CHAPTER IV
Everything seemed to go as though by routine in the early operations, and from the moment war was declared and the Italian army made its “Tiger spring” for the Passes on the night of May 23rd-24th it was manifest that General Cadorna had well-matured plans, and, that they were being carried out without a hitch anywhere.
During the six weeks I managed to stay in Udine I had ample opportunity of observing the wonderful system on which everything was worked, and how carefully pre-arranged were the movements of troops and material. Certainly no army—not even excepting the German—ever started a war under better conditions.
Udine in the early weeks of the war was right up at “the Front,” so to speak, and therefore an extremely important centre. It was practically from here that the commencement of hostilities was made.
At four o’clock in the morning of the 24th of May the Italian army crossed the Indrio, a tributary of the Isonzo, overcame a feeble resistance and entered Austrian territory.
During the entire day the onward march continued. After a preparatory attack in Monte Quirino, the important town of Cormons surrendered and a few hours later Caporetto, Cervignano, Terzo, Medea, the ancient city of Aquileia and Grado, the “Austrian Ostend,” in the Adriatic. The first day of operations, therefore, dawned auspiciously for Italy.
Some fears were expressed at the time that the hasty withdrawal of the Austrians was a ruse, and that the Italians might find themselves in a fix later on, but, as was soon proved, this was not the case, and nearly the whole of the province of Friuli, that the Austrians had held since 1866, had been redeemed with no opposition worthy of the name, and the Italian front extended from Tolmino to the sea.
I was in Cormons shortly after the entry of the troops, and it was difficult to realise that the Italians had not always been there. The inhabitants of Italian origin helped to remove as many traces as possible of the Austrian occupancy—the hated names disappeared as if by magic from shop fronts and street corners; in fact, in a very few hours it was an Italian town again, and the good folk of Cormons had cast off their hated thraldom.
In the centre of the town is a statue of the Emperor Maximilian (it looks exactly like Beckmesser in the “Meistersingers” singing his pricelied), and on the day of the entry of the Italian soldiers some wag conceived the happy idea of placing a sack over the head and an Italian flag in one of the hands, an indignity that must have caused the Austrian inhabitants to gnash their teeth with impotent rage, but there were touches of humour discernable everywhere which conveyed to you more perhaps than anything else an idea of the moral of the troops.
Notices roughly scrawled on walls in the villages which one passed—“This way for Trieste,” “Nearest road to Monfalcone,” “Straight on and the second to the right for Gorizia,” and so forth—unpretentious little attempts at wit which have remade their appearance again and again in every war probably from time immemorial. All this, added to the wonderful patriotic ardour and enthusiasm one saw on all sides, was very impressive.