With British Guns in Italy: A Tribute to Italian Achievement

by Baron Hugh Dalton Dalton

But gradually, by patient work and organisation, these early troubles were surmounted. The whole Battery had been provided with Italian greatcoats and other Italian mountain equipment,—white Alpine boots lined with fur, alpenstocks, spiked snow grips, which could be fastened on to one's boots like skates, and white clothing to put on over the top of everything else, to render us invisible against a snowy background. I used to hear some amusing comments in the Battery on our Alpine situation. "This is the sort of thing you see pictures of in books, but…!" "I suppose folks would pay quids in peace time to see this!"

"Why, it's like a blooming Cook's tour!"

Being the first of the British who had been seen in these parts, we were objects of great interest to the Italians, who used to collect in crowds to watch our guns firing. We became great friends with the members of a mixed Mess not far away, consisting of two Anti-aircraft Batteries and the personnel in charge of a large ammunition dump. Between this Mess and our own there were frequent exchanges of hospitality.

One day an Italian General's car skidded into a ditch close to our position. We supplied a party of men to get it out again and the General, thanking us, asked if there was anything we wanted. The Major told him that we should like two or three more huts and two good stoves for cooking. A few days later these were delivered by the Italian authorities. Our own Brigade Commander, who had now followed us up the mountains with his two other Batteries, noticed these things and asked how we had come by them. When we told him, he seemed displeased, and next day we got an official letter to inform us that "it has come to notice that British units have in some cases recently been approaching the Italian authorities direct…. This practice is irregular and must cease…. Indents must be submitted through the proper channels." We smiled and obeyed. But we kept our huts and stoves which were better than any which we should have been likely to get "through the proper channels."

We were very short of water except snow water, there being only one waterpoint for all troops within several miles. Here there was a long queue waiting most of the day. It is probably not generally known that it takes ten dixies full of snow, when melted down, to make one dixie full of water. For this and for hygienic reasons snow water was not much use to us. We were not at this time required to fire very much, but we were warned to get acquainted with the surrounding country, as an action of some importance might be coming off before long. This provided the occasion for several reconnaissances.

On January 15th the Major and I went up Monte Costahmga, a few miles to the west. It was a ziz-zag, scrambling track, and it was thawing enough to make everything rather unpleasant. But we gained some, useful new knowledge.

On the 24th, Jeune, together with an Italian officer, a telephonist and myself made a long day of it. Starting early, we were on the top of Costalunga about 9 o'clock, were given a guide by an Italian Field Battery on the summit and went on, along a mountain road commanding a magnificent view, to Cima Echar. Here was a good O.P. from which I got my first sight of Monte Sisemol and Asiago, of which part of the campanile was at that time still standing. But it was brought down by Italian shell fire very soon afterwards. I remember thinking that the whole Asiago Plateau should be easy to retake, if we only brought up enough guns. Later on I began to realise that it would not be as easy as it looked.

It was impossible to get telephonic communication with the Battery from Cima Echar, so we could not, as we had hoped, do from there some registrations on wire and trench junctions on Sisemol, which were among our allotted targets. We therefore went back to Costalunga, where the Italian Field and Mountain Batteries along the crest were firing away with great vigour, and after an excellent lunch, which had been hospitably prepared for us, went down again into the valley and walked several miles further west to Monte Tondo.

I noticed at lunch, as on several other occasions lately, a change in the Italian attitude to good weather. They no longer hoped that it would break and so prevent further Austrian offensives. They hoped it would continue and so permit offensives of their own. Their morale was rapidly rising. We had, indeed, received the previous day the artillery portion of an elaborate offensive plan, but no date had yet been fixed for it.

We climbed up Monte Tondo and down the other side and made our way to an O.P. in a front line trench. For fifty yards of the way there was a break in the trench line and we had to run across the open through knee-deep snow. But the Austrians didn't fire. From this O.P. we had again a fine view of Asiago and the country round it. After delays connected with the telephone, we succeeded in registering two targets. While we were firing, all the woods and houses grew rosy in the sunset. It was dark when we finished. We went back with a Major of the Pisa Brigade, a quiet, spare little man, of great energy and exhausting speed of movement. He gave us coffee and showed us maps at his Brigade Headquarters and then sent us on to the Regimental Headquarters, further down the hill, where they gave us rum punch, believing, as all Italians do, that an Englishman is never happy unless he is drinking alcohol. We got back to the Battery in the moonlight.