Six months on the Italian front

by Julius M. Price

Every mountain which commanded the position was being mounted with guns of the heaviest calibre, and big events were said to be looming in the near future.

As a matter of fact, it was only six months later that the Italians succeeded in capturing the Col di Lana, so strongly were the Austrians entrenched on it. A young engineer conceived the idea of mining it, and so successful was he that the entire summit of the mountain, with the Austrian positions, was literally blown away.

One of the most interesting of the excursions the English group of correspondents made was to the top of a mountain facing it. As it would have been a very trying climb for amateur mountaineers like ourselves, mules were considerately supplied by the General of the division. So we accomplished the ascent in easy fashion, for it was certain that very few of us would have tackled it on foot.

The sturdy Alpini who accompanied us treated the excursion as a good sort of joke apparently, and plodded steadily alongside us in the test of spirits, laughing now and again at our vain efforts to keep our steeds from walking on the extreme edge of the precipices.

This ride gave us a splendid opportunity of seeing how the Italians have surmounted the difficulty of getting heavy artillery to the very summits of mountains, where no human foot had trodden before the war broke out. Rough and terribly steep in places though the road was, still it was a real roadway and not a mere track as one might have expected to find considering how rapidly it had been made. Men were still at work consolidating it at the turns on scientific principles, and in a few weeks, with the continual traffic passing up and down it, it would present all the appearance of an old established road.

It is the method of getting the guns and supplies up these great heights in the first instance that “starts” the road as it were. Nothing could be simpler or more efficacious.

It consists in actually cutting the track for the guns just in advance of them as they are gradually pushed and hauled forward. The position and angle of the track being settled before starting by the engineers.

This, of course, takes time at first, especially when the acclivity is very steep, but it has the advantage of breaking the way for whatever follows. The rough track is then gradually improved upon by the succeeding gun teams, and so a well constructed zig-zag military roadway gradually comes into being.

We left the mules a short distance from the summit and had to climb the rest of the way. Instead of an artillery position as we expected to find, it was an observation post, with a telephone cabin built in a gap in the rocks, and a hut for half a dozen soldiers on duty.

The little station was quite hidden from the Austrians, although only a couple of thousand yards distant. It was a most important spot, as from here the fire of all the batteries round about was controlled.