LAND AND WATER 
November 27, 1915. 
those railways can be destroyed before the enemy 
abandons them, -ind one of them, that through 
-Monfalcone along the Isonzo valley, is already 
lield by the Italians, but the geographical con- 
ditions of the region, even if there were no railways 
but only roads, are sufficient to give Gorizia the 
character it has of a " key " to the whole of this 
region. 
Gorizia stands at the foot of the mountains 
in the midst of the plain by which an army can 
advance upon a fairly broad front over the Carso 
plateau towards Trieste. So long as Gorizia and 
its plain are in the hands of an enemy no army 
could venture along the narrow sea road between 
the Carso and the Adriatic. 
But once Gorizia falls Trieste can be turned 
from the North. The w^ay in which the railway 
lines run shows the importance of Gorizia, as wi- 
have seen. But quite apart from these it is clear 
that, the enemy having elected to make a stand 
here at the foot of the mountains in the open 
plain and north of the Carso, if he loses that position, 
the Italians can occupy the plain, take the Carso 
plateau from the north and so render Trieste 
untenable. Upon Gorizia, therefore, has centred 
for these many months past the chief interest of 
the Isonzo front. 
Granted then that Gorizia is the key to all 
this district, we must next note from the point of 
view of an Italian advance beyond the Isonzo 
front two heights of capital importance. These 
heights are, in the immediate neighbourhood of 
Gorizia, the Podgora ridge and, five or six miles 
to the south, on the edge of the Carso plateau, the 
ridge of St. Michael, which stands in a sort of 
semicircle north of the village of St. Martin. 
^It««'"%. 
' S.Martin 
Village 
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^ 
y 
c*^ 
10 
mis :W/^^/^^ 
'-MowttahtSf 
river in feet 
SOOOyds 
The accompanying Sketch II will show what 
the importance of these two heights is and how the 
Italians are attempting to acquire them. 
The Podgora ridgo stands 600 feet abo\e the 
Isonzo itself, and immediately dominates the town. 
The St. Michael ridge dominates, not the town 
itself indeed, but all that perfectly level country 
between the Carso plateau and Gorizia. 
A position in the sense of a dominating height 
has not to-day (what with observation from the 
air and the accuracy of long range indirect high 
trajectory fire^ the same meaning that it had a few 
\ears ago. When you capture a dominating height 
ycu don't drag your guns up to the crest and 
jjulverise what is' beneath it. But a position has 
none the less a capital value, even under modem 
conditions : witness the immense advantage the 
Turks have in the Dardanelles by their grasp of 
the heights above the Allied lines. From such 
crests one can observe the effect of one's fire and 
one can prevent the enemy from concealing his 
movements and emplacements. 
It was repeatedly urged in these columns, 
during the summer when the siege of the Gorizia 
district began, that the Podgora ridge would prove 
the solution to the problem. If the Italians can 
hold that ridge they can break the Isonzo line at 
the fortified point Gorizia. 
In the same order of ideas, though somewhat 
modified, lies the importance of the St. Michael 
ridge to the south. The Italians once fully in pos- 
session of the St. Michael ridge can do what they 
will with the plain beneath that ridge and Gorizia. 
It is therefore upon these two heights, the 
Podgora ridge and the St. Michael ridge, the latter 
a sort of excrescence upon the Carso plateau, that 
the Italian efforts have been converging for all 
these months. 
Now the news of the last few days is to this 
effect : — 
An assault upon the Podgora ridge has carried 
several trenches after an intensive bombardment, 
has failed to reach the crest, but has come to within 
a few yards of it. That is the first point. 
The second point is that detached Italian 
columns advancing by the road from the San 
Floriano to Gorizia have come down to Oslavia 
valley, and have proceeded so far as the village 
of Oslavia itself, which has been carried. The 
value of this second point is that a further progress 
down the valley turns the Podgora position. 
Thirdly, five miles away to the south the St. 
Michael ridge, though again not carried any more 
than the Podgora ridge, has been attacked with 
renewed success. Here, indeed, certain points 
of the crest are actually held, but the grasp of our 
Allies upon the position as a whole is not yet 
achieved. The highest point, about 700 feet above 
the river on the western end of the ridge holds out. 
So do two other summits, in the centre and on the 
western edge, and it remains to be seen if the 
Italian effort will be sufficient to carry the whole. 
If so, when the Podgora ridge and the ridge of St. 
Michael are in Italian hands Gorizia is at once in 
peril. There is no practical opportunity (though 
there has been much talk) of attacking from the 
north. The defile of the Isonzo begins a mile 
or two above the St. Floriano road. Further south 
upon the Carso plateau work done and advances 
achieved did not bring the Italians near enough 
to the Gorizia plain to give them observation posts 
from which to control it. But if Podgora goes and 
St. Michael goes, then the Gorizia plain is at the 
mercy of the observers, under the direct action 
of their guns, and presumably the citadel will have 
entered the last phase of its^defence. 
If it be asked wli\- the last few days have been 
so critical m this section, and why there has even 
been a certain amount of preparation in the 
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