When the Austro-German armies swept down through the Venetian plain last October and November, leaving ruin in their wake, they were stopped at the Piave River, whose waters flow into the lagoon a few miles east of Venice. Though the Italian Army and Navy made a ring of steel around the City of the Doges, and have held the enemy at bay from that time to the present, the sounds of battle have been constantly in the ears of the inhabitants, and frequent air raids have left jagged scars on many buildings and even in the pavement of the Piazza San Marco.
Throughout the Winter of 1917-18 Venice remained a city without tourists, its population dwindling from 150,000 to about 40,000, its canals silent and almost empty of life, yet full of a new and wistful beauty. The first days of peril had brought the enemy within twelve or thirteen miles of Venice. From the Fondamento Nuovo, at the northern end of the city, the people could see the flash of guns and the bursting of shells. The roar of guns disturbed their work by day and their sleep by night.
EVACUATING THE CITY
The civilian population was a hindrance rather than a help to the defenders, so the Admiral in command (for Venice is under naval, not military authority) thought it well to arrange for the partial evacuation of the city. In conjunction with the Syndic, Count Erimani, he first asked all foreigners to remove themselves to places of safety. Then offices were opened in each of the thirty parishes, and the people were ordered to report within forty-eight hours. This census was taken, so that railway facilities for traveling might be provided for all, and that places of safety might be found for those who were too poor to go away at their own expense, and pay their way afterward.
In a few days nearly half the population, some 70,000, had gone, the majority to Florence, Rome, and other places in Central and Southern Italy, and the others to Genoa and the Riviera. Some were sent by sea to the Ancona coast. After this first rush the exodus went on more leisurely, some 3,000 leaving each day. Institutions of all kinds, offices, shops, restaurants, and cafés, closed their doors, even the Café Florian, which had been open day and night continuously for over 100 years. Banks and offices transferred their businesses to other towns.
There are no cellars in Venice, nor can the inhabitants have any dugouts in which to conceal valuables, for at a depth of two or three feet below the ground floors of all buildings water is reached. Accordingly the authorities at the Municipal Building, at St. Mark's Library, at the Ducal Palace, at the Archives, as well as at banks and insurance offices, had their documents and valuables conveyed to places of security by boat and rail.
When Italy first went into the war precautions had been taken to protect the public monuments of Venice against aerial bombardment. The Doges' Palace and the Church of St. Mark were protected by barricades of sandbags, as were all the more valuable statues throughout the city. St. Mark's gilded copper horses, beaten out by hand, the only example extant of a Roman Quadriga—
The four steeds divine,
That strike the ground resounding with their feet,
And from their nostrils snort ethereal flame—