy of the name the Italian forces broke badly and fled wildly, although many isolated groups put up a heroic resistance against overpowering odds. The wedge at Caporetto was threatening to envelop Cadorna's

main forces, and on October 26 he ordered a general withdrawal from most of the positions which his men had gained at so great effort and cost. Ludendorff turned south after reaching Caporetto, pouring the bulk of his forces through the opening he had made, capturing thousands of prisoners, and making all haste for Cadorna's rear.

Resistance was impossible-the only hope for saving the Italian army lay in a precipitate retreat back along the seacoast across the frontier until some pretense of a front could be re-established. The Austro-Germans were sweeping in wider and wider circles toward

the Venetian plains and only haste, headlong haste, could prevent complete surrender. Abandoning guns, ammunition, prisoners, wounded, civilians and all supplies, the Italians rushed pell-mell back toward Italy. It was a rout. On October 27, Cividale was in the enemy's hands and the fall of Udine was a matter of but a few hours. On the same day, the Austrian flag once more flew over Gorizia. The news of the disaster ended the Boselli government-on November 1, Orlando took up the burdens of the premiership, with Sonnino as minister of foreign affairs.

Throughout those hectic days of October, pursuer and pursued rushed madly for the Tagliamento River, twenty-five miles into Italian territory from the frontier and the first location of a possible temporary stand. The Italians fought a number of skilful rear-guard actions, but were often compelled to sacrifice divisions in order to make good the escape of others. Every hour thousands of prisoners were falling to the Austro-Germans. Until November 1, the mad race for the Tagliamento continued, but on that day it was evident that the Italians had shown the greater speed and that the greater part of Cadorna's forces had succeeded, by an uncomfortably close margin, in eluding the jaws of the Austro-German nippers. Fortunately, the Tagliamento was in flood, so that when the advance guards of Ludendorff's army reached the river on November 1, with the bridges destroyed and the Italians entrenched on the other side, they had no course open to them but to postpone the pursuit and to await the arrival of their heavy guns.

But the Tagliamento line was manifestly weak, too weak to be held when the German heavy guns should arrive. So during the next several days the Italians prepared to retire still further to the Piave, and while the weary and disorganized troops were resting on the Tagliamento, the Piave line was energetically fortified for a lengthy resistance.

In the meantime, the Austro-Germans might well have been satisfied with their accomplishment. They had not only robbed the Italians of the gains of more than two years of war, not only ended for all time the threat to Trieste and Laibach, not only carried the war into Italian territory, not only encouraged their despondent home popula

tions and to the same extent lowered Allied morale, and not only broken up Cadorna's entire army-they had also to their credit almost 200,000 prisoners and 2,000 guns. It was the greatest victory of 1916 and 1917. And if the Austro-Germans could continue to advance so as to cripple Italy on both land and sea and so as to compel her to sue for peace, a peace with provisions of material assistance to the German General Staff in prosecuting the war, it was by no means impossible that the Italian disaster might end the war in Germany's favor before the American army should be able to turn the tide.

On November 3, the Austro-German heavy guns were in place and the Tagliamento was crossed. In the next several days, flanking movements began to enclose Cadorna's left and on November 7 he abandoned the Tagliamento line. The Italians were hotly followed, but again they managed to preserve order and by November 10 were firmly established along the Piave. They had thus been driven to surrender more than 3,500 square miles of Italian territory. French and British divisions were rushed to the aid of Diaz, who succeeded Cadorna as the Italian commander-in-chief and for the moment the crisis had passed. Throughout the remainder of November, the Austro-Germans made desperate efforts to drive Diaz back from the Piave line. Their plan was to drive in his wings, paying little attention to his centre; and both along the lower Piave, with its marshes, and the upper Piave, with its high hills, attempt after attempt was made to break the Italian line. But the Italians now were holding firm on their own soil, fighting as they now were for their own homes, and the losses in November were heavier among the Austro-Germans than among the forces of Diaz. On a number of occasions the enemy managed to cross the river, but each time he was driven back by Italian counter-attacks.

In December, Ludendorff made a last effort to turn the Italian left wing among the mountains. The Italians guarding the line along the Trentino had been affected but slightly by the disaster at Caporetto and, although they had been compelled to withdraw in order to maintain points of contact with the Piave line, their positions were strong. Nevertheless, the Austro-German forces managed to make headway by a formidable attack in December on the Asiago Plateau. On De

cember 6, on December 11-15, and again on December 22, the enemy gained ground of great value and for a time the position of the whole Italian army was grave, for it looked as though it was about to be flanked again and compelled to withdraw farther south, possibly to the Adige, a move which would practically throw Venice into the enemy's hand and thereby both weaken Italy's command of the Adriatic and give the Austrian navy an opportunity to become active. But in 1917 the weather on the southern front came to the assistance of the Allies as it had come to the assistance of the Germans in France and in Belgium. Heavy snows and severe cold broke up the German plans and the British and French reinforcements had reached Italy in sufficient number to counter-attack and to regain some of the positions which had been lost on the heights on the Italian left. At the end of December and through January, 1918, both the Anglo-French and the Italians drove back the Austro-Germans and at the end of January, Ludendorff withdrew many of the best troops from the Italian front. He had other use for them.

Despite the stupendous disaster which thus befell Italy, there was a silver lining to the dark cloud. For Caporetto brought to the Allied governments, as nothing before, the criminal folly of a super-nationalism which refused to sacrifice national advantages for the common good. With Caporetto, all the Allies pooled their resources, established the Allied War Council at Versailles, and placed the separate nations warring against Germany under the control of an international Entente command. Henceforth there was to be in the Entente a much greater unity of function.