LAND & W A T K R 
June 29, 1916 
Austrian Retreat in the Trentino 
By Hilaire Belloc 
THE necessity of travel compels me to conclude 
the present article by Monday night. The last news 
from the Trentino front, at the last moment I 
have available [for revising these words, is to 
the effect that the Austrians have retired from the base . 
of the Asiago and are falling back towards the original 
position which they occupied before they were ordered 
by Berhn (which has since attempted through Interna- 
tional News Agencies a belated apology for the blunder) 
to adventure themselves against the Italian communica- 
tions. 
The'ttbment is well suited for summing up the magni- 
:ude of the attempt, and the corresponding congestion 
Df maf^Hal and men to which the .Austro- Hungarians 
committed themselves, or rather to which their masters 
committed them when the folly was lirst conceived. 
It was an undertaking, the preparations for which 
necessarily covered many months — more even than the 
time required for the twin adventure and twin disaster 
of the enemy against the sector of Verdun. 
Apart from the time required for the mo\ing of artillery 
and for the accumulation of munitionment which we will 
deal with in a moment, we know positively that certain 
divisions began to be shifted from the Russian front as 
early as the end of last year. We may justly conceive 
that the slow movement jjroceeded throughout the winter 
season which prohibits all heavy fighting in the moun- 
tains, and had not long been concluded when, in the 
middle of May, the initial intensive bombardment of the 
Italian line upon this sector began. » 
For instance, the 34th di\ision and the 43rd division 
(occupied at this m anient in retreating rapidly from the 
plateau of Asiago) were last identified upon the eastern 
front against the Russians not later than November. 
The 34th at that moment was upon the Galician frontier, 
iiUing the gap between the upper reaches of the Ikwa 
and the country in front of Radzilivoff. The 43rd division 
was just north of it, along the Ikwa line to near Dubno. 
With the artillery there was the same slow procedure 
imposed by the difficulty of communication along one 
mountain railway and still more by the difficulty of 
accumulating a head of munitions for the larger guns. 
All this long winter work, the movement of troops, 
guns, stores and men, must prove an accumulation of 
effort very difficult to reverse and undo. How difficult 
we shall the better appreciate when we have considered it 
in detail. 
When the whole thing was ready what had happened 
was this : 
The Austrians had left only 44 divisions (or perhaps 45) 
to watch the Russians and had massed on the Ita:lian 
front at least 32, and more probably 33, divisions. Of 
these last as rnany as 18 were massed for the special 
effort in the Trentino, which it was hoped would prove 
decisive. 
It behoves us to remember that troops thus gathered 
for a " hammer blow " are, as Berlin now arranges 
matters, specially selected and of the best quality upon 
which the enemy can lay his hands. There was a most 
valuable and instructive article in the Westminster 
Gazette of Friday last, 23rd June, giving an exceedingly 
lucid analysis of this policy, and of its consequences ; 
its main consequence being, of course, the necessary ex- 
pense attaching to such a plan. If your " hammer 
blow " succeeds well and good. But if it fails you will 
uselessly suffer the especial loss in especially large numbers 
of your selected men. 
That 18 divisions was the total assembled (with their 
advanced base at Trent) for the stroke against Italy we 
have upon the published authority of the Italian General 
Staff, which has based its report upon the very fullest 
information. 
The whole of this group had been put upon the full 
establishment. 
The 18 division*-, were incorporated as seven corps and 
these, corps formed three armies. The two first amoun- 
ted between them to at least 10 di\isions and by these 
tiu^ lirst actions were to be undertaken. The third and 
much the largest army was composed ^of no less than 
eight di\isions* and was to stand in reserve. 
Even during the first days of the effort, however, at 
least two divisions uf this reserve were drawn upon, and 
within a montli two more, so that up to a date already 
a fortnight past at the moment of writing, 14 divisions out 
of 18 had been thrown into the effort against the Italian 
front. The four remaining in reserve had probably been 
partly called on before the retreat began. 
The infantry of which tiiis formidable force was com- 
posed were organised, as I have said, upon a full establish- 
ment ; each division counting four regiments or 16 bat- 
talions. That is, no less than 16,000 men (so far as 
regiments of infantry alone were concerned) could be 
counted in each unit. The only exception to this system 
of organisation was the organisation of the mountain 
troops — what the French and Italian call "Alpines." 
These were organised in brigades and the brigades might 
be of 10 battalions or a little more. To this body so 
gathered wc must add the presence behind each regiment, 
besides its four active battalions, of two reserve batta- 
lions formed upon the Austrian model, which depends on 
its so-called " marching regiments " to supplement losses 
upon the field. The total force gathered, therefore, was 
— so far as the infantry was concerned — nearly 50 per cent, 
more than its first nominal effectives. It was not half a 
million, but it was more than 400,000. 
I 
Artillery Reorganisation 
Since what we are about to examine is the congestion 
of the enormous forces of the enemy in this region,, due to 
the check he has encountered, we must pay particular 
attention to the congestion in guns and munition which 
is even more serious for him than the congestion in 
n:en ; especially as the enemy (both Austrian and German) 
has now for a long time past been absolutely tied to the 
heaviest of artillery upon which his whole tactic depends. 
The tactical advantages and disadvantages of such a 
policy are well known, the advantage of overwhelming 
fire, the disadvantage of immobility and also perhaps 
of lowering the moral of troops taught to depend entirely 
upon the support of such guns. 
But we are notliere concerned with these larger points 
but only with the way in which the Austrian concentra- 
tion in the Trentino has burdened them in their present 
problem of retreat with masses of guns and shell as well 
as masses of infantry. 
In order to grasp what these masses of guns are, let 
us consider what the Austrian artillery establishment was 
at the outset of the war, and what it had become before 
the concentration against the Italians was complete. 
The normal establishment for the Austrian Army 
when the war broke out was for each division a divisional 
regiment of field pieces, 36 in number ; while each division 
was also given 12 four-inch field howitzers (to be exact 
the calibre is 104 millimetres, or not quite 4 J inches). 
Two divisions were normally allowed to an army corps, 
though often a third division was added upon the Ger- 
man model ; and the army corps as a whole had, quite 
apart from its divisional organisation, eight large 6 inch 
howitzers. 
Under this svstem, tlien, an army corps consisting 
of two divisions, would have had 72 field pieces, 24 
four-inch field howitzers and eight large 6 in. howitzers. 
The eighteen divisions of the Trentino force grouped as 
seven corps would therefore have counted, on the scale of 
establishment discussed at the opening of the \yar, not 
quite 1,300 field pieces, together with 216 4 in. field 
howitzers and 56 big 6 in. howitzers. 
Now the actual force of artillery entering the Trentinc 
•Comoare /or size the Crown Prince's armv at the opening of the war. 
