LAND & WATER 
DecemDer 28, 1917 
Caprilc, and tius <'asiern ridge culminates in the crest of 
Mount Asolonc. From that' crest falling slopes spread out 
southwards and westwards towards the Plain, and rise into a 
number of lesser peaks, plateaux, and ridges, all dominated 
by the summit of Asolonc. The last fall of this mountain 
system on to the plain is everywhere fairly steep, fonning, as 
I have said, a sort of wall, but it is more gentle towards the 
mouth of the Brenta Valley than it is further east. Due 
east of Asolone (which is nearly 5,000 feet high) is the still 
higher and larger massive system of Mount Grappa. To the 
south-east of thi> again, right on the edge of tin- Plain wall, 
and a good deal lower than Grappa, is Mount Tomba, and a 
few thousand feet east of the latter one strikes the River 
Piave, which the line thence follows to the sea. 
On the western side of the Brenta Valley there are, as I 
have explained in previous articles, two ravines leading 
down from the plateau above ; the upjK-rmost is the Val 
Gadetia, the lowermost is the rough and difficult, but prac- 
ticable, Val Frenzela. I believe that heavy pieces can come 
down the Gadcna. Down the Frenzela only infantry and 
mountain guns, 1 imagine, could move. But I am talking 
of the conditions before the war, and I do not know what 
changes may have been made during the campaign or whether 
a road to bear heavy gun* now exists in this ravine. 
At any rate, whenever or if the enemy is master of the Fren- 
zela Valley, he can. bring forces down it which would leave 
liim absolutely secure to move his heavier material down the 
(Jiadena behind ; and, in general, his possession of the 
Frenzela (which would be marked by his occupation of 
Valstagna, the village at its mouth) would give him a secure 
hold of the whole Brenta Valley, short of its actual issue on 
to the plains at Bassano. 
The enemy's action for the mastery of the Brenta Valley 
and of possession of an ultimate power to debouch from it on 
to the plains, has been that which must always be followed 
in a slow process of reducing a defensive line of this kind. 
It is the process which was followed for so many months at 
Verdun. It consists in creating dangerous salients or 
" bulges " in the defender's organisation by thrusting in 
heavy blows at selected points on either side. 
In mountain country these blows must always be delivered 
against heiglUs which, when they are lost to the defensive, 
weaken it all round, not oiJy from loss of ground, but from 
loss of observation and dominating positions. 
This is what the enemy has been doing throughout the 
month of December. He has attacked and carried of^ three 
mountain crests, first the extreme right or left, then its fellow 
on the left or right. He has thus half isolated the 
central one, reduced it in turn, and so gone pounding forward 
by flattening out one saUent after the other, until he is now 
near the end of his task. 
If you take his original line and mark his method of advance 
. you see this clearly. He originally finds a defensive relying 
upon certaui peaks. He masters a number of separate 
peaks, leaving in his second line saUents in their intervals. 
Ihe salients are reduced and he is left with his third Hne nearly 
fiat again. He makes new drives producing new salients. 
The most important now left before the plain is now that of 
Mt. Graijpa. He strikes again at Asolone, rendering the 
Grappa salient extremely precarious. 
So by methodical stages and in a manner which is perfectly 
clear when one follows the map, he elbows his way down 
towards the plains. 
.,,0" V»<^ ^^^ he already overlooks them from Mt. Tomba. 
With Asolone m his possession, last Tuesday, he ovcriooks 
them from the western part of this sector, and put Mount 
Grappa in between the two points into great peril. 
But Asolone has a v;iJue of its own quite apart from its 
ellect m outflanking Mount Grappa. You have from this 
simimit a vaew right down on to Valstagna. His permanent 
possession of Asolone would probably involve the occupation 
bv the enemy of Valstagna and the consequent opening of all 
api>roaches down from the east on to the Brenta VaUey. It is too 
much to say that the permanent possession of Mt. Asolone in 
Itself would give the enemy the Brenta VaUey right down to 
all that district, and whoever holds it has the balance of 
the chances on his side (on the offensive) for obtaining or 
retaining (on the defensive) the month of the Brenta Valley 
it was ths nnportance of AscrJone which led to the tre- 
mendous fighting of last week The summit fell into the 
enemy s hands m the course of Tues.day last, December i8th 
Ihis great success was only obscurel'y suggested in the AUied 
" oX 'nn r''^;^ T^l"^"^ °^ '^' Austro-Germans that 
Only on his left did the enemy succeed in gaining and 
maintammg advantage in the Monte Asolone zone." But 
he enemy buUetins naturally gax'e the- affair in its true 
ilSl "'\7fi^ 'r ^" '?Ty '"^•=^^- The Germans told us 
that . After strong artillery prepeiration Austrc -Hungarian 
troops stormed Mt. Asolonc. More than two thousand men 
were taken prisoners " ; while the Austrian bulletin con- 
\-eyed the same truth in very nearly the same terms. 
On the ne.vt day Wednesday, a strong Italian counter- 
attack began to develop. On this the Italian bulletin of 
Thursday morning was silent, presumably because the 
operations were still developing and the i">lan had to be kept 
secret. It was now the enemy's turn to be more guarded 
and careful in his account. He merely told us that " repeated 
Italian attacks against Mount Asolone failed " — the usual 
phrase common to almost every belUgerent when heavy 
pressure is developing against him. 
By Thursday, however, there was already a hint in the 
communique issued by General Diaz that the Italian effort 
to recapture Mt. Asolone was achieving some measure of 
success, and on Friday the Italian Prime Minister was able 
to announce in the Chamber that the summit had been re- 
taken, and was once more in Italian hands. 
At this point the news to hand at the moment of writing 
(Sunday evening) ceases. Asolone, that critical height, was 
lost to the Allies early in the week, regained by them, and 
(on Saturday last) was still held. The battle continues. 
H. Belloc 
Germany at Bay 
THE literary stylist may find something to cavil at 
in Major Haldane MacFall's Germany at Bay, for the 
author has not troubled about his phrasing ; he is 
far too fond of telling his reader to " make no mis- 
take about that " ; he is so deadly in earnest that he has 
hardly time to find the right phrases to express his meaning, 
and yet his work grips the reader throughout, for it is very 
evident that he knows what he is talking about, and that he 
has a definite message to convey. That message, in one 
word, is " Serbia." The author says, and adduces plenty of 
reasons for saying : 
If Germany be defeated in the west, if Belgium be given back 
to the Belgians, if ^Torthcrn France, with Als;ice and Lorraine 
be restored to the French, if the Kaiser be deposed ; but if 
the Fan-Gorman war map remain German, no matter to what 
humihations the German bows, the German has won the war. 
That Pan-German war map, which, as the author points 
out, was circulated throughout Germany in February 1916. 
consists in a German iron road from Berlin to Constantinople, 
cutting Europe in half, and separating Slavonic Europe from 
Western Europe, giving Germany MiUel-Europa for which 
her rulers have thirsted since 1870. The independence 
ot Serbia spoUed this map. Major MacFall outlines the faU of 
Bismarck, and the coming of the dream to Wilhelm the Mad ; 
he tells how even Bismarc:k, the great dreamer, drew back 
at a plan that v/as to smaati not only France and Russia, but, 
Zrll ^ ^^T" ^'°^' I^"t?an and America as well, and how 
Wilhelm II. was content to sacrifice commercial prosperity, 
everything that his great empire offered him, to this dream of 
conquering all Europe and then all America by means of 
ruthless vyar. Further, he insists on the doctrine which 
^j^u- ^'"'f'^^-^''^ students; of the war have enunciated : in 
addition to victory in the West, there must be an independent 
Foland, a restored Serbia, and an utter smashing of the German 
war map plan ; there is no halfway-house between victory 
and defeat ; either the Allied forces must smash this German 
dream, or Germany has won. 
Here is set forth with absolute clearness that we need 
not trouble about the war mms of anyone but the enemy, 
which are the establishment of the Pan-German map for the 
inaking of another and even greater war, and the utter 
destruction of civilisation as the Western nations know it, in 
order that there may be set up the gospel of brute force. 
Ihe book is tonic, and Field-Marshal French's recommenda- 
tion that men should read it is one that every thinking man 
WTil endorse. There is one paragraph, especiall\^ which paci- 
fists might take to heart . '^ ^ ^ ' ^ - ' *^ 
We find ruthless valour bciled down to tills: that the 
superior breed, the German, "is entitled to break all laws that 
bmd inferior breeds, his enemies, and to inflict on them any 
cowardly or vile treachery or- crime ; but that if these acts be 
committed upon him, then "nis enemies are guilty of an enor- 
mity which in him IS not an enormity but a virtue of Ruthless 
Valour! Hus is called " Squeahng." 
Germany says Major Mac??aU, is entering upon the most 
deadly peril to mankind-her peace strategy, and the defeat 
of that strategy rests on the democracies of "the world. This 
book showing how deadly are the German peace ■ plots, is a 
call to action for the men behind the armies, and thus is a 
work deserving of the widest pubhcity 
hv'FZ\d^Ur^^l'^^ ^^ ^^J"!^ " ^W^ue McFall, .yith'^-x introl ictioa 
