CHAPTER IX
From Brescia to Verona—Absence of military movement in rural districts—Verona—No time for sightseeing—The axis of the Trentino—Roveretto, the focus of operations—Fort Pozzachio—A “dummy fortress”—Wasted labour—Interesting incident—Excursion to Ala—Lunch to the correspondents—Ingenious ferry-boat on River Adige—The Valley of the Adige—Wonderful panorama—“No sketching allowed”—Curious finish of incident—Austrian positions—Desperate fighting—From Verona to Vicenza—The positions of Fiera di Primiero—Capture of Monte Marmolada—The Dolomites—Their weird fascination—A striking incident—The attempted suicide—The Col di Lana—Up the mountains on mules—Sturdy Alpini—Method of getting guns and supplies to these great heights—The observation post and telephone cabin on summit—The Colonel of Artillery—What it would have cost to capture the Col di Lana then—The Colonel has an idea—The idea put into execution—The development of the idea—Effect on the Col di Lana—An object lesson—The Colonel gets into hot water—The return down the mountains—Caprili—Under fire—We make for shelter—The village muck-heap—Unpleasant position—A fine example of coolness—The wounded mule—An impromptu dressing.
CHAPTER IX
It has been said that “who holds the Trentino holds not merely the line of the Alps and the Passes, but the mouths of the Passes and the villages which debouch into the Lombard Plain.”
The significance of this statement was being continually brought home to me here on this northern frontier of Italy, and you could not shut your eyes to the fact that the very safety of the whole country depended on the army making good its “tiger spring” in the first hours of the war.
It was not so much the necessity for an aggressive movement, but for what one might term a successful defensive—offensive, and it cannot be gainsaid—and even the Austrians themselves would admit it, that in this respect the Italians scored everywhere along the line.
General Cadorna’s remarkable power of intuition was evidenced by every movement of the army from the outset, but nowhere more noticeably than in the Trentino sector at this early stage of the war, when the slightest miscalculation on his part would most assuredly have spelt irretrievable disaster for Italy.
We were to have abundant proof of what his organizing genius, combined with the patriotic ardour of the troops, had been able to accomplish in the short space of three months.
After eight days spent in and around Brescia we motored to Verona, the next stage as arranged on our programme. Our road was across country, and therefore some considerable distance from the Front, so beyond being a delightful trip through glorious scenery, there was nothing very special about it; touring motorists having done it hundreds of times.
There was a noteworthy absence of any signs of military movements in the rural districts, and the peasants were apparently going about their usual peaceful avocations as unconcernedly as though the war were in another country instead of being a comparatively short distance away. In this respect, however, one felt that the motor journeys we were scheduled to make from centre to centre would prove exceedingly interesting, as they would afford us an insight of the conditions prevailing in the rear of the Front, not an unimportant factor in forming one’s impressions.