"While there have been heavy casualties on both sides from sniping, bombing, mountain and machine guns, and heavy artillery, there has been little sickness among the Italians. The men know that doctors' visits are practically impossible. Therefore they follow the advice of their officers. Yet the men have all the comforts that it is humanly possible to obtain. The cloud fighters are extremely well fed. Huts are provided, fitted with stoves similar to those used in Arctic expeditions.
"Higher yet than the mountain fighting line stand the vedettes, sentinels and outposts whose work resembles that of expert Alpine climbers. They carry portable telephones with which they can communicate with their platoon. The platoon in turn telephones to the local commander."
Of some of the fighting and of life in the Dolomites he says:
"Of the three peaks of the Colbricon only the third, known as the Picolo Colbricon, remains to the enemy. The action which is now being developed on the Colbricon is especially interesting from the fact that the Italian advance there is not due to trained mountain troops, but to the light arm of Bersaglieri, who have there proved themselves equal to their best traditions. In the advance from the first to the second summit of Colbricon the Bersaglieri had to climb a gully at an angle of 70 degrees. At two points the wall rises perpendicularly, and the enemy was able to defend his positions by simply rolling down rocks, which carried in their train avalanches of pebbles.
"In no region of the Italian front is there greater difficulty in the matter of supply, transport, and the care of the wounded. Every stretcher bearer here finds himself continually exposed to the peril of falling over a precipice together with his wounded.
"As the sun rose the great peaks of the Dolomites stood out like pink pearls, set here and there in a soft white vapor. Coming through a Canadian-looking pine forest, with log-house barracks, kitchens, and canteens beneath one such peak, I was reminded of Dante's lines: 'Gazing above, I saw her shoulders, clothed already with the planet's rays.' But poetic memories soon faded before a sniper's bullet from a very near Austrian outlook.
"At one spot the Austrian barbed-wire entanglements were clearly visible through glasses on a neighboring summit at a height of over 10,000 feet. A few yards below in an open cavern protected by an overhanging rock the little gray tents of Italy's soldiers were plainly seen. It may be a consolation to our men on the Somme and in Flanders that the war is being waged here in equally dangerous conditions as theirs.
"The Italians have driven back the Austrians foot by foot up the almost vertical Dolomite rock with mountain, field, and heavy guns, and especially in hand-to-hand and bomb fighting. Sniping never ceases by day, but the actual battles are almost invariably fought by night.
"The only day fighting is when, as in the famous capture of Col di Lana and more recently at Castelletto, the whole or part of a mountain top has to be blown off, because it is impossible to turn or carry it by direct assault. Then tunnels sometimes 800 yards long are drilled by machinery through the solid rock beneath the Austrian strongholds, which presently disappear under the smashing influence of thirty or forty tons of dynamite. Then the Alpini swarm over the débris and capture or kill the enemy survivors and rejoice in a well-earned triumph.
"One needs to have scaled a mountainside to an Italian gun's emplacement or lookout post to gauge fully the nature of this warfare. Imagine a catacomb, hewn through the hard rock, with a central hall and galleries leading to gun positions, 7,000 feet up. Reckon that each gun emplacement represents three months' constant labor with drill, hammer, and mine. Every requirement, as well as food and water, must be carried up by men at night or under fire by day. Every soldier employed at these heights needs another soldier to bring him food and drink, unless as happens in some places the devoted wives of the Alpini act nightly under organized rules as porters for their husbands.