[Footnote 1: For a full and lucid account see the official Report by the Comando Supremo on the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, 24th October—2nd November 1918.]
At dawn on the 24th, the same day that the British Divisions had crossed to the Grave di Papadopoli, the Italian Fourth Army had attacked in the Grappa sector, where fighting was desperate and progress slow for several days. On the evening of the 26th the Piave was bridged in three sectors, and on the 27th three bridgeheads were in being; the first on the Upper Piave, in the hands of Alpini and French Infantry of the Italian Twelfth Army; the second on the Middle Piave, in the hands of Arditi and other troops of the Italian Eighth Army; the third further downstream, in the hands of our two British Divisions and the Italian Eleventh Corps. For a while the situation had been critical owing to the gap between the second and third bridgeheads. But by the 28th fresh Divisions had crossed the river at all three bridgeheads, and spread out fanwise, linking up the gaps in the line. The same day on the Asiago Plateau the enemy at last fell hurriedly back to his Winterstellung, and British troops occupied the ruins of Asiago itself. During the next two days the advancing troops on the plain swept steadily eastwards. On the 31st the enemy's line in the Grappa Sector completely collapsed, with great losses of men and guns. On the 1st of November an attack was launched along the whole of the Italian Front, from the sea to the heights of the Stelvio, amid the glaciers and the eternal snows on the Swiss frontier, and on this day Italian, British and French troops carried at last, after strong resistance, the whole northern ridge of the Asiago Plateau, at which we had gazed with eyes of desire for many long months.
CHAPTER XXXIX
LIBERATORI
On November the 1st a reconnaissance by car was ordered, to test the practicability and the need of accelerating the forward movement of our guns. Leary and I and two others started early in a car, adequately armed and carrying a day's rations and a flask in which rum had been mixed accidentally with florio (marsala). This most original mixture, which we christened "florium," was excellent, more thirst-quenching than rum, more sustaining to the spirit than florio.
That day we travelled 76 miles at the least, in a great curve, through liberated country. We had everywhere an astounding reception, never to be forgotten. Everywhere we passed, we were wildly, deliriously, cheered by the civilian population. Old men ran up to us waving their hats, old women clapped their hands, young girls waved and threw flowers at us, little boys ran shouting after us, all crying "Evviva! Evviva! Liberatori! Viva gl' Inglesi!" The radiant joy of them, and their smiles, never far from tears, were the manifestation of a form of human emotion, singularly pure and indescribably moving. Every town and village was hung with the Italian flag, and at one place an arch of flowers ran from tree to tree above the road. Everywhere crowds with smiling, wondering faces, stood watching the Allied troops moving up along the roads, wave upon wave upon wave, triumphant, unendingly. Here a few days ago the foreign invader had ruled, perhaps only yesterday, perhaps only a few hours ago: Now he had vanished, like a bad dream from which one suddenly awakes, leaving behind him only his dead, and certain grim marks of his occupation, and vivid memories of many brutal and cruel and thoughtless acts, to prove that he was worse and more real than a dream.
* * * * *
We crossed the Piave at Spresiano, on a series of wooden bridges and pontoons, similar to those further down the stream at Palazzon and Lido Island. On the further bank we came first to Conegliano. Here just a year ago some of von Below's German troops, who broke the line at Caporetto, had been billeted, and later a Bulgarian Governor and staff had been installed, for the encouragement and flattery of the wavering minor allies of the enemy powers. On the same principle a Turkish Governor had been appointed at Feltre. The troops of occupation had been guilty of wicked excesses at Conegliano. The little town had been ruthlessly ravaged and set on fire and the majority of the houses had been completely burnt out, only the charred shells of them remaining.
Hence we turned northwards up into the Alpine foothills, through country of exceptional beauty, and along the shores of a piece of long blue water, to the village of Revine Lago. Here were many captured and abandoned Austrian guns. Some, in the last desperate moments of departure, had been thrown down a steep cliff which overhangs the lake, and lay below us, for the time being out of reach. Here I met again several officers of the Italian Field Artillery, whom I met above Val Brenta in January, including the Neapolitan Adjutant of Colonel Bucci. Also General Clerici of the Bersaglieri, who for the moment had his Headquarters here, a friend of one of my companions. They all substantiated the rumour that last night, or the night before, Austrian envoys had appeared with a white flag in the Val Lagarina and had been taken to Diaz's Headquarters.
We parted from our friends and sped on to Vittorio Veneto, which gives its name to this last great battle, being the point on which those Italian forces moved, whose purpose and whose successful achievement it was to cut the Austrian Armies in two, separating the Armies in the mountains from the Armies in the plain. Vittorio stands on and around the summit of a little hill, itself one of the foothills, the older part of the town picturesque with little winding streets, the newer part well laid out with broad roads, shaded with avenues of trees. Here the Austrian flight had been more rapid and the damage smaller. But we were still many miles behind the ever advancing battle line. We determined, therefore, to turn sharply eastward and make for Pordenone, in the hope of coming up with the fighting thereabouts. For last night, we heard, the Austrians were still defending themselves on the near side of that town.