Six months on the Italian front

by Julius M. Price

The fall of Gorizia brought about such changes along the fighting front that there was little fear, for the present at any rate, of any further period of stagnation so far as work for the correspondents was concerned; we looked like being “full up” for some time.

On the Carso, Monte San Michele had been captured after a desperate assault and hand to hand fighting, simultaneously with the Gorizia bridge-head, so the long-standing menace and which had hitherto barred any possibility of an advance in this direction was removed.

The potentialities opened up therefore by the conquest of the portal, as it were, of the Carso, were immense; and it is certain that no one knew this better than the Austrians themselves, for next to the actual bridge-head there was no position to which they attached more importance than that of Monte San Michele.

I regret to have to be at variance with the distinguished English correspondent who wrote of the “towering mountains” and “beetling crags” of the Carso; but I must point out, if only to convey some sense of proportion, that Monte San Michele which is the highest point in this part of the Carso, is only 275 metres in altitude, and cannot therefore by the wildest stretch of imagination be described as anything but a lofty hill; as a matter of fact, there are no greater eminences in the entire Carso area than 450 metres.

Monte San Michele, in spite, however, of not being a “mountain,” dominated the whole of this portion of the valley of the lower Isonzo, so it would be difficult to overestimate what its loss meant to the Austrians.

Its elimination form their line of defence in this direction gave the Italians a secure tenure of the towns of Gradisca and Sagrado, which for fifteen months had only nominally been in their possession owing to their being constantly under the fire of the Austrian batteries on its crest. These two towns now became habitable for troops and available as centres for Red Cross work.

It was rumoured that more “big events” were pending in the near future in this quarter; one was therefore constantly motoring out there in order to gain a clear conception of what was taking place. There was now so much of interest along the new line of Front that I did not remain in Udine any longer than was necessary to work on my sketches and get them passed by the Censor.

A few days after the fall of Gorizia I motored over there with Baccio Bacci, of the Nuovo Giornale, of Florence, and with Bitetti, of the Corriere della Sera (of whom I have already spoken), as chauffeur, to see how things were looking there. Not a week had elapsed since the victory, yet the changes along the road were simply incredible, and reflected enormous credit on the organization of the troupes sanitaires (the sanitation brigade). The iron bridge had been so damaged by the Austrian curtain fire that it was out of commission for the time being, so we had perforce to go by the road Barzini and I had taken.

I therefore had an opportunity of judging for myself what had been accomplished in five days. The village of Lucinico had now been so cleared of débris that there was no longer any occasion to leave the car. We found to our surprise that the road was quite open all the way to Gorizia, across the battlefield round by Podgora and through Grafenberg.

The Austrians were still busy sending big shells over at intervals, and a car just ahead of us had a very narrow escape; it was little short of a miracle it was not blown to pieces, and it makes me feel cold when I think of it.