On one of the worst portions we passed a gang of peasant women carrying barbed wire up to the trenches ([see page 118])
To face page 136
From Cormons we proceeded to Caporetto via Tolmino, and thence through the valley of the Isonzo, a desolate mountainous region, which had been the scene of desperate fighting in the early weeks of the war. Now it was relatively calm, and only once and again was the silence of nature disturbed by the reverberation of a big gun in the distance.
The long-prepared defensive positions of the Austrians, of which one has heard so much, availed them naught against the strategy of Cadorna and the daring of his troops. One by one they were captured, and by attacking them from the very side where attack was least expected.
The principal explanation of the victorious advance of the Italians was undoubtedly that it was made from a direction where it was not looked for and which, therefore, quite upset the plans of the Austrian General.
Only the most reliable and enthusiastic of soldiers could have been asked for so determined an effort and such sacrifices as the advance in this region was bound to entail under any conditions, but without wavering it was undertaken and eagerly at that.
It was perhaps to a certain extent but a repetition of the tactics in the mountain warfare all along the Front, but it was so glorious that no excuse is necessary for again dilating upon it.
Through a pathless wilderness of shrub or bare precipitous rocks the men made their way forward unhesitatingly, cutting a roadway as they advanced, dragging the heavy artillery with them and consolidating each yard behind them with barbed-wire entanglement and trench work in case the apparent weakness of the Austrian was but a ruse.
But there was no ruse, and nothing arrested the delirious rush of the Italians at the commencement of hostilities along the left bank of the Isonzo.
It was like an avalanche in its irresistibility, and the Austrians were completely non-plussed by such unusual military evolutions, with the result that three of their most important positions on the Front—Monte Nero, Tolmino and Plava—were already in the hands of the Italians before it was realised how important was the movement in this direction.