The Austrian hold of the last-named vicinity, also in the Zenson bend and at Saint Andrea, southeast of Montello, is being considerably weakened by the Italian artillery fire and constant counterattacks.
Saint Andrea itself, with the adjacent villages of Giavera, Bavaria, and Sovilla, has changed hands ten times over. The railroad running thence toward Montebelluna is hidden under a litter of dead bodies for a length of several kilometers. The haul of prisoners has risen from 6,000 to 9,000, General Diaz announced last night—an almost unique fact in an offensive of this nature and undoubtedly the fruit of Italy's immediate readiness for an energetic reaction.
Stupendous acts of heroism are recorded. Gunners of an Alpine regiment stationed at the foot of Montello Hill, after being twice driven from their batteries, united themselves to some storm troops, fought the foe in a hand-to-hand encounter with daggers, and, recovering the cannon, readjusted the breechlocks, which they had taken away with them, and then fired pointblank into the adversary's ranks.
At Fagare two Hungarian battalions were annihilated amid the ruins of houses where they had taken refuge. At Candelu an enemy machine-gun corps, which had transformed the village into a fort, were killed by Italian mountain artillery, and in the neighboring sector of Salettuol the 3d Austrian Division lost 60 per cent. of its effectiveness.
Many of the prisoners at the moment of capture present the appearance of Bedouins, being clad merely in tattered shirts, with their rifles slung over their shoulders and a dagger in their hand. Nearly all carried postcard maps marking out their journey, with a program inscribed: "June 15, halt at Treviso. June 16, occupation of Venice." They also carried little packets of money coupons printed in Italian for spending in those cities.
A German View of Germany's Effort
The Recent Offensive
[By the Cologne Gazette Editor at German Headquarters]
The task confronting us before the offensive seemed monstrous. What the combined and many times superior armies of the Napoleonic School and Kitchener's Army, young indeed but drawing its supplies from the resources of a world empire, had failed to accomplish against a force of almost Frederickian inferiority in numbers, this task was to be performed by the German Army, which, even after the absorption of the eastern units, was scarcely equal in strength, much less superior to the enemy. The big hammer had failed to beat down the little hammer; it was now the turn of the little hammer to pit itself against the big hammer. The German hinterland, diminutive in comparison with the continents working for the coalition, was not only to hold its own, but also to help to conquer in battle against the raw materials and industries of half Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. The German victory at Cambrai, which in a sense represented a transition from the old to a new era in the history of the war in the west, had already illuminated the difficulties that a brave and numerically superior enemy could oppose to our attack.