As this was the first time I had heard of any restrictions since we had started on the tour, my surprise may be imagined, and the more especially as nothing apparently could have been more innocent than the subject I had chosen.
“Well, I’m sorry, but what you tell me comes too late as I have already made a sketch,” said I, showing it to him. “What shall I do?”
The officer, a very good fellow, laughed and shrugged his shoulders: “Put your book back in your pocket and don’t let anyone see it; there are several staff officers about.”
The finish of the incident was equally curious. I worked up a double page drawing from the sketch in question, and, of course, submitted it to the censors. It aroused a good deal of comment, but it was eventually “passed” on condition that I altered the title and took out all the names of the towns, mountains, etc.; only the vaguest suggestion as to where I had made it being permitted.
In spite of the fact that the Austrians had the geographical advantage of position almost everywhere, and that their frontier was comparatively so close to many important Italian cities, the intrepid advance of the Italian troops upset all the calculations of the Austrian generals, and, instead of advancing into Italian territory, they found themselves forced to act on the defensive some distance to the rear of their first line positions, and well inside their own frontier. But it was no easy task for the Italians, and tested their valour and endurance to the utmost.
The fighting in the ravines and on the sides of the mountains was of the most desperate character, for in this warfare at close quarters it is man to man, and individual courage tells more than it does down on the plains.
Here, in the fastnesses of nature, every clump of trees or isolated rocks are potential ambuscades. So it requires the utmost caution, combined with almost reckless daring, to advance at any time.
The Austrians, though well provided with heavy artillery, were quite unable to hold on to their positions. It was brute force pitted against skill and enthusiastic courage, and brute force was worsted as it generally is under such conditions.
Our two next “stages,” Vicenza and Belluno, brought us into the very heart of the fighting on the line of the Italian advance in the Eastern Trentino towards Bolzano and the region round Monte Cristallo.
We halted a couple of days at Vicenza to enable us to visit the positions of Fiera di Primero. The Italian lines here were some distance inside Austrian territory, so we had a good opportunity of judging for ourselves the difficulties that had to be overcome to have advanced so far, as well as the preparations that had been made by the Austrians for their proposed invasion of Italy.