Tunc 8, 1916 
L A N D &' \y A T E R 
It 
VICENZA 
Miles 
20 
objective the enemy has in the interval made no progress 
whatsoever. 
It is exceedingly diflicult country. 
.\siago lies in tlie centre of a sort of shallow basin, 
which itself is part of the sm^face of a great plateau. 
The plateau is called the " seven villages," because there 
was here a settlement of seven isolated German-speaking 
villages which only in modern times learned to speak 
Italian. It was long ago a sort of barbaric (ierman island 
cut off from the ci\ilisation around it by the diflicultv not 
only of communication, but even of water supply. 
This plateau is cut by the deep ravine of the Astico, 
but save for the exception of that valley is bovmded every- 
where along the south by an escarpment (B B on the map), 
whence the land falls very sharply down into tiie plain. 
It seems to have been thought impossible hitherto by 
the Austrian Higher Command to force a waj-jdown the ex- 
ceedingly rugged, and in their latter part exceedingly steep 
paths w-hich lead from Asiago to Valstagna lay the wild 
Valtrenzela, with the Italians holding in strength the 
natural position formed by this escaipment of the plateau 
B B. They may attempt this easterly move, but time is 
getting on and they have not yet attempted it ; and to 
attempt it with the Italians on the position BB (on 
May II.) right in front of them untouched would be 
extremely perilous. 
Their chief effort has been against the other limb of the 
problem set them. They cannot here, indeed, directly 
approach the valley of the Lower Adige, as they might 
hope to approach on the other side the valley of the 
Lower Brenta. In this central moimtain push of theirs 
they have come to within eight miles of Valstagna u])on 
the valley of the Lower Brenta ; but the valley of the 
Adige, as the map shows, turns further and furtlier away 
from them as it goes south. They are a full thirty miles 
away from its lower portion in the neighbourhood of 
Verona. 
What they can hope to do and what they are attempting 
to do is twofold : 
1. They are attempting to get hold of the central part 
of the Adige valley by turning the positions the Italians 
have so stubbornly and successfully held upon the Zugna 
ridfie. 
2. They are attempting to get hold of the subsidiary 
line of communications, the road from Rovercto to Schio, 
whence a single line railway leads to Vicenza. 
The first of these eftorts has been conducted as follows : 
The road from Rovereto to Schio runs up the 
Vallarsa to the Fugazze pass. This pass is rather 
more than 3,000 feet above the sea, about 3,000 fee' 
ab,ove the plain, and about 2,000 feet, I believe, above 
Schio. They have pushed along this line as far a? 
the point of Chiesa, whence their front tiuns outward 
a;4ain slightly round Mount Pasubio, which they have 
