STERN, silent, immutable, amid the

shifting tide of human concerns, the Julian Alps have looked upon strange scenes. Long centuries ago, barbarian hordes of Goth and Hun and great

tary movement in the Carso had for its aim to gain new territory on that forbidding plateau in the direction of Hermada.

HE ITALIAN ATTACK IS DELIVERED ON

THE

HE ALLIED NATIONS PROMISE TO SEND
AID TO ITALY.

In January, during the mid-winter lull in fighting operations, a conference of distinguished military and political representatives from the four leading Allied nations met for three days at Rome. There Italy was promised assistance by the French and British. As a consequence, France sent guns, to be manned by Italian gunners, and England sent batteries of six-inch howitzers, with 2,000 men.

Until May the Italian High Command had to wait until the late spring floods subsided. There were evidences that their opponents were preparing for a new offensive; therefore, General Cadorna laid plans for an attack to anticipate it. The main attack was to fall on the middle Isonzo. A supplemen

The Italian artillery bombarded the whole Isonzo front, from May 12 until the morning of May 14, in preparation for an infantry attack from Plava and Gorizia upon Kuk, Monte Santo, and the hills along the edge of the Bainsizza Plateau. After the first day, General Capello, commander of the Second Army, placed the artillery command of the 2nd Corps in the hands of Major-General Badoglio, whose plans for taking Sabotino had been so successful. Under his direction, the Italian guns seemed to be "driving nails along given lines" of the Austrian positions, "and the hammerstrokes were delivered with unfailing skill."

On the night of May 15 a diversion was created about eight miles south of Tolmino, where Bersaglieri and Alpini forced passage across the Isonzo and improvised a bridgehead on the east bank. They held it under fearful odds until the eighteenth, when, deeply chagrined at having to abandon the attack, they were withdrawn, as the purpose of the action had been accomplished. In the first stage of the offensive, sections of Kuk, Vodice, and Santo

were taken, as well as several hamlets and hills east of Gorizia and Plava. The Plava bridgehead had by this time been strengthened by the building of the "Badoglio Road," the "road of the thirty-two hairpins," which dropped by successive zigzags down from Monte Corada. As to Kuk, a distinguished English author writes: "A few days after its capture I saw on the top of Monte Kuk some Italian 'seventyfives' that had been dragged up, Heaven knows how, by sheer strength of arm and will during the mêlée itself."

HE ITALIANS SUFFER VERY HEAVY

TLOSSES ON THE ISONZO.

"The Italian losses were, of course, very heavy. The attacking troops had carried positions that might well have been thought impregnable, and they had paid the price. When the AvelWhen the Avellino and Florence Brigades were taken out of the line to rest and re-form after three and four days' fighting respectively, the Avellino had lost over 100 officers and nearly 2,700 men, out of 140 officers and 5,000 men; and though the casualties in the Florence Brigade were not quite so heavy, they lost nearly 50 per cent of their strength." The Austrians attempted a diversion on the Trentino at this juncture, opening heavy fire in the Val Sugana, on the Asiago Plateau, and in the Adige Valley. There was vigorous fighting on Monte Colbricon and the "Dente del Pasubio."

Necessity for economizing in military supplies forbade General Cadorna's attempting to attack simultaneously on two sectors of any great width. Consequently, the stroke upon the Carso was not delivered until May 23. It fell with such overwhelming force that in a few hours the Austro-Hungarians had been driven back nearly a mile beyond their immensely strong front lines from Kostanjevica to the sea, and had yielded Hudi Log ("the Evil Wood"), Lukatic, Jamiano, and several hills. At the southern end, on the coast, Bagni was taken in a battle that engaged 130 airplanes and a group of the Royal Navy seaplanes. The first day's contest gave the Italians 9,000 prisoners. By May 28, the line had

The inevitable counter-attack, occupying the first week in June, was most violent from San Marco southward. From Fajti Hrib to Jamiano, the bombardment and infantry drives did not make much impression; but farther south the Italians fell back from onethird of a mile to a mile and a quarter on a three mile front, recrossing the Timavo and dropping behind Flondar. The fighting was fierce and terrible. Yet there was one strange stain on the great record of valorous endeavor. A brigade, engaged on the slopes of Hermada, surrendered without any attempt at real resistance and so made way for the enemy. It was composed of men newly drafted from a region. where pacifist propaganda was astir. A danger from within, more baleful than any host of tangible warriors however armed, had begun to raise its head. General Cadorna at once wrote to the Government with warning and appeal.

In the whole spring offensive the Italians lost nearly 130,000 men, of whom about 6,000 were prisoners. They had taken, in return, 24,260 AustroHungarian prisoners, and had reduced the enemy fighting forces by something less than 100,000 in killed and wounded. In mid-summer, the glacier-fed flood of the river was rushing through gorges between lofty cliffs, or rolling beside occasional narrow plains. Far to the north, it passed towering Monte Nero, overlooking Caporetto on the west, with its peaceful Italian garrison, and Tolmino on the southeast, with its unmolested Austrian inhabitants.

position at Gorizia, rose the sheer precipice of Monte Santo, on whose summit, lifted "like a church spire," lay the ruins of a shrine. There, at the outbreak of hostilities, the aged emperor of Austria-Hungary had been carried in a sedan chair, to pray for the success of his Imperial arms. Now, Franz Josef had passed beyond the bounds of human history, and the shrine had crumbled into a heap of white marble under shell-fire from Sabotino, only a half-mile away across the river. Still farther southward, where Isonzo meets the sea, across the blue gulf one could gaze along the Carso to "ugly turtlebacked Hermada Mountain blocking the road to Trieste." But the boast of Hermada was partly silenced. Not all its guns could speak as they had done.

After the unavoidable check in the vigorous Italian offensive of May, 1917, General Cadorna was unable to press for further progress until summer had begun to wane. His allies could not spare him sufficient aid for a great offensive movement, while his adversaries were enabled to build up their resistance by transferring troops from the demoralized Russian front, no longer formidable since the collapse of the Russian government in the spring.

HE BATTLE RESUMED ON THE ISONZO

TIN AUGUST.

After mid-summer had passed in comparative quiet, a month of continuous and intense conflict was inaugurated on August 18 by a great bombardment from Tolmino to the sea. North of Gorizia, where the Isonzo makes a bend that points westward, lies Plava, which had been steadily useful to the Italians since its capture in June, 1915. Again it was to be employed as a starting place for an important attack, this time, upon the Bainsizza Plateau. Fitting into the angle of the river and stretching eastward as far as the Chiapovano Valley, the Bainsizza. is an elevated region with surface broken by rock masses, glens, and doline, or depressions, somewhat in the same way as that of the Carso.

The Second Army, under General Capello, was operating from Gorizia

RIDGES CONSTRUCTED AT NIGHT UNDER

BRIDGES CONSTRUCTIES.

But from Plava, on August 18, a sally was made to the northeast, resulting in the seizure of a valley situated between Kuk and the Bainsizza. A short distance farther up the river, where as yet the Italians had found no foothold upon the eastern bank, a crossing was accomplished on the night of August 19. In preparation for this feat, the river had been nightly diverted from its channel until ten foot-bridges had been constructed. By day the stream flowed as usual, showing no sign of change. On the evening of the nineteenth, four pontoon bridges were added, though the cliffs were so abrupt that the boats had to be dropped

on skids, and ladders had to be used to get the men to the level of the river and up again on the opposite side. To screen the movements on the river, a great battery of search-lights, ranged along the heights of the western shore, was turned upon the Austrian gunners, and heavy firing covered the sound of work upon the bridges.

By their impetuous and unexpected rush up the declivity, in the face of machine guns, the heroic fighters of Capello's army drove their way through the front lines of the enemy, then pushed on north and east across the plateau until, by August 24, they could look across to the edge of Lom in the one direction, and were within range of the Ternova batteries in the other. On the Bainsizza they soon were beyond all points where artillery or trucks and ambulances could accompany them. The engineers followed as fast as was possible, in an effort to keep communications open; but the Austrians had not made good roadways leading to their own front lines and the poor approaches were now ploughed up or encumbered with wreckage. Therefore, there were several days during which the advance of the Italian army could be supplied only by carriers on foot, and the wounded had to be borne back for miles over the rough ground by their companions. Water also was lacking. It was a time of great danger, but the venturous battalions held their own until the paths had been leveled sufficiently for guns, lorries, and ambulances to carry them relief. Always the reliable Fiat cars, with their intrepid drivers, and the British Red Cross units arrived as near the front as might be and at the earliest moment possible. Further relief was furnished by a diversion in the form of attacks in the middle Isonzo region, around San Gabriele.

ONTE SANTO SURROUNDED
FORCED TO SURRENDER.

MONT

AND

In that sector, northeast of Gorizia, on August 23, Monte Santo had been threatened from the rear, and its garrison isolated by the capture of Sella di Dol, "the saddle" connecting Santo with San Gabriele. Thus cut

off and surrounded, Monte Santo yielded, on the twenty-fourth. Above its summit, more than 2,000 feet high, the Italian tricolor floated out, while regimental bands celebrated there the victorious hour, playing under the direction of the great Toscanini.

During this first week of the offensive, the Duke of Aosta and the Third Army had been doing admirable work on the southern Carso, where the 23rd Corps, under Diaz, demolished the Austrian 12th Division and secured Selo. Very quickly the ground that had been lost in June was recovered, and the Austrian line forced back from Kostanjevica (Castagnevizza) across the Brestovica Valley. Nearer the sea, an advance was made beyond San Giovanni and Medeazza, and attacks on Hermada reopened.

In that sector, British and Italian monitors took part in the bombardment. The Italian monitors, it is said, were of a sort never before used in war, and employed shells of greater calibre than had ever before been fired from warships. Around the head of the Adriatic and on the Bainsizza as well Caproni airplanes, too, furnished admirable assistance in the offensive, flying forward by swarms, in advance of the infantry, and dropping tons of bombs upon the enemy positions.

HE SAN GABRIELE RIDGE THE NEXT

OBJECT OF ATTACK.

The first week of September, 1917, marked the beginning of "a fight for a natural fortress within as narrow limits of movement as any old battle for town or castle." It was a struggle for the possession of San Gabriele ridge, which, by the fall of Santo, had become an Austrian salient surrounded by Italians everywhere except on the northeast. For ten days the contest seethed. A correspondent writes:

"When first I looked down (from Santo) upon the battle for San Gabriele I seemed to hang directly over the crater of a volcano. A matter of 40,000 Italian shells on a daily aver age are bursting over San Gabriele's crest. In addition are the Austrian shells, for the lines on San Gabriele are now so close that the topmost positions

September; 145 cannons, 265 mitrailleuses, and great quantities of other guns and matériel had fallen into the hands of the victors. But on the opposite side of the account were written 155,000 Italian casualties.

Under the Austrian counter-strokes, the Italians fell back from Hermada and San Giovanni, though they relinquished no ground in the vicinity of Kostanjevica. San Gabriele was still divided. Not yet was the road from Gorizia to Trieste opened, when in mid-September the offensive died away. General Capello's Bainsizza position had been reinforced, but it was a salient of peculiar difficulty and

WERMAN EMPIRE.

Not until August, 1916, was the last link of the Triple Alliance formally severed. Up to that time, Italy had declared war against Austria-Hungary, against Turkey, even against Bulgaria, but not against Germany. The situation was anomalous and compromising, for there was no question that Germany stood behind AustriaHungary with support and direction. in her warfare upon Italy. Moreover, the Prussian power was continually committing unfriendly acts, in violation of all agreements with its Latin ally. The atmosphere was cleared by