“There are very many sick, especially of tuberculosis, which assumes every form. Statistics show that this disease was found in thirty cases out of a hundred visited, and that it was continually increasing because of the scarcity of food.”
We learnt of the treatment of Italian prisoners taken during the Austrian invasion from escaped Italian prisoners and from reports from captured Austrians. The Czech officer, mentioned in the foregoing, wrote in his diary: “While the Italian prisoners were passing through the city (of Feltre) the women along the streets wept.”
The following information I received from two automobilists, by name Ventura and Gandolfo, with whom I was able to speak:
“The life of the Italian prisoners is most terrible. They are treated with scorn, are scantily fed, and are compelled to work at nerve-racking tasks. The harshest kind of a life would be welcomed by them to-day as a liberation.”
The two automobilists on December 13 saw the fresh grave of two Italian infantrymen, taken prisoners. They both affirmed that the prisoners had died of hunger. The Italian soldiers had not been thought worthy of burial in sacred ground, despite the protestations made by a worthy priest, therefore their graves were out upon a common field.
Finally, here is the story of two Italian prisoners who escaped from the enemy—Lieut. Mario Zannini of the Second Battalion, 245th Infantry, and Private Tortoriello Domenico of the Third Battalion, 21st Infantry.
“There are still many of our men wandering round the country. Some of them have not as yet been arrested and others are escaped prisoners. Their condition is most miserable. They have about one two-pound loaf of bread to divide among six. The under-nourishment weakens the organs and they can no longer work. Several have taken sick, and a few have died from exhaustion.
“Those who belong to the invaded regions try to escape to their own homes, where relatives and friends do all they can to protect them, though, often enough, they fall again into the hands of the tyrants, who then make them pay for their flight with all sorts of torment, ill-treatment, and injury.”
What sort of an existence did the people of the invaded lands lead; those people who so long tranquilly waited in the hope that we would forever drive away from them the eternal menace of the enemy ready to pounce upon them?
The diary of the Czech officer says, “The civilians are living in a most critical condition. The passing troops have taken everything from them, edibles, horses, mules, wagons, kitchen utensils. Whatever remained, especially objects of copper, were seized by the gendarmes.”