A stirring manifesto was issued to the Italian army recalling the close relations existing between the United States and Italy before the war and the important part Italians in recent years had been playing in the development of the New World.
Military operations on the Italian front on August 1, 1918, were of minor importance and, in this respect, were quite typical of what was to take place during August, September, and the first three weeks of October, 1918. There was moderate artillery activity along the whole front. At Alano Italian patrols forced advanced Austrian posts to withdraw, inflicting losses and taking some prisoners. A captive balloon and six hostile aeroplanes were brought down.
The Austrian activity moderated somewhat on August 2, 1918. Italian and Allied artillery effectively bombarded Austrian lines of communication at Asiago. Along the whole front Italian patrols were extremely active.
South of Nago, on August 3, 1918, an Italian assault detachment captured by a surprise attack Hill 173 on Dosso Alto, which the Austrians had taken on June 15, 1918. In spite of determined resistance four officers and 172 men were taken prisoners after many had been killed or wounded. During the preceding night French detachments in a series of brilliant surprise attacks had penetrated deeply into the Austrian lines at Zocchi, east of Asiago, capturing some 125 men and considerable material. West of Asiago British troops broke into Gaiga, making some prisoners. In the Tasson region and in the Alano Basin Italian reconnoitering patrols gathered in considerable booty and took some prisoners.
Between Asiago and the Brenta Italian patrols on August 6, 1918, effectively harassed the enemy's advanced lines, inflicting losses and capturing prisoners.
The largest operation that the British, fighting in Italy, had yet carried out was put through between midnight and 4 a. m., August 8, 1918. It was not an attack so much as a simultaneous series of about a dozen raids along the whole of our front. To blow up dugouts, destroy machine-gun emplacements, and take prisoners were the objectives and in realizing them the British troops reached the southern fringe of Asiago town, the first Allied troops to touch its outskirts since 1916.
Like a stroke of noisy magic the British barrage burst out in the silence of the mountain night exactly at 12 o'clock. The Asiago Plateau, a natural stage for warfare, five miles or so across, with barriers of black pine-grown hills to north and south, was for the next three hours ablaze with red, bursting shells, dazzling Verey flares of different colors, solo searchlights, and the dull glow of fires. One could imagine the commotion in the Austrian lines at that sudden interruption of the peace of the summer night. Hungarians, Croats, Bosniaks, tumbling pell-mell from their dugouts; staff officers behind the front, two hours abed, rushing half-dressed to the telephones. For three hours, while the British were about their work, the din went on, until at 3 o'clock they came back, bringing at a small cost 360 prisoners with them, and leaving many enemy dead in their ruined works.
On the same day in the Giudicaris region Italian parties forced the Chiese River. In the Daone Valley other Italian troops surprised a party of the enemy on the southern slope of Dosso del Morti and took twenty-one prisoners. This was a period of raids on a large scale. For several nights Italian or Allied guns spread their fire over the plain of northern Italy. Following on the successful British invasion of the enemy's front line, the French during the night of August 9, 1918, took five officers and 238 men in a surprise attack. On the Sisemol sector, and between there and the Brenta, the Italians brought in sixty prisoners from the enemy front lines.
Again on August 10, 1918, French troops penetrated deeply into the enemy's strong points in Monte Sisemol, destroying part of the garrison and forcing the remainder to surrender. Two hundred and fifty prisoners and eight machine guns were taken.
From their positions on Monte di Valbella, Col del Rosso, and Col di Chele Italian troops succeeded at various points in passing the enemy lines and inflicting heavy losses. They took fifty-nine prisoners, suffering only slight losses themselves.