With British Guns in Italy: A Tribute to Italian Achievement

by Baron Hugh Dalton Dalton

I made the acquaintance also in the Mess of a Medical Officer, named Rossi, in peace time a University Professor of Nervous Pathology, who was now in charge of a hospital for "nervosi," or shell-shock cases, four miles outside the town. One afternoon Jeune and I accepted an invitation to visit this hospital. We drove out to it in a carrozza, accompanied by Rossi and a young woman, who went there daily to teach some of the illiterate patients to read and write.

No one can begin to understand what modern war means without some personal acquaintance with shell-shock cases. They are, especially for non-combatants, the most instructive of all the fruits of war, much more instructive than dead bodies or men without limbs. And then, having watched and talked or tried to talk with a variety of these still living creatures, let any man, even a profiteer or a theologian, look into his heart and ask himself whether he really agrees with the Chaplain, whom I have already quoted, that "three or four years of war may be tremendously worth while."

It needs a greater pen than mine to do justice to all we saw that afternoon, for we went through all the wards and saw all the sights there were to see. We saw a young Lieutenant, with large staring eyes, sitting up in bed. When we approached him, he jumped round in his bed very violently, as though his body had been shot out of a gun, and went on staring at us, speechless and with eyes full of wild terror. We saw two soldiers in the corner of a ward, their heads wobbling in perfect rhythm, ceaselessly from side to side, like the pendulum of a clock, with dead expressionless faces. We saw men cowering beneath their bed clothes, trembling with an endless terror. We saw a man who for months had quite lost his speech, and was now just able to whisper, almost inaudibly, "papa" and "mama," a middle-aged man with a beard. We saw a man with frightened eyes, like a child in a nightmare, with many of the outward signs of having been gassed, struggling for breath, gesticulating feebly, trying to ward off some imaginary blow. He had not been gassed, but wounded in the head. He was alone in a blue ward, where all our faces looked yellow. We saw a youth lying asleep, white as a sheet and with hardly any flesh left on his bones. He had been asleep for two months without ever waking. We saw a splendid, tall, bearded man, a Cavalry Captain, with a deep voice and a firm handgrip, who could realise the present, but had forgotten all the past. We saw a multitude of minor "tremblers," and men undergoing electrical treatment for paralysis and stiffness of various limbs. One little man, another University Professor, who was almost paralysed in both legs, tried to advance to meet us and nearly fell forward on the ground at our feet. I spoke also to a young man with a paralysed back and left arm. I said I hoped he would soon be better. "Yes," he said, "I hope soon to go back to the Front." For a moment I thought this was irony addressed to a countryman of Mr Lloyd George. But it wasn't. He really meant it. We went into the Convalescents' Mess. There were about twenty present, smiling and very gentle and quiet, like men who were not yet quite sure of the world. One elderly man, a Medical Captain, said to me, very softly, that it was a great pleasure to see visitors from the outside, "especially our Allies." At that moment I could easily have wept. Such sights as I had seen did not physically sicken, nor even much horrify, me. They just tautened all my nerves and made me feel that all my questions were impertinent, and all my good wishes flat and empty, and that I resembled a visitor to a Zoo.

On the way back to Ferrara we talked of literature and Rossi, basing himself chiefly on Wells and Kipling, said that the English, judged by their modern writers, seemed to be a race "logical, but a little isolated."

Two days later the Major and the Right Section of the Battery came to Ferrara, being replaced on the Piave by a section of another Battery. On the 1st of December British Infantry, belonging to the XIVth Corps, moved into the lines for the first time, taking over the Montello sector, to the south of the Italian Fourth Army. This sector was to be held by British troops for four months, but it is worth while again to emphasise the fact that nearly a month had now elapsed since the great Retreat had been brought to an end by the unaided effort of Italian troops. The situation now seemed well in hand, and a further break not at all likely.

There had been a striking scene in the Italian Chamber about this time, when the Prime Minister, Orlando, announced that high military opinion had been opposed to the holding of the Piave line, recommending a further retreat to the line of the Mincio, or the Adige, or even the Po, which would have involved the surrender of Venice, Padua, Vicenza and Verona. But the Cabinet at Rome had rejected these recommendations and ordered that the Piave line should be held at all costs, and the valour of the Italian common soldier had triumphed over the forebodings of the generals.

On the 8th, our re-equipment being at last complete, we were warned to join the XIth British Corps on the arrival of our transport. The end of our stay at Ferrara was now in sight, and our last days were full of partings. The Major told me how one morning a little old man, apparently an artisan, ran after him down the road and, speaking excellent French, said how fine the British soldiers looked, and how splendid the news of the capture of Jerusalem was, and then insisted on his going into a café and drinking a glass of vermouth with him and, on parting, held his hand for several moments, gazing into his eyes with a look of affection and pride.

On the 9th a little ceremony took place in the Artillery Mess, where the British officers presented a silver cup, suitably inscribed, to their brother officers of the Italian Artillery. There was a large gathering. My own Major, who was in command of British troops at Ferrara, made the presentation, and the Italian Commandant made an eloquent reply.

On the 10th I told the page boy at the Circolo that the future of the world was in the hands of himself and the rest of the young, and that they must see to it that there were no more wars. This speech made him open his big brown eyes a bit wider! I had often talked to this boy before, and he was, I think, rather interested in me, thinking me no doubt a queer and unusual sort of person. He used to steal moments to come and enter into conversation with me when none of the older club servants were in sight. If any of them appeared in the distance, he used to pretend that I had called him for the purpose of ordering a drink, and bolt to the bar.

On the 11th another presentation ceremony took place, this time at the Circolo. Those of us who had enjoyed honorary membership here presented to the Club two small silver clocks. The Major again made a short speech and the President of the Club replied, expressing the hope that the hours might be short, which these clocks would record before the hour of final victory. The cordiality of all the members of the Club at this meeting was very memorable. One old gentleman of 76 years of age told me that I was the very image of his son who was serving at the front in the Artillery, and with tears in his eyes kissed me on both cheeks. "Permit this sign of affection," he said, "seeing that here we are in the midst of friends."