LAND & WATER 
Septembei- 6, 19x7 
these Runs have been in a position to reach a considerable 
part of the citv of Trieste with their high-angle fire. I was 
tjivon definite assurance on this point during my last visjt to 
tliis sector of the front, when 1 was also told that the one reason 
why such bombardment was not carried out was because 
distance and uncertain observation would militate so strongly 
against accurate fire that lumecessary non-military damage 
niight be wrought. 
Astonishing Perseverance 
Turning to the great and developing series of Italian attacks 
themselves, one is iinpress(>d with the fact that the astonishing 
perseverance of them is. considering the nature of the ground 
being fought over, even more remarkable than tlie large area 
of territory conquered and the large captures of prisoners. 
From 25,000 to 30,000 prisoners, and a six to eight mile 
advance on a fifteen mile front, combine to make a success 
rather more striking than has yet fallen to any of tiie Western 
Alhes at any point between the North Sea and the Adriatic, 
liut, great as this preliii^inary success is. there has been no 
Allied action in tiie whole war in which " more to come 
stood out more plainly than it appears to from the one in 
(1 nest ion. Although the attack has been more or less general 
along the front of something pver forty miles, the great 
wvigiit of it has onlv fallen on the from fifteen to twenty 
miles of front where t\w. unprecedented advance has been 
made. There are some reports of attacks and slight advances 
to the <W)uth (there has been some mention of gains at the 
base of the Hermada), but the impression the whole thing 
conveys is that Cadoma still has a good deal up his sleeve. 
One" would have this impression, I say, just from the way 
the situation has developed since the initiation of the attack J 
General Cadorna's own statement made to the Italian ex- 
Minister Baizilai for publication in a Roman paper gives 
it ample confirmation. I do not know whether the English 
newspaper reader has come to appreciate what models of 
lucid terseness,, of succinct comprehensiveness. General 
Cadorna's daily bulletins are. He not only contrives to say 
what there is to be said in the fewest words, but he very 
rarely fails to say it with telling elt'ect. The same quality 
is evident in his rare interviews. No military leader of the 
war has spoken for publication more seldom, and yet more 
to the point when he did speak, than has Cadoma. Special 
significance, therefore, attaches to tliis statement : 
" As the military critics of the Allied countries liave already 
favourablv commented on the Italian plan." he said to Signore 
l^arzilai, '' t may say witliout boasting that the present mananivre, 
owing to its vast objectives and its daring, and its probable 
effects on the whole war, is one of the most important in the his- 
tory of that war. 
" Our offensive comprises such an extensive front that it 
R-oultl bo impossible, except for the simultaneous success at all 
points ; but the country may rest assured of our tmal success, 
towards which tlie magniiicent tenacity and patriotism of the 
civilian population contribute almost equally with our glorious 
fighters. . . " 
" " CJeneral Cadoma," the dispatch adds, " gave in calm mathe- 
matical terms facts and figures proving the immense military 
and moral superiority of the Italians over their traditional 
enemies, and asserted that the imminent and decisive success 
of Italy means the turning point of the whole war." 
How then, assuming that the Italians are able to push the 
present offensive for aji indefinite time yet, may the situa- 
tion lie expected to develop ? Let us first glance hastily at 
what has tx:eu accomplished during the first week of the offen- 
sive, or up to about last Tluirsday. In addition to tin- spec- 
tacular crossing of the lJpp(?r Isonzo — an operation which, 
when we have the details, may well take rank witli the blow- 
nig up of the Col di Lana and Castelletto for fantastic dar- 
ing, the heiglits beyond that riverwere stormed and an advance 
over the broken Bainsizza Plateau made (at aconple of points) 
I0 a <lepth of over eight miles, and at no point, on a front 
of l)ut little short of fifte<m miles, to a depth of less than five 
miles. The area of the conquered territory is computed at 
over 150 square kilometers. 
In the tenuous strip of lowland along the left bank of the 
Isonzo a dozen villages were taken, the largest of which was 
C;mal<'. On the highland of Bainsizza fourteen or fifteen 
villages were occupied by the advancing Italians, in many of 
which, so far had they b<;en behind the lines and so secure had 
the Austrians appeared to feel in their possession, the 
civilian population had not lx>en evacuated. The seizure of 
large stores of iood and munitions — are solid evidence of the 
unexpectedness of the attack. 
An apparently firm foothold has been gained at the southern 
end of the deep Chiapovano Valley. It is the depth of the ad- 
vance at this point w-hich may threaten the communications 
to the San Gabriele, with its south-western buttress, San 
Caterina, and induce the Austrians to abandon this cruci- 
ally important massif even before they pre blasted off it by 
the plunging fire of the artillery the Italians will shortly b3 
bringing to bear 'from the still higher vantage of the newly- 
captured Monte Santo. The fall of San Gabriele, which has 
been the principal instrument of torturo in keeping the Italians 
upon the rack in Gorizia and almost entirely preventing their 
reaping anything but a barren " sentimental " victory in 
return for their heavy sacrifices in taking that bitterly-fought - 
for little city, will be one of the first fruits of the taking of Monte 
Santo. Not until San Gabriele and San Daniele have fallen 
will the Italians be able to gain any distinct military ad- 
vantage from the occupation of Gorizia. With the Austrians 
pushed off these commanding positions and back out of any- 
thing but heavy artillery range, Gorizia will be on the way to 
Incoming the first adequate advanced base the Italians have 
had beyond the Upper Isonzo. 
The Italians appear to be playing a gigantic game of 
nine-pins with the dominating line of peaks, ranging in height 
from 1,700 to 2,300 feet, which prevented their advancing 
beyond the Upper Isonzo during all their first two yt«rs of the 
war. Monte Kuk, the most northerly, fell in the assaults of 
last May, as did also the V^odice. the slightly higher peak next 
in line to the south. Now the \'odice has " pushed over " 
Monte Santo, the highest peak of the chain, and Monte Santo 
in turn, should bowl over Monte San Gabriele. Monte 
San Daniele. next in line to the south-east, cannot long Sur- 
vive an attack from San Gabriele, while the former, to quote 
the words of an Italian despatch of a few days ago, " commands 
the Pannowitzer Forest and San Marco, and San Marco in 
turn enfilades Faiti and Stol, and these latter have their 
intimate bearing upon the tenure of the Hermada." This 
suggests one very probable development of the Italian offensive 
The Number of Prisoners 
Even the casual reader of the daily bulletins will hardly 
have failed to remark the fact that the number of prisoners 
taken bvthe Italians in all of their great attacks of the last 
year appear to be considerably larger in proportion to the pro- 
bable number of troops engaged than in the operations on the 
Western Front. A military correspondent of one of the Lon- 
don papers explained this last week by saying it was due to the 
freeclom with which the Austrian soldiers of Italian blood 
gave themselves up to their attacking brothers whenever oppor- 
tunity offered. This hardly conforms with the facts, I fear. 
The Austrians have done many stupid things, but hardly 
anything quite so stupid as to employ units from Italia 
Irredenta on any part of their Italian Front. 
Tlie real reason for the comparatively large hauls of prisoners 
is to be sought in the great underground rock galleries and 
caverns which have become inevitable features of this rock 
mountain warfare. The labour of blasting sufticiently deep 
trenches to give any real protection is almost prohibitive in 
the first place, while in the second place the casualties in 
even the best of these from flying rock fragments are greater 
than those from pieces of shell and shrapnel bullets. Tlie con- 
sequence has been that both Austrians and Italians have, 
Iwtween natural and artificial caverns (the fonner are especially 
abundant in the porous Carsic formation), sufficient under- 
ground shelter at most points for all the troops they ever need 
to throw into their advanced lines. 
Into these absolutely safe underground shelters the troops 
retire while a preparatory bombardment is on, to emerge , 
when it is over to make the best defence possible against the 
infantry attack. It is the same kind of thing the Germans 
have tried to do on the Western Front, only (because the 
natural conditions are better suited to it beyond the Isonzo) 
carried much further. The result is that the de'encc generally 
loses fewer in killed and wounded in this " cave-man " war- 
fare, and more in prisoners. The latter, reluctant to abandon 
the safety of their underground shelters, usually give them- 
selves up in large bodies as soon as the wave of Italian infantry 
has swept up to or beyond them. 
• It may also have been noticed that the attack appears to 
relinquish a much larger proportion of prisoners to the enemy 
than on the Western Front. In the Italian offensive of last 
May the Austrians claimed that nearly 25.000 prisoners were 
left in their liands by the Italians, or a number almost equal to 
tliat tlie latter took from them, while up to the present moment 
in the offensive now on they are claiming that over 10,000 
Italians have remained with them. I was assured on un- 
questioned authority that the Austrian claims for May were 
rather more than double what they should have been, and, 
from the nature of tlie action, it is quite probable that the 
claims in connection with the present offensive are even more 
greatly exaggerated. But even so, the proportion of prisoners 
aljandoned to the enemy is far and away greater than any 
attacking arm}- on the *^'estern Front has ever ceded. This 
again is directly due to the" rock warfare," where the digging 
in of soldiers who have reached, or over-reaclied, some ex- 
posed objective is practically out of the question. 
