On January 27th the long expected action began, and our Brigade lost one of its best officers, who was hit in the head in the front line O.P. on Monte Tondo. His steel helmet and the skill of Italian doctors just saved his life, but he was permanently out of the war. The Italians put their best doctors right forward in the advanced dressing stations. All that day we bombarded enemy Batteries and cross roads and barbed wire. Next morning the Italian Infantry carried Col Valbella and Col d'Echele by assault. The day after they took also Col del Rosso, and beat back very heavy counter-attacks. The Sassari Brigade and a Brigade of Bersaglieri specially distinguished themselves. It was an important and useful success. It considerably improved our line between the Asiago Plateau and Val Brenta, it deprived the enemy of the secure use of the Val Frenzela, and it was the first offensive operation of any importance undertaken by the Italians since the great retreat. Its success went to prove that the Italian Army had been effectively reorganised, and that its morale was again high.
From my sleeping hut and from the Battery Command Post I used to hear for days afterwards the Italian Infantry singing in great choruses, far into the night. There was triumph in their songs, and there was ribaldry and there was longing. I thought I knew what dreams were in their hearts, and, if I was right, those dreams were also mine.
The advance left us a long way behind the new front line, and we expected to move our guns forward; indeed we selected and asked to be allowed to occupy a very good position behind Montagna Nuova. But this was not allowed, and we stayed where we were for another six weeks. It snowed a great deal and we fired very little. But we had plenty to do to keep pathways dug between the guns and the huts; often we had to clear these afresh every hour.
During this time I made the acquaintance of several interesting Italians and Frenchmen. Among these was Colonel Bucci, who had been attached the year before to the Staff of one of the British Armies in France. He was now in command of a Regiment of Field Artillery, including a group of Batteries known as the Garibaldian Batteries, which were always placed at their own request in the most forward positions. I heard that, when he took over this command, he sent for all his officers and said, "Now here we are, some old men and some young men and two or three boys, and we are all here for the same purpose and I hope we shall all be always the best of good friends. But, as a matter of convenience, someone has got to be in command of the others, and I have been chosen because I am the oldest."
He used to tell an amusing story of an encounter he had in France with a British officer from one of the Dominions, who walked into his bedroom late one night, after a liberal consumption of liquor, and said he "wanted the fire" and asked if Bucci was "that Portuguese." Bucci, having persuasively but vainly asked him to go away, got out of bed and genially taking him by the shoulders,—he is a powerful man,—ran him out into the passage. Whereat the British officer, surprised and protesting, said, "You have no business to treat me like that. Don't you see that I am a Major and have three decorations?" pointing to his left breast. "Yes," said Bucci, "and I am a Colonel, and I have some decorations too, but I don't wear them on my nighty, and I want to go to sleep."
He had been in Gorizia before Caporetto, and had kept, as a melancholy souvenir, the maps showing the line of his own Regiment's retreat. "I call it the Via Crucis," he said. "I want to go back. I want to see an advance across the Piave with Cavalry and Field Artillery. I want to advance at the gallop. I have applied to be sent down there." He was a natural leader of men, and I felt that I would willingly follow him anywhere.
We saw a good deal too of the officers of a French Observation Balloon. One of their officers was a tall man, promoted from the ranks, with big upturned moustaches, a delightful smile and twinkling eyes. He smoked more cigars than any man I have ever met. He smoked them, like some men smoke cigarettes, one after another all the evening, with no interval between. He came from Marseilles. Another was from Auvergne, always most elegantly dressed. He never smoked at all, for he was very proud of his white teeth. He spoke Italian and German, but no English. A third was a little blonde Alsatian business man. He was usually rather quiet, but one evening I saw him roused, when someone had said something that displeased him about Alsace. Then he showed us that he could be eloquent when he chose.
They are very implacable, these Frenchmen. Undoubtedly Clemenceau spoke in their name, when he said, "my war aim is victory." Another Frenchman said to me once, "when Clemenceau is speaking, no one dares to interrupt, for they know it is the voice of the soldier at the Front speaking." And one can scarcely wonder that they are implacable. In Alsace-Lorraine and in the occupied territories of Northern France, they say that it is known with complete certainty that the daughters and wives and widows of many French officers and men have been compelled to take up their abode in brothels, and there to await at all hours of the day and night the visits of their country's enemies. Is it surprising that certain French Regiments, knowing these things, never take prisoners? And can one fail to admire, even if one does not unconditionally agree with, the soldier who would fight on and on, until everyone has been killed, rather than accept anything less than a complete victory?
It is all but impossible for a foreigner to measure the spiritual effects upon a proudly and self-consciously civilised Frenchman of these unpardonable, brain-rending, heart-stabbing provocations. But the statesman at home who, drawing good pay and living in comfort far behind the Front, is ever ready to declare that his country "shall continue to bleed in her glory" is a less admirable spectacle. It is his business to conceive some subtler and more comprehensive war aim than bare military victory, and to make sure that, when he has died safely in his bed and been forgotten, other men shall not have to do over again the work which he complacently bungled. A fighting soldier, who risks his life daily, may speak brave words, which are indecent on the lips of an imboscato, whether military or civilian.