CHAPTER XL
THE COMPLETENESS OF VICTORY
The end was almost come. On November 3rd we received the official announcement that an armistice had been signed, and that at 3 p.m. on November 4th hostilities on the Italian-Austrian Front would cease. That same day Trento, Trieste and Udine fell. One began to be aware of the completeness of victory. On this day and the days that followed the communiqués of Diaz were decisive and historical.
"November 4th. Noon. The war against Austria-Hungary which … the Italian Army, inferior in numbers and resources, undertook on the 24th of May, 1915, and with unconquerable faith and stubborn valour conducted uninterruptedly and bitterly for 41 months, has been won. The great battle begun on the 24th October, in which there took part 51 Italian Divisions, 3 British, 1 French, 1 Czecho-Slovak and 1 American Regiment against 73 Austrian Divisions, is finished…. The Austrian Army is annihilated. It has suffered very heavy losses in the fierce resistance of the first days of the struggle and in the pursuit; it has lost immense quantities of material of every kind and almost all its magazines and depôts; it has left in our hands, up to the present, about 300,000 prisoners with complete staffs and not less than 5000 guns.[1] The remnants of what was once one of the most powerful Armies in the world are now flowing back in disorder and without hope up the mountain valleys down which they came with proud self-assurance."
[Footnote 1: These figures increased later to more than 430,000 prisoners and 6800 guns.]
"November 4th, 4 p.m. According to the conditions of the armistice … hostilities by land, sea and air on all the fronts of Austria-Hungary have been suspended at 3 p.m. to-day."
"November 6th. At 3 p.m. on the 4th of November our troops had reached
Sluderno in the Val Venosta, the Pass of Mendola and the Defile of
Salomo in the Val d'Adige, Cembra in the Val d'Avisio, Levico in the Val
Sugana, Fiera di Primiero, Pontebba, Plezzo, Tolmino, Gorizia,
Cervignano, Aquileia and Grado."
Some of these names filled me with memories of a year, and more than a year, ago. Old Natale's message to the enemy chalked on our hut at Pec had come true. We had soon come back.
* * * * *
The fighting was over! That night of the 4th of November all the sky was lit up with bonfires and the firing of coloured rockets and white Véry lights. One could hear bells ringing in the distance, back toward Treviso, and singing and cheering everywhere. It was an hour of perfection, and of accomplishment; it was the ending of a story. An epic cycle of history was finished, the cycle of the wars of Italy against Austria. The task of completing Italian unity was finished, so far as a series of wars could finish it.
"The fight is done, but the banner won;
Thy comrades of old have borne it hence,
Have borne it in triumph hence.
Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave:
'I am content.'"
The soldier had done his duty, now let the statesman do no less. Let wisdom and imagination make sure the fruits of valour.
* * * * *
The old Austria is dead, and from her grave, which Italian hands have dug, are rising up new nations, the future comrades of the old nations and of Italy, who in these bloody years has grown from youth to full manhood. It has been said that a nation is a friendship, and the common life of nations in the future must also be a friendship, necessarily less intimate but in no way less real. The youth of the world must never be called to swim again, with old age on its back, through seas of needless death to the steep and distant cliffs of military victory. There must be no more secret plots, nor seeming justification of plots, by little groups of elderly men against the lives and happiness of young men everywhere. The world must be made safe for justice and for youth.
* * * * *
Youth was rejoicing that night in Italy, when the war against Austria ended. And not youth only, nor Italians only. The British troops loudly and healthily and almost riotously sang also, all the temporary soldiers and nearly all the regulars. Yet here and there were gloom, and drab, wet blankets, trying to make smoulder those raging fires of joy. In a few officers' Messes, especially among the more exalted units, men of forty years and more croaked like ravens over their impending loss of pay and rank, Brigadier Generals who would soon be Colonels again, and Colonels who would soon be Majors. To have been, through long uneventful unmental years, a peace-time soldier puts the imagination in jeopardy and is apt to breed a self-centred fatuity, which the inexperienced may easily mistake for deliberate naughtiness. Yet these brave men, who hate peace and despise civilians, have many human qualities. They are generally polite to women, and they are kind to animals and to those of their inferiors who show them proper deference and salute them briskly. It is not always easy to judge them fairly. And that night one did not try. They jarred intolerably. They seemed a portent, though in truth they were something less. They found themselves left alone to their private griefs, ruminating regretfully over the golden age that had suddenly ended, gazing into the blackness of a future without hope.