LAND & WATER 
August 30, 1917 
CJjr Iffilar 
The Great Italian Battle 
By Hilaire Belloc 
THE great Italian action affords by far the most 
important military news of the week, and although- 
it is not yet complete nor the result achieved, its 
de\elopment throvighout the whole week is sufficient 
', to show, not only the scale ujx)n which the operation is being 
■ conducted, but the promise of its bearing fruit. 
The action is taking place along the whole of the Isonzo 
line from Canale, in the north, to the trenches in front of 
1 ])uino, in the south. As is the case with every such offen- 
" give, there' are two mairf points of concentration, upon the 
f two wings. The first on the north is concerned with breaking 
• up the Austrian defensive . organization in the mountains 
above (iorizia. It is on the extreme left wing of the Italians 
• that this has been successfully accomplished. The second, 
I in the south, on the extreme right wing against the sea, is 
i concerned with the forcing of that formidable bastion covering 
^Trieste, known as the Hermada or "Oak " Hill. 
iki;-.The:rheasute of our Italian Ally's success on this wing, 
■i now thaj-they are fully established with heavy pieces and 
.; their munitionment, will be the fate of the Hermada 'Hill. 
., It is for this bulwark co\-cring the ai)proaclies to Trieste that 
(.' the great battle is being fought on the south, as it is being 
! ?iought on the north for the plateau of Bainsizza and its 
;r«iscarpment wall of heights, the topmost of which, the Monte 
V Simto, was carried last Saturday. 
f Very numerous examples in the course of the war have 
l.,,*^"^'^'- "^ ^'^^^ ^^^^ importance and the limitation of an 
,^-2bverlooking position in trench warfare. 
ij Briefly, to occupy a commanding height, diflicult of assault 
■j and giving direct obser\'ation over one's opponent, is a necessary 
preliminary ' to arty: final success, but it has not the same 
( quality of advantage as it had. One can no longer talk of 
1.1 a height as " the' key" of this or that. Its occupation is no 
|! morg-than thc;first — ^though necessary — step in a long process. 
I It gives superiority in one function "alone of the many which 
jj make, up a. modern battle; to wit, obseivation— and only 
,; local obser\'ation at that. 
■; The advantage of higher ground for repelling an assault 
: and for fulfilling all the functions of a glacis, in field of fire 
as well as in slope, are not what they were when the rifle 
determined battle. What conquers a belt of territory in 
to-day's warfare is the artillery, and it is after the arti'Uerv 
li^s done its work that the infantry occupies. There is, indeed, 
:, some advantage in such occupation taking place uphill, 
but the fact that the position you are bombarding is slightly 
above you makes very little" difference to the preliminary 
aitillery action. , . 
- In general then, a dominating height, giving full observation 
■ and presentmg an obstacle to advance against it is, to-day, an 
asset to the party occupying it. It weighs down the scale of his 
side. It mcreases the eflicacity in that slow work of reducing 
then enemy's line by attrition, moral and material, which 
is the whole strategy of the present war in the West and 
. South. But It does not rapidly determine an issue as was 
still the case only a few years ago. 
We may judge very properly of the value of position bv 
remembering that the enemy when he was driven to earth 
in ]• ranee three years ago (and whenever since he has elected 
or been conipeUed to stand upon the defensive), has made it 
his first business to secure position. 
We may judge equally well of the limitations from which 
position suffers to-day in this trench warfare, by his com- 
parative inability to achieve any decisive success in spite of 
Jus original occupation of the heights. 
After the Marne, the enemy held pretty well every domina- 
ting position from the Argonne to the "North Sea. He had 
the Moronvillers group of hills east of Rheims and Nogent 
Hi and Bnmont Hill overlooking that city ; then the whole 
of the Aisne ndge, the higher ground on both" sides of the Somme 
irom Ihaulnes to in front of Peronne, and then all the line 
of positions from Gomniecourt to the neighbourhood of Arras. 
He had the Vimy Ridge and the Messines Ridge Almost 
everv'where he looked down upon the Allies. Yet, even 
while he still had a grave superiority in artillerv' he got nothing 
decisive from that advantage. If. i„ the long run he had 
been able to maintain and increase his artillery superioritv 
then his positions .on the heights would have borne fruit' 
loobsHv rLi^^''' r'"' 'he. superior civilisation which he 
loohshly challenged, was able, once it turned its mind to 
U. to outpace him in production : and it is now the Allies. 
not Prussia and het dependents, who can make use of increasing 
artillery preponderancVr. Therefore, for them the occupation 
of dominating positions is fruitful. 
It is this character.of-position in the present phase of the war 
— though not immediatcly\<lecisive yet laying the foundation 
for ultimate success — tlKitinakes the struggle for the Hermada 
of such essential importance. This is why in the grouping 
of the Italian artiller\'-much the greater part of the southern 
pieces are turned on to'lhe Hermada and its neighbourhood. 
This is why the British monitors are attacking it from the sea. 
This is why the brigade from Salerno (once again proving 
TAe C ^ "71 S O 
I 
S&iraLckva 
Bnzstovizza^ 
the nonsense of all the old talk about bad recruitment from 
the South) struck its heavy blow above Selo, in the effort to 
outflank the Hermada on the North, and this is why the 
Austrians have massed their reserves upon their left, princi- 
pally for counter-attacks in defence of the mountain. 
The readers of this paper will remember our short descrip- 
tions of the Hermada during the fighting earlier in the summer, 
when once before it was attempted to master that height. 
The Hermada rises up from the Gulf of Trieste above 
Dumino in a fairly compact and isolated lump, between the 
southern edge of which and the sea run the main railroad and 
the main road to Trieste. 
The mountain is about two miles long by about one mile 
broad. On the southern edge it sinks steeply down on to the 
sea coast and the ledge along which the road and railway run. 
But on the northern side it is attached by a neck of high 
ground to the escarpment of th? Carso. . 
Its highes,t summit; which is roughly in the middle of the 
fonnation. is r 074 feet high. Its a"pproach is rather less 
