On the Narvesa Montebelluna railroad and around Meolo passed our line of resistance, and therefore the report that the Austrians had succeeded in forcing several points there was disturbing. If they should succeed in widening their possessions there would be no alternative but to withdraw; retreat would be inevitable.
I was still impressed by the barbarous event which I had been compelled to witness without being able to assist the poor victim, and perhaps fatigue helped to make things appear blacker, for I had had no sleep for three days and three nights. I had to rest, and find again the freshness, the optimism which now began to fail me.
On the 18th, nothing interesting happened. The bombardment lessened slightly towards noon and began again with great violence later. I asked myself how, after so heated a fight, both sides did not feel the need of a brief respite; I wondered why the Austrians did not ease up a little so as to gain new strength for a last desperate attack.
The rain fell abundantly during these days and I thought with horror of the conditions on the battlefield, where the wounded must lie for hours immersed in the mud under the torrential fall of water which seemed to have no intention of abating. The evening bulletin reported the situation as stationary and said that the successive Austrian attacks in the conquered regions of the Montello and Meolo had failed in front of the indomitable resistance of our men. Again I breathed freely because the former reports had truly been little comforting. Who knows but that these might be the last efforts of the enemy, and once the crisis had been overcome, as in a terrible sickness, our organism might rapidly recover all its energies and its formidable character. Four days had already passed and I did not believe the Austrians would be capable of a further great drive. The night was even more agitated than usual, but it seemed to me as if in answer to the constant fire of the Austrian artillery there had been no little action by our cannon as though in preparation for a counter-attack. Could it be that the point of equilibrium had been reached and the scales were now turning in our favor?
The hours and minutes seemed never to pass and I lived only to await the evening reports which would certainly be decisive. I thought I heard Rino coming slowly towards me and to lessen further the short time I still had to wait I ran out to meet him. Rino had a look of joy and as soon as he saw me he said smilingly, “Good news, good news. It seems they can’t go any farther, that they have been definitely stopped, and the full Piave is behind their backs. May they all get drowned in its currents!”
“Quick, give me the bulletin.” He handed me the precious sheet and I read it with avidity. The Austrians had been driven back to the other side of the Narvesa Montebelluna railroad and were being pressed by our men who were gaining ground on all sides and were approaching the village of Narvesa. The enemy command, in view of the torrential condition of the Piave had decided to retire. Five divisions which were in the vicinity of Belluno were being transferred towards Susegana to cover the retreat and to defend the left bank of the river in case the Italians decided on a counter-attack. All the Austrian attacks in the region of the lower Piave near Capo D’argine and Candulu had failed.... I could scarcely believe my own eyes, I wanted to die, I wanted to cry my joy to all, and throwing my arms about the neck of Bottecchia who met us, I told him the comforting news. Then they really had not passed; then the battle on which we had concentrated all our efforts, all our sacrifices for several months, was about to end more advantageously than I had ever dared to hope! In these four days of battle the Austrians were bound to have lost the flower of their troops. All their vain glory had been drowned forever in the whirlpools of the Piave and it was now for us to finish them. I thought of the poor dead we left in the distant trenches of the Carso, of all those whose sacrifice seemed useless to me during the terrible day of Caporetto and I felt they had been vindicated, that the hour was not far distant in which the great destinies of Italy would be fulfilled.
I had received information about the prisoners taken by the Austrians during the last offensive; they were left for several days without food and were assigned to the transportation of ammunition on the front line so that many of them had been severely wounded by the fire of our artillery. This treatment was, of course, in open contradiction of every international convention, and our kindness and generosity in the treatment of their prisoners embittered me.
The little old woman who had the task of finding eggs for us had been to the hospital at Vittorio and had spoken with several of our wounded who were still thrilled by the joy of combat and eagerly awaited news of the progress of the battle, of the outcome of which they were no longer in doubt. Among the wounded was a Captain of the Bersaglieri whose name the old woman had brought me in the hope that I might be of some help to him.
Our soldiers, who did not realize the conditions existing in the invaded regions, wondered why the population gave them nothing to eat and asked where the bakeries were from which they could buy bread. They were greatly surprised when they heard there were not only no more bakeries, but ever since our retreat, there had been no sale or trade whatever in eatables.
The Austrians, in an attempt to give a different impression to the population of the outcome of their attack and to feign that the number of prisoners taken was much greater than it was in reality added to the men taken in this offensive some of those taken at the time of Caporetto, and marched through the villages long lines of these poor young men who could barely hold themselves erect because they were so weak and hungry. But the intelligent population would not let itself be fooled, for how could they account for the great difference between the flourishing condition of some and the exhausted condition of others.