Different stages of the Italian retreat.
Italian rear guards vainly endeavored to stem the advance of the armies of the Central Powers. Austro-Hungarian troops were then standing before Udine, hitherto the grand Italian headquarters. Other Austro-Hungarian divisions captured Cormons, and were approaching the frontier in the coastal region.
All roads were covered with retreating columns and cars belonging to the Italian army and to the Italian population, who, overcome by the sudden disaster to their armies, were fleeing in a pathetic disorder, matched only by the flight of the Belgian civilians in the early part of the war.
The number of prisoners and the quantity of booty was reported as continually increasing. Violent tempests and heavy rains prevailed on the vast fighting area of the twelfth Isonzo battle, but seemed to have no influence on the furious onslaughts of the invading hordes.
On October 29, 1917, the fall of Udine was announced. It is sixty miles northeast of Venice, ten miles east of the frontier, sixteen miles west of the new Tagliamento line, and only 300 feet above sea level. It is situated on the Roia Canal, a branch of the Torre River. It is a quaint and prosperous town, chiefly interested in the manufacture of hemp, flax, and cotton goods, is the capital of the province, the seat of an archbishop, and has a population of 25,000. In the present war Udine had been the general headquarters of the second and third Italian armies. Five railways radiate from Udine west to link up with the Venetian-Quadrilateral system, by which the second and third armies have been supplied; north, across the frontier, to link up with the Vienna-Trentino line; northeast only as far as Cividale, whence the town was invested; southeast, via Goritz to Trieste; and due south, over the lower plains to a small steam tramway which skirts the marshes.
The officer responding to salutes is the Italian commander in chief, General Diaz, who succeeded General Cadorna in November, 1917. Next beside him is the French General Fayolle.
By then, too, the Italian Carnia front seemed to have collapsed on the most important sectors. During a snowstorm Austrian troops wrested from the Italians frontier positions which they had built up during two and a half years southwest of Tarvis, near Pontafel, in the Ploecken region, and on St. Pal. Advancing out of the Carnic Alps the invaders set foot on Venetian soil along the entire front, and were pressing forward against the upper course of the Tagliamento, even though the Italians destroyed, wherever possible, bridges and other means of communication in order to delay the hostile advance.
In spite of valiant efforts on the part of the Italians to stem the tide of invaders, the latter gained new successes on the last day of October, 1917. Portions of the Italian army made a stand at the Tagliamento. Austro-Hungarian forces, however, stormed the last Tagliamento bridgehead, near Latisana, on the lower reaches of the river, south of Codroipo. The bridgehead positions at the latter place and at Dignano were taken by storm by German troops. The Germans claimed that as a result of these operations more than 60,000 Italians, cut off and outflanked on both sides, laid down their arms, and that the number of prisoners taken by them had increased to more than 180,000 and that the number of guns captured had increased to more than 1,500. Late that day such Italian forces as were still maintaining themselves on the eastern bank of the Tagliamento near Pinzano and Latisana were either driven back or taken prisoners. In less than a week's fighting the troops of the Central Powers had pushed forward a thirty-mile front an average distance of thirty miles, making the total of the territory wrested from the Italians some 1,000 square miles.