December 20, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
by troops still shaken as \Mre tlie_ dekiidii;g troops by tlicic... 
recent disasters. ., ' - ■■■yj , '■*"^ 
The Piavc line with all its inconvehienees naving thus h6cn ' 
determined upon and ultimately heavily reinforeed by large 
liritish and l""rench contingents, it was clearly the enemy's 
game to turn it from the north. It would not jjrotit him much to 
force the lines on the Piave itself, merely compelling a further 
retreat along communications perpendicular to that front. 
Hut if he could come down from the mountains in the north, 
that is, upon the Itahan left flank on to the Plain only a few 
miles awav, he would cut the main Italian conunnnications 
and round up the great mass of his 0])ponents. Following 
upon his first successes it would certainly be a decision. 
The further to the west this turning movement might 
succeed, the greater would be its results, and the enemy was 
concerned only with holding the Italians upon the Piavc by 
attempted crossings in no great force, while he carried out this 
turning movement from the north and the mountains. 
In that turning movement he is still occupied and, though 
its fortunes are not yet determined, the delay which the resist- 
ance has caused, the falling snow, the moral effect of so success- 
ful a defence, all increase the chances of our Ally and of our 
own troops in this region, and make the present moment an 
excellent one for surveying the position as u whole. 
After the first rush of the pursuit from the Isonzo to the 
Tagliamento and from this river to the Piave, nothing serious 
was to be feared until the enemy should have brought up his 
hca\y pieces and, what is a slower business, should haVe 
accumulated his munitions for a general bombardment. It 
is clear that his original success upon the Isonzo was quite 
beyond his own expectations, for he had prepared nothing t(> 
the north upon his light to cut otf the Italian retreat. It was 
11 
Coinmujz Lca^cons 
>omc weeks before his preparations ujxjn this right wing in the 
mountains were even partly completed. Infantry attacks, 
s.upportcxl'by a moderate weight of artillerv, took place indeed 
from as early as the second week in Xovomber. But that 
d(.-cisi%e effort with heavy guns which we had so long been 
expecting and before the advent of which nothing taking place 
upon these lines was of anv real moment, was not begun 
until the end of the month. 
riie first great concentration of pieces was mad<> where the 
fruits of it, if they could have l)een gathered, would have been 
most effective, to wit, upon the west, that is, upon the Asiago 
Plateau, called also the " Sctte Communi.'" It has been 
estimated that some two thousand pieces of all calibres were 
wfjrking here in the first week of December, upon a sector, 
the extreme limits of which were Ijttle over 2i),oo() yards, and 
the active part of which was much less. Siich a concentration 
coiTcsponds to the other great offensives in this war, the late 
one upon the Isonzo and tho.se of Verdun and the Trentino 
last year. 
Tlie attack which followed this tremendous bombardment 
was partially successful. It carried the .salient of high jjcaks, 
the apex of which was the Castelgomberto, and here llattened 
out the hne, but it did not come down to the Plain by many 
miles. It still left the lower part of the Brenta \'allev in th"c 
hands of the Italians, and also left solidlv in their hands the 
last wall or escarpment of the Alps, which defends the Plain. 
Putting the matter in its broadest lines, this, the first great 
enemy effort after the bringing up of his guns, failed. He 
could claim many prisoners— he claimed, I think, about 15,000 
in all— the driving of the Italians down from the higher peaks 
to the lower, and the reduction of the great salient of Castlc- 
gomberto, which the Italians had previously held ; but hehad 
not broken through to the Plains, nor accjuircd the whas 
li.idiiig down to the. Brenta roads and raihva\-. 
riiis fir?l attempt, in the first week of December, on the 
extreme Italian left against the Italian 1st Army, was undcr- 
talcen l).y :,\u.strifin forces- uncler General Conrad. Its object 
\vas.to reach the BrcHta Valley by a direct thrust down that 
lijie and along the west side of the deep and rough ravine 
called the Frenzcla and by the easier Gaderia ravine. His 
operation was so far successful that — as we have seen — it 
cleared the high peaks to the north by December 4th, ai^d 
thrust the Italians from the Sisemol Height which dominatjiis 
the Frenzella and from Tondareca and the Badalecche, whifh 
(kiniinate the Gadena. But it did not force a way down 
either of those two \alleys. The Italians fell back on-a 
position of lower heights, which still bar the way down tlu^ 
ravines. To the west of the Frenzela they still held tlie 
Seller and to the east the Sasso Kosso, while betweeii the 
Gadena Ravine and the Brenta they held the hill of Alcssi, 
which overlooks San Marino in the Brenta Valley. ?an 
Marino, that is, the mouth of the Brenta, could still be held 
mitil the enemy .should be able to throw the Italians right back 
from the Bcretta Pass and the Caprile Pass on the other sidb 
of the Brenta, and this,' as we shall .see, is what he was trying 
up to last Saturday to effect, and partly succeeded in effecting. 
In order to get San ]\Iarino and master the Gadena Valley 
way down from the mountains to the main Brenta Valley, he 
began a new series of attacks east of that ri\er for the pos- 
session of the Caprile and Brenta passes. 
We find them massing, therefore, for this .second effort 
(which is not yet completed) an even lafger mass of 
artillery, some 2^500 guns in the 12 miles between the Brenta 
and the Piave. 
This critical action, which is still in progress at the moment 
of writing, opened upon Tuesday. December ittli. 
It has fallen, roughly speaking, into. two divisions so far. 
The first was the enormous — but not decisive-- tljrce days 
attacV of Tucsda\-. \\'ednesday and Thursdav of last week, 
December nth. 12th and i.^.th. .Among "its objectives 
going from west to east, were the Monte Spinoncia, the Mpnte 
Solarolo. and the Pass of the Bear, or Col del I'Orso— a very 
vigorous thrust iipon a front of about six miles ; but the 
crucial sector was west oif all these, and concerned the Caprile 
.1.1(1 Baretta Passes over the range which overlooks the Brenta, 
and the fight for these formed the second operation. 
A second chapter opened about a week after the firsf chapfer 
had closed. 
The enemy, for tlie moment, gave up his effort against the 
extreme western part of the line and struck last week in the 
central sector, between the Brenta and the Piave, the sector 
hi;Id by the Italian fourth Army. As we have seen, a success 
of his here \\ould not have the" same full fruits as would one 
upon the Asiago Plateau. On the other hand, since the first 
effort on the Asiago Plateau had failed, this second best had 
•■ertain advantages in its favour. The distance from the 
iiiemy lines to tlie 'Plains was far less— upon the extreme 
eastern point he was already right ujion the edge of the es- 
carpment — and his communications for bringing" material uj) 
>over the higli hills were, upon the whole, better. 
This main <flort opened upcm l-'ridav. morning last, the 14th. 
upon the Caprile .Tud Beretta Passes." ■ The first was reaciie(i 
by the enemy, but apparently- not cro.ssed. The attack upon 
the second was checked by an' Italian counter-attack, and does 
not seem, .so far as the rather general terms of the communi- 
ques from both sides inform us, to have had the same. suco^ss. 
But the movement as a whole was checked, and registered uplo 
that Saturday morning, the i5tli,oniyan insignificant advance, 
while the ])risoneis of all kinds claimed by the encmv in tlii- 
three davs numbered but .;,ooo in the fluctuating strugdc. 
Though, then, on Friday last, so far as v<- can judge ifoiii 
the 
^hort de-patches to hand, he was stil 
fightiir^ 
lor 
