The Russian blow had fallen in the first days of June, 1916; the Anglo-French attack had opened in the early days of July, 1916; now, in the first week of August, 1916, Italy suddenly launched against the Gorizia bridgehead, the gateway into Austria between the sea and the Julian Alps, which recalls in a grandiose fashion the Spartan position at Thermopylæ, the most considerable and the most successful military effort in modern Italian history.
Austro-italian Campaigns, May to September, 1916.
On a front of thirty miles from the Alps to the Adriatic, their flanks secured by the mountains and the sea, the Austrians had erected a formidable system of trenches which closed the Italian road to Austria and to Trieste, twenty miles to the south. (Vol. V, 288-290.) Monte Sabotino on the north, Podgora Hill in the center, Monte San Michele on the south at the edge of the Carso Plateau were the main features of this position, and Gorizia lay in the cuplike valley of the Wippach behind Podgora.
After some days of bombardment, first directed at the whole front and then concentrated upon Sabotino and San Michele, the Italians swept forward, took both hills, turned the Austrians out of Podgora and Gorizia, took 15,000 prisoners and a vast booty of guns and munitions. They had completed the first phase of their task by August 7, 1916. It remained to be seen—and it remains to be seen now on August 15, 1916, when these lines are written—whether they will get Trieste and force the Austrians back from the whole position between the Adriatic and the Alps. If they do, then an invasion of Austria on a wide front will be inevitable; if they fail, they will have won a great local victory and made a new draft upon Austrian man power.
Finally, in the Balkans a great Anglo-French-Serb army is standing before Saloniki (Vol. V, 212-215), only waiting until Germany shall have recalled her troops from the Peninsula and Austria summoned back her contingents to strike the Bulgarians and strive to reopen the road from the Ægean to Belgrade, thus cutting the railroad that binds Berlin to Byzantium and the Osmanli to the Teuton. Similarly the victorious Russians have passed Erzingan in Asia Minor (Vol. V, 337), completed the conquest of Armenia, and are pushing on toward Sivas and the Bagdad railroad. (Vol. V, 335-339.)
AS THE THIRD YEAR BEGINS
For the first time since the war broke out Germany and her allies are everywhere on the defensive, and everywhere they have been and are ceding ground. Their enemies, imperfectly prepared two years ago, are now the rivals of Germany in preparation; England has millions of men where she had hundreds of thousands in August, 1914; France and Britain both have heavy artillery, and Russia is demonstrating her wealth of munitions and her resources in men. Such is the great transition that has come as the third year of the Great War begins.
Conceivably, Germany may still be able to forge a new thunderbolt, to pass to the offensive again, and win the war; conceivably she can hold her present lines until the fury of the Allies abates and losses and economic strain impose a drawn battle and a peace without victory for any contestant. But all these considerations are for the future. What it is now important to recognize is that the three great efforts of Germany to win the war in the Napoleonic fashion have failed. She has had neither an Austerlitz, a Jena, nor a Friedland. She has instead the Marne, Verdun, and the Russian failure. She has failed to eliminate any one of her great foes as Napoleon eliminated, first Austria, then Prussia, and then Russia. She has failed to win the war while she had superior numbers, incomparably greater resources in equipment, and unrivaled supremacy in artillery. She is outnumbered, outgunned, and her foes control the sea and possess vastly greater resources in money than she can boast.