The next day, May 28, 1915, the commanding general with his chief of staff and two guards motored to the spot, cut a passage-way through the barricade, and, encountering no opposition, kept on until they reached Ala, seven miles beyond.
The Italian troops were ordered to advance next day, May 29, 1915, and as they marched into the town, officers shouted: "Open your windows. Long live Italy!" The Mayor of Ala called out his townsmen and set them at work removing the barricades on the main road.
In the midst of these rejoicings the sharp rattle of musketry was heard, and the Italians rushed to cover. A reconnoitering party reported that the Austrians were intrenched in a large villa beyond a stream outside the town. The Italian troops began an attack upon this position, and a skirmish party sought to take a position in a house on a near-by hill commanding the villa held by the enemy. Although the way to this house was exposed to the Austrian fire, the Italian officer decided to risk an attempt to reach it. But as he raised his sword to signal an advance, a young girl ran to his side and told him of a path sheltered from the Austrian fire. This girl, Signorina Abriani, whose name will go down in Italian history as one of the first heroines of the war, guided the detachment safely. The Austrians holding the villa were strongly intrenched, and they held out against superior forces until late in the afternoon, when four shells crashed into the building, bringing it down about their ears. The Italians had brought up a battery on the opposite side of the Adige River and opened fire at long range. The Austrians made good their retreat, leaving all their ammunition and three dead. Later fifty-seven Austrians were taken prisoners.
That night the Italian general took the precautions, usual on entering a newly occupied town, of ordering that all the windows in town be kept open and illuminated, and kept patrols about the town. The mayor was reconfirmed, and his first act was to announce to the citizens that "the royal military authorities, knowing the needs of the inhabitants, have with affectionate solicitude and great generosity placed 5,000 rations of bread and 2,000 of rice at the disposal of the poor." Thus Ala became Italian.
The incidents of these first advances into Austrian territory were reported in detail in Italy, and are set down here as typical of events that accompanied the irruption of Italian troops over the border into the country which once had been Italian and where, despite more than a century of Austrian occupation, a large proportion of the inhabitants in spirit was Italian still. Such reports spread through Italy naturally increased enthusiasm for the restoration of the "unredeemed" provinces.
Although, as a rule, the Austrians retired before the first Italian advance into Trentino, they did not depart until they had left every possible obstacle. Roads were barricaded, bridges destroyed, and mines were laid, cleverly concealed on hillsides where it was intended their explosion would overwhelm the Italians under masses of rock and earth. But this was just what the Alpini and Bersaglieri had been trained to anticipate. According to the official Italian accounts, their scouting was so excellent that the wires connecting these mines with Austrian hiding places were discovered and cut, and hardly a mine was exploded. All this took place while the Austrians were drawing in their outposts and consolidating their forces in the great strongholds where later they held the Italians in absolute check. The Italians advanced cautiously in small groups, and the Austrians abandoned the frontier villages soon enough to avoid serious encounters, but not a minute sooner.
In the Alps in these days of May, 1915, the Great War was fought much as wars have been fought in times we are accustomed to regard as the age of true romance. The Italian King visited the Alpine troops and surprised his men and redoubled their devotion by showing his skill as a mountain climber. "You forget," he told an officer who remonstrated with him as he was about to scale a particularly difficult position to examine a gun "chamois hunting is my favorite sport."
If certain portions of the Italian population seemed lukewarm toward the war during the period of diplomatic negotiations, there was no doubt of the temper of the nation after hostilities actually began. The chord of national feeling was struck by King Victor Emmanuel in an order issued upon taking supreme command of the army and navy.
"Soldiers on land and sea," said the order, "the solemn hour of the nation's claims has struck. Following the example of my grandfather, I take to-day supreme command of Italy's forces on land and sea, with the assurance of victory which your bravery, self-abnegation, and discipline will obtain.
"The enemy you are preparing to fight is hardened to war and worthy of you. Favored by the nature of the ground and skillful works, he will resist tenaciously, but your unsubdued ardor will surely vanquish him.