14 
LAND & WATER 
March 8, 191 7 
taken stock r,i their dilViculties and were preparing to 
meet them. Tlie secjuel has been that, if a balance were 
to be struck in May. 1017, Italy '^M have been found 
to have fought two years of the war with less importations 
of foreign products, both raw and manufactured, than has 
anv one of the four principal Powers of the Entente. This 
does not mean that Italy's industrial effort bulks any- 
where nearly so big as that of England or even of France, 
nor yet that her per capita production of arms, munitions 
and other war supplies is up to that of cither of her 
great Allies ; btit it docs mean that Italy has found the 
material for waging an increasingly vigorous war on 500 
miles of front without importing so large a percentage of 
her total supplies from abroad as have France and Eng- 
land. The fact that this was more or less fortuitous on 
Italy's part— that she had to make the bulk of her arms 
and munitions or do without — does not make the achieve- 
ment any the less creditable. 
" France and England had the money to buy supplies in 
America, as well as the ships to transport them in ; Italy 
w:is short. of b(ith ships and money from the first, and, 
moreover, the sea route from America to her ports was 
b<-)th longer and more exposed to submarine attack than 
those to French and Enghsh ports. In the matter of 
what was, for a while, Italy'smost vital need— munition- 
making machinery— she imported from America the 
merest fractions of that %sluch went to France and 
England simply because the two latter countries, with 
Russia, had ncft only bought up all in the market, but had 
also contracted for the output two or three years ahead. 
Very little of this American macliinery has ever found its 
way into Italy, the engineers of which country have had 
either to adapt old machines or make new ones. 
" The magnitude of Italy's industrial achievement 
may best be judged after first considering the fact that 
she started with' almost negligible munition-making 
facilities, and then noting the extent to which, in the 
face of a consumption that is doubling and trebling 
every few months, she has not only become independent 
of import but has even been turning out in certain lines 
a surplus to send abroad to various of her Allies. In the 
early months of the war France and England had to come 
to Italy's aid with heavy artillery, (though it was little 
enough that could be spared), with machine guns, and 
with munitions of practically every class. Munition 
macliinery was, of course, badly needed, but neither of 
her nearest Allies was able to spare much in this line 
for Italy. For some time now this country has been 
tm-ningout all the light artillery and machine guns she 
has needed, and if there has been a comparative shortage 
of heavy guns, that is only a difficulty that is shared by 
every other one of the belligerents on both sides. In the 
smaller calibre of shells she is also independent of import, 
and recently, indeed, she has begun to put a surplus at the 
disposal of her AUies. 
' • The small arm problem Italy has had fairly well in 
hand from the first, and she has been exporting these in 
increasing quantities for some time. So, also, with 
motor vehicles of all descriptions. In spite of the fact 
that the Italian army is more dependent upon motor 
transport than that of any other belligerent, the country's 
output of lorries lias not only kept pace with the home 
demand, but is now so far ahead of it that a substantial 
stream of export is being steadily maintained. All of 
this, it should be borne in mind, has been accompUshed 
in the face of the handicap imposed by the fact that Italy, 
unlike France and England, has been able to import but 
little, and has therefore had to make practically all, of the 
special machinery used in munition manufacture. What 
Italy has done in this connection must rank as one of the 
greatest, as it is one of the most surprising, achie\'cments 
of the war." 
In the Workshops 
This brief but lucid and comprehensive suimnary of 
Italy's industrial accomphshment prepared me for the 
sight of a good many remarkable things in the month I 
divided between theFront and the workshops ; and yet 
the visual evidence of so much tangible achievement in 
the face of almost prohibitive difficulties was a good deal 
more impressive- than the oral summary. The " self- 
sufficiency " of the Italian munition works has been a 
source of never-ending wonder. In the new shell 
factories of France and Great Britain, I had walked for 
miles up and down passages lined on both sides with 
machinery — drills, lathes, hydrauhc presses — made in 
the United States. As an American, I made especial note 
of this fact. Again, behind the Western front, the 
.American motor truck was almost as coriimon in the 
French transport trains as was the American " cater- 
])illar " tractor in the British. It was only natural, 
therefore, that in Italy, which was only in the infancy of 
its industrial development, one should look for an even 
more overwhelming predominance of imported machinery 
than in France and England. 
But I found things just as they had been described 
to inc. Here and there in a shop I found two or three 
machines — occasionally little blocks of them — with plates 
indicating that they were made in Pittsburg or Chicago, 
Leeds or Manchester, Paris or Lyons, and now and then 
there was a work-worn model displaving the marks of 
Essen or Vienna, importations of ante-bellum days. 
But certainly ninety-five out of every hundred machines 
— probably even a higher percentage — bore the marks of 
some North Italian city, usually of Milan or Turin. 
In many instances the foreign machines had been used 
as models, but where this was the case the new one rarely 
failed to show one or more distinct improvements. In 
this connection I remember especially a big Krupp-made 
machine for sawing steel, which stood at the head of a 
line of similar ItaUan-made machines in a factory I visited 
in Milan. 
" The first model we made," the manager told me, 
" was an exact replica of the Kiupp, perfomiing, of 
course, the identical work. As you go down the line 
you will notice a progressive change, the machines getting 
lighter and simpler. Those we are turning out to-day 
weigh about a half the original, cost a third, can be 
operated by one man where the other needed two, and 
perform nearly twice the w^ork in a given time. Decreased 
weight and cost, and increased speed and simplicity of 
operation — these are the things we constantly strive for." 
Repair Depots 
The Italian repair depots proved a source of never- 
ending interest and wonder to me, less on account of the 
volume of work performed — considerable as this is, it is 
hardly on the same scale as in the great base depots in 
France — as for the astonishing mechanical resource and 
versatiUty displayed. All the work in these depots — 
except where women are employed — is done by soldiers, 
many of whom have been wouncled or otherwise rendered 
unfit for active service. By no means all of them — 
probably, indeed, a decided minority — were trained 
machinists when they entered these shops ; and yet, so 
quick is the Italian hand and brain for this land of work, 
the results are eminently satisfactory. 
In one of these depots which I visited, an extensive 
series of shops was entirely devoted to the repairing, or, 
as was not infrequently the case, the rebuilding of bicycles 
and motor-cycles. As interpreter there was put at my 
disposal, an Italian youth who had spent but a year or 
two in America when he was recalled at the outbreak of 
the war to fight for his country. Three expressions, 
many times reiterated, constituted the sum of his descrip- 
tion," but, with what I was able to -see for myself, they 
came pretty near to telling the whole story. Ihey were : 
" Mada righta here ! " " Justa gooda new ! " and (de- 
livered as a proud interrogation after we had finished 
with a department) " Some shop, hu ? "• 
When I saw the swiftness witli which the rusting mud- 
caked loads of wTeckage from the Front were sorted over 
and repaired or rebuilt until they were literally " just 
as good as new," 1 was indeed ready to agree with my 
guide that it was " sOme shop ! " Ihesc comparatively 
hurriedly trained men — many of whom had been farmers 
or ordinary labourers before the war — Were making new- 
parts and' fitting them to a motley collection of motor 
cycle remains wliich bore marks of the makers of every 
manufacturing country in the world. They were even 
undertaking such complicated accessories as speed- 
indicators and magnetos. I recall especially a Gemian 
" Bosch " magneto, which was being rewound and rebuilt 
after having been punctured by a shrapnel bullet. Besides 
the wiring, something over ha'lf of the delicate parts were 
destroyea, and, because renewals from the " home " 
