CHAPTER VII
Brescia—Rough sketch of arrangements—A printed itinerary of tour—Military passes—Rendezvous on certain dates—The “off-days”—Much latitude allowed—We make a start—Matutinal hour—First experience of freedom of action—Like schoolboys let loose—In the valley of Guidicaria—First impression of trenches on mountains—A gigantic furrow—Encampments of thousands of soldiers—Like the great wall of China—Preconceived notions of warfare upset—Trenches on summits of mountains—A vast military colony—Pride of officers and men in their work—Men on “special” work—“Grousing” unknown in Italian Army—Territorials—Middle-aged men—“Full of beans”—Territorials in first line trenches—Modern warfare for three-year-olds only—Hardy old mountaineers—Heart strain—The road along Lake Garda—Military preparations everywhere—War on the Lake—The flotilla of gun-boats—The Perils of the Lake—A trip on the “Mincio” gun-boat—I make a sketch of Riva—A miniature Gibraltar—Desenzano—Nocturnal activity of mosquitoes—Return to Brescia—Something wrong with the car—Jules Rateau of the Echo de Paris—Arrange excursion to Stelvio Pass—A wonderful motor trip—The Valley of Valtellino—The corkscrew road—Bormio—The Staff Colonel receives us—Permits our visiting positions—Village not evacuated—Hotel open—Officers’ table d’hôte—We create a mild surprise—Spend the night at hotel.
CHAPTER VII
One was not long realizing that it would have been impossible to have obtained a real conception of the terrific character of the mountain warfare and the indefatigable work of the soldiers if one had not been enabled to see it for oneself at close quarters.
A better starting point than Brescia for an extended tour of the whole of the Front would have been difficult to find, as it commands comparatively easy access to the principal positions in this sector. With a reliable car and no “speed limit” the radius you could cover in a day was remarkable as we soon discovered.
It may possibly be of interest at this juncture to give a rough sketch of the “arrangements” that we found had been made for us by the Headquarters Staff. A printed itinerary was given to each correspondent, from which he could gather at a glance the programme, subject only to occasional modifications as events might warrant, for every day of the tour.
The first impression, of course, was that we were to be on a sort of “personally conducted tour,” and no little disappointment ensued, but it was soon found that, although you had to adhere to it in its main points, there was really not any irksome restriction, as will be seen.
The scheme briefly was that the whole party should assemble at certain dates in the towns where Press Censorship Headquarters were established, and then officers were detailed to accompany the different parties to the positions along the Front nearest to these centres in order to explain the nature of the operations going on, and to give any other information required.
Salvo condotti, i.e., military passes, were issued to everyone; these passes were for use on the road and in the positions, and had to be renewed at each censorship, otherwise they were valueless. Although therefore it was obligatory to present yourself at all these points de repère at certain dates, you could choose your own road to get to them and halt where you pleased en route.
The “off-days,” when you were not officially visiting the positions, were to give you the opportunity of writing your articles and submitting them to the Censor, as obviously nothing could be posted without the official visé, though, of course, this did not prevent you from getting off as soon as you were through with him and had received your fresh permit and making for the next stopping place.
The latitude the arrangement gave to each car was demonstrated at once. We were booked to remain in Brescia for eight days, during which period there were to be no “official” excursions anywhere. Our passes were handed us, and we were free to go where we pleased so long as we turned up on time at Verona, the next stopping place.
The reason for this pleasing relaxation at the very commencement of the tour did not transpire; perhaps it was an oversight when the programme was drawn up; anyhow, my companions suggested our taking advantage of it and getting away from Brescia as soon as possible and making for the nearest positions. So we started off the next morning at the matutinal hour of 5 o’clock.
We had somehow thought our idea was quite original, but we found that several of our confrères had gone off even earlier than us, but in another direction; we therefore had the road we had chosen all to ourselves.
As there was no particular reason for us to return that day, we decided to put up somewhere for the night, and took our handbags with us. The zone of operations we were going to is a popular region for tourists in peace time, so there was no fear of not finding lodgings somewhere.
It was a glorious summer morning, and as we sped along in the invigorating air through sleepy, picturesque villages and wide tracts of tranquil country, covered with vines and maize-fields, towards the distant mountains, it was difficult to realize that we were not on a holiday jaunt but on our way to scenes of war.
To me especially the feeling of entire freedom of action was particularly delightful after the anxious weeks I had spent in Udine and on the Isonzo front, when the mere sight of a carabinieri would make me tremble in my boots for fear I was going to be arrested. Now, with my salvo condotto safe in my pocket and my correspondent’s “brassard” on my coat sleeve, I could look carabinieri and all such despots in the face without misgivings of unpleasant happenings.
There must have been some subtle tonic effect in the atmosphere that morning, for my companions were equally elated, and we were positively like three schoolboys let loose: even the chauffeur was infected by our boisterous spirits, and for the first few miles he pushed the car along at its top speed with reckless impetuosity.
The firing line we were making for was in the sector comprised between the Stelvio Pass and the Lake of Garda. In the valley of Guidicaria we reached the trenches, and had our first impression of the magnitude of the operations the Italians are undertaking.
What had been accomplished here during the three months since the war started was en évidence before our eyes. I was fully prepared from what I had seen on the Udine front for something equally astonishing in this sector, but I must confess the scenes before me, now that we were in touch with the troops, filled me with amazement. The achievements on the middle Isonzo were great, but here they were little short of the miraculous.
It was almost unbelievable that what we saw was only the work of three short months. Trenches and gun emplacements confronted you on all sides.
A sort of gigantic furrow wound through the valley and climbed the mountain like some prehistoric serpent, till lost to view away up on the summits more than two thousand metres above; and round about this fantastic thing were numberless little quaint grey shapes dotted here and there on the rocks, and often in positions so steep of access that you wondered how they got up there at all, and for what purpose.
These were the encampments of the thousands of Italian soldiers who have accomplished all this marvel of mountain warfare, and in the teeth of the Austrians and of nature as it were as well, and have carried the line of entrenchments across wooded hills, meadows, torrents and snow-clad slopes.
It is safe to assert that, with the exception perhaps of the great wall of China, never before in the history of warfare have operations of such magnitude been undertaken. In many places the trenches had to be actually blasted out of the rock, and were reinforced with concrete or anything that military science or nature could offer to render them still more invulnerable.
As we advanced further into this impressive zone of military activity you realized that all your preconceived notions of mountain warfare were upset.
Along the big military highway constructed by Napoleon ([see page 45])
To face page 74
Instead of the fighting taking place in the valleys and passes as one would have expected, the positions and even the trenches were frequently on the very summits of what one would have taken to be almost inaccessible peaks and crags, and in some places actually above the snow-line.
The whole region was positively alive with warlike energy, and what was only a few months previously a desolate and uninhabited area, had been transformed into a vast military colony, so to speak.
I was much struck with the pride of both officers and men in their work, and the evident pleasure it gave them to shew us everything, though, of course, our salvo condotti acted as open sesame everywhere. Visitors, still less pressmen, are not always welcome, especially when they turn up unexpectedly as we did.
Not the least astonishing feature of all these operations to my mind was the fact that men of branches of the service one does not usually associate with “special” work were working at it as though to the manner born.
The Bersaglieri, for instance, who are men from the plains, were doing sappers’ jobs amongst the rocks, or stationed high up on the mountains where you would have only expected to find Alpini; but they were all, I was told, gradually getting accustomed to their unaccustomed work, and often developing undreamed of capabilities, while their cheerfulness under the circumstances was always astounding, even to their own officers.
“Grousing” appears to be an unknown quantity in the Italian Army. I had a little chat with a sergeant of a Territorial regiment. He spoke French fluently, and told me he had lived several years in Paris. He was now in charge of a small detachment in a particularly exposed spot.
To my surprise I learned that the greater part of his regiment was composed of men well on in years, as one understands soldier life, most of them being close on forty, and that in his particular detachment he had several who were nearer fifty, though they did not look it. Yet they were as cheery and “full of beans” as the youngsters, he told me.
The reason for putting men of “territorial” age in first line trenches I could not manage to ascertain, for however good physically they may be for their age, one would have thought that their place was in the rear and that younger men would always have been found in the van.
It is indisputable that modern warfare is not for “veterans,” but, as our friend, Rudyard Kipling, would put it, for “three-year olds only,” for only youth can stand for any length of time the terrific physical and moral strain it entails.
I learned that there are a few hardy old mountaineers fighting shoulder to shoulder with the youngsters up on the peaks; but these, of course, are exceptions such as one will find anywhere, for the capability of endurance is no longer the same as it was when on the right side of thirty, and the strain on the heart at these altitudes especially is enormously increased. But to revert to our excursion.
Our road for some distance skirted the shore of Lake Garda, which is intersected by the Austrian frontier at its northern end, where the important fortified town of Riva is situated.
Here again the extraordinary preparedness of Italy was demonstrated. There were military works everywhere—barricades of barbed wire and trenches right down to the edge of the water—with men behind them watching and in readiness for any emergency.
The war had even been carried on to the Lake itself, in the form of a flotilla of serviceable gun-boats which had made its appearance, almost miraculously, so it is said, within a few hours of the opening of hostilities, and practically bottling up the Austrians in their end of the lake.
This “fleet” was continually out patrolling—night and day and in all weather. What this means will be realized by anyone who knows Lake Garda, for there is probably no expanse of water in the world where navigation is more exposed to sudden peril than here. It bears the evil reputation of being the most treacherous of Italy’s inland seas. Owing to its peculiar configuration and entourage of mountains, tempests arise so unexpectedly that unless a vessel is handled by an experienced skipper it has but little chance to reach its port safely if it is caught in one of these Lake Garda hurricanes.
A gale from the North-East will raise waves equal to anything the open sea can produce. Italy’s inland Navy is therefore exposed to other perils than the guns of the Austrian batteries.
I was lucky enough to get a trip on the gun-boat “Mincio,” and saw much of great interest on board. Everything was carried out on strictly naval lines, so much in fact that one might have imagined oneself out at sea, this illusion being heightened by the strong wind blowing at the time and the unpleasantly lumpy seas which kept breaking over us.
The officers and crews of these boats are all picked men from the Royal Navy, and I was told that they have taken to their novel duties with the greatest enthusiasm. The “Mincio” which was of about 150 tons, carried a very useful-looking Nordenfeldt quick-firer, mounted on the fore-deck, and also a big searchlight apparatus.
There are other boats of the same class, and the little “fleet” had already given good account of itself, whilst curiously enough, so far it had escaped entirely scot free from mishap, in spite of the endeavours of the Austrian gunners.
We steamed up the Lake till we were as near as prudence would permit to the fortifications which protects Riva, for me to make a sketch of it, but we did not remain stationary long as may be imagined.
Seen from the Lake, the fortress of Monte Brioni reminds one singularly of the Rock of Gibraltar in miniature, and it is said to be so honeycombed with gun embrasures as to be equally impregnable, and it is known that this impregnability is further guaranteed by mining the Lake in its vicinity.
I rejoined my companions in the car at a harbour some distance down the Lake, and we then made for Desenzano, where we thought we would spend the night as it was already late. It is a quaint little town on the lake shore, and we had no difficulty in getting rooms. To our surprise a very good hotel was open, as every place at first sight appeared to be shut up since there were no tourists to cater for.
There was no sign of military activity here, as it is many miles from the Front, but whatever was wanting in this respect was made up for by the nocturnal activity of the mosquitoes. I don’t think I ever experienced anything to equal their ferocity anywhere. I have since been told that Desenzano is notorious, if only by reason of its annual plague of these pests of the night, and that they are a particular tribe indigeneous to the place.
We returned to Brescia the following day. Our excursion had been very pleasant and instructive in every respect, but what we had seen only whetted one’s appetite for more. Life here in this provincial town seemed very tame when you remembered what was going on so comparatively short a distance away.
I should, therefore, have liked to get off again at once into the mountains, but it was not so easy, and for a reason that admitted of no argument. Something had gone wrong with the car, so our chauffeur told us, and it could not be put right for a few days. This was only what all motorists have continually to put up with, so there was nothing for it but to grin and bear it.
At this juncture one of my French confrères, Jules Rateau, of the Echo de Paris, a very jovial fellow, with whom I had become very friendly, and to whom I had confided my troubles, invited me to go for a trip with him in his car, his own companion having had to go to Milan for a few days. I gladly accepted, and we arranged to attempt to get as far as the positions on the Stelvio Pass. This meant again staying away a night, as we learned it was far too arduous a journey to be done in a single day.
Our intention was to make Bormio our first stage, sleep there and push on to the Stelvio the following day.
It would be impossible to conceive a more wonderful motor trip. For scenery it is probably unsurpassed in the world. I have never seen anything to equal it. Our route part of the way went along that most romantic of lakes Idro. The road, which is magnificent, follows all the sinuosities of the shore on the very edge of the water, winding in and out, and in many places passing through tunnels in the cliff-like rocks.
You somehow had the feeling that one ought not to be on a warlike expedition in such glorious surroundings, for the grandeur of it all overwhelmed you.
Further on we passed through the valley of Valtellino, famous for its grape vines, and for several miles we were driving past the curious terrace-like vineyards in the mountain side, looking so peaceful in the glorious sunshine. Then, as we gradually ascended, the scenery changed, and we were in amongst gaunt, forbidding mountains, towering above the road on either side.
All trace of cultivation disappeared by degrees; nature here no longer smiled, grim pine forests made black patches against the rugged slopes; there were traces of early snow on the high peaks, and the air was becoming chilly. The contrast with the tender beauty of the lower part of the valley was impressive in the extreme.
We were now approaching the area of military operations, and occasionally we heard in the far distance the dull boom of guns. The ascent became steeper, and at length the road left the valley and began to climb up through the mountains by a series of corkscrew turns that are so familiar in mountainous districts, but here the acclivity was so steep that the turns were correspondingly numerous, and it was a veritable nightmare of a road.
Our car, a Daimler of an old model, with a big, heavy tonneau, soon began to feel the test and commenced to grunt and hesitate in a manner that was not at all pleasant, considering that we were on the edge of a precipice and there was no parapet.
The way the chauffeur had to literally coax the panting engine at each turn makes me shudder even now to think of—every time I fully expected it would fail to negotiate it, and we should go backwards and be over the edge before he could put the break on, so little space was there to spare. The only thing to do was to sit tight and trust to luck. However, we reached the top safely, and at length arrived at Bormio.
We had been advised that the first thing to do was to ascertain the whereabouts of the commanding officer of the division and get his permission to visit the positions, as it lay entirely within his discretion. Our Salvo Condotti being subject to such restrictions as might be deemed necessary at any place.
There was no difficulty in discovering the Headquarter Staff building; it was a short distance from the town, in a big, new hotel and hydropathic establishment, with fine park-like grounds. In peace time it must have been a delightful place to stay in.
The General was away, but we were received by a Staff Colonel, who spoke French. On seeing our papers he made no objection to giving us permits to visit any position in this sector, and even went so far as to suggest that we should go the following day up to the fort on the Forcola close to the Stelvio Pass, and that an Alpino could accompany us as guide. It was probable that we should be under fire a good part of the way, he added, but what we should see would be sufficiently interesting to compensate for the risk.
We gladly accepted his suggestion, so it was arranged we should start early the next day as we had a stiff climb before us. We then went back to the village.
It was getting towards nightfall, and the narrow main street recalled vaguely Chamonix. It was crowded with Alpine soldiers, and in the dusk they conveyed some impression of mountaineering tourists, the illusion being heightened by the clank of their hobnailed boots on the cobbles and the alpenstoks they all carried.
The village had not been evacuated as most of them are near the Front, so there were women and children about. The principal hotel was open, and we got two good rooms for the night, and what was more to the point, for we were both famished after our long drive, one of the best dinners I have had anywhere in Italy, the big cities included. It was a table d’hôte for the officers, but we were informed there was “probably no objection” to our dining at it.
Our appearance in the dining room created no little surprise, as we were the only civilians present, our Press badges especially exciting much comment, as this was the first time that correspondents had been here.
Following the lead of my colleague, I bowed first to the Colonel, who was at the head of the table, then to the rest of the officers present, and we sat down at a small table by ourselves, amidst the somewhat embarrassing attention we were attracting. This soon wore off, however, as Italian officers are gentlemen not Huns, and it was evidently realised that we had permission to come to Bormio or we should not have ventured to be there.