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LA N D AND W A T E R 
THE ITALIAN FRONT. 
By HILAIRE BELLOC. 
NOTE. — This Article has been submittsJ to the Press Bureau, which doss not object to th; publicatijn as csnsDreJ, and takes no 
responsibility for the correctness of the statements. 
In aooarjjno; with t!ij req jir^ments of the Press Bureau, the portions of troops on Plans illustrating th's Article must only bs 
r^iarJiJ as aiprovimite, and no dcfin'te strength at any po'nt Is indicated. 
THE- Italian front, after many months 
during which it has presented no more 
than the normal process of siege work, 
has given us in the last few days a new 
point of interest. 
To appreciate what that point is we must 
repeat those salient characteristics of the fortress of 
Gorizia which were analysed in these columns 
during the summer. 
The reason that Gorizia holds the importance 
it does in the scheme of Austrian defence may i^e 
briefly stated thus : The Austro-Italian frontier 
is one of mountains ; not a mountain ridge, but a 
vast mountain district spreading back northwards 
and eastward from the Italian plains following its 
march ; line of high peaks and high, very rare, 
passes. 
In this formidable region it was the very first 
business of the Italians to secure the " doors," so 
to speak, whereby they were threatened an in- 
vasion. The exact line of the political frontier had 
been drawn by those who were always their ene- 
mies at heart and had become in the last few months 
their declared enemies, in such a fashion that all 
the valleys debouching upon the Italian plain were 
in the hands of the Hapsburgs. It is a point which 
Mr. Freshfield has admirably brought out in his 
paper to the Royal Geographical Society, that the 
Italian peninsula always suffered, from the grasp 
the nothcrn Powers had upon the passes of the Alps. 
Even during those many centuries which saw Italy 
politically divided and no more than the " geo- 
graphical expression " of the famous and hack- 
neyed tag, men appreciated the weakness which the 
Italian states south of the Alps suffered from such 
a state of affairs. With the unification of Italy 
that weakness became even more glaring. 
The first act, then, of Italy at war with the 
Hapsburgs, her liereditary enemy, was to push 
forward into the valleys and to shut the doors of 
invasion. 
This the Italian army, with enormous effort 
and after overcoming difficulties the like of which 
are unknown upon any other front, has successfully 
accomplished. But beyond those valleys there was 
no opportunity for advance until another more 
feasible task — though that in its turn a task of 
great difficulty^was accomplished. 
Nothing could be hoped for in the Alpine 
region until the historic frontier of the Isonzo was 
forced. On that extreme eastern limit of Italy the 
country south of the Alps is more open and it is 
possible to manceuvre with great forces. Just 
beyond it lie Trieste and Pola, Austria's openings 
to the sea. 
But the Isonzo frontier, from the point where 
it leaves the mountains to the Adriatic, covers 
little more than one long day's march. 
It was therefore possible for the enemy 
easily to mass upon so short a front great bodies 
. of men which forbade the forcing of it. It must 
always be remembered that a line reposing securely 
upon its two flanks is strong, not in comparison 
to the force which can attack it, but rather in pro- 
portion to the number of men whom one can put 
to its defence. A larger force cannot deploy more 
than a certain amount of men to attack a short 
line and a far smaller force is sufficient to hold that 
line against greatly superior numbers. 
The enemy, then, was certain to be able to 
hold this open gap between the mountains and the 
sea with, sa}', three or four army corps. They 
would suffer losses from the perpetual bombard- 
ment to which they would be subjected. Those 
losses would be made good by drafts from their 
reserves, and so long as those drafts could be 
steadily produced, the line could certainly be held. 
The function of Italy therefore on this front 
was to bleed Austria, to compel the perpetual 
drafting of men down to this essential and vulner- 
able spot. And that function Italy has steadily 
and successfully pursued during all the past 
months. The Italian effort has accounted first 
and last for fully ten army corps — perhaps for 
twelve. 
But Austro-Hungary does not merely hold 
this line as a continuous entrenchment. She also 
depends for her safety there upon a certain 
strategic situation imposed upon her by the nature 
of the country, by the extreme importance of her 
retaining Trieste and Pola, and by the means of 
communication which have been constructed con- 
sonant to the geographical conditions and the 
political and military centres to be served. 
New in the complex of those geographical 
and political conditions the town of Goerz or 
Gorizia is of capital importance. 
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To Tola 
Diagram I sufficiently indicates why this 
should be so. Gorizia is the point upon which 
those railways converge, which come down from 
the Alps on to the Adriatic littoral along the 
Isonzo front. From (iorizia start two lines of 
railway to Trieste, and from Trieste to Pola. Tnie, 
[Copyyii^'ii in America by " Th: Sew York Amcriani,." 
