6 
LAND & WATER 
November i, 1917 
moment he claimed double the number of prisoners he had 
counted the day before, setting the total number at 60,000 
and the total of'guns captuied at 450. 
We need do no more at this pomt than ask the reader to 
considv^r what such figures and such an advance already mean. 
In three days fighting the Italian mountain positions along 
the whale of the sector' had gone. The Second Italian Army, 
or what remained of it, was back upon and beyond the front 
hne and approaching, or perhaps in places already touching, 
the 'plains. And even M we allow for some exaggeration 
in the enemy figures, we note that there lias been no con- 
tradiction ot them from Allied sources, and we further note 
that so considerable an ac'ivance over so wide a sector corres- 
ponds well enough with numbers claimed: What a movement 
of this sort in tluee days vk^ould mein upon the Western front 
I leave it to my readers to decide. 
Bv Saturday last, the :27th, it was unfortunately clear 
that the enemy had achieved something nearer a decision than 
anything yet accomplished in this war upon either side, and a 
survey of the situation according to the fuller news available 
on the Sunday night and Monday morning showed what had 
happened. 
The key to the v?-hole business has been, as we have seen, 
the forcing of the Pass under Monte Matajur, which feat was 
accomplished by the enemy in the course of Thursday and 
Friday. 
Up to that time there had been indeed a defeat of Italian 
forces in the bend of the Isonzo. The enemy's advance, and 
especially his superiority in guns, had carried him to the 
crest which runs like a wall above the plain of Friuli ; but 
everything still depended at that moment upon whether he 
could master that wall or not. . 
He succeeded in mastering it and the gate through it, as a 
result of his capture of the mountain heights upon either side 
■ of the road from Cappretto. to Cividale,and of its valley down 
which flows the Natisone torrent. In the course of Sunday 
the Austro-German armies were fully deployed upon the 
Itahan Plains. 
The enemy claimed on Sunday 100,000 prisoners and 700 
guns — that is, the complete destruction for military purposes 
of the Second Italian army front. He had restored a war of 
movement for the first time in the West as he had restored it 
in the East when he broke through the Russian front in Galicia 
two and a half years ago. 
He had turned the whole of the remainder of the Italian 
hne between the mountains and the sea. He had compelled 
the rapid retirement of the third army, the evacuation of 
Gorizia, and the falUng back (though in good order) qf all 
the troops from that point to the Adriatic. He had entered 
the first Itahan town standing at the edge of the Plain at the 
foot of the mountains Cividale. Cividale is only ten miles 
from the old headquarters at Udine, and Udine is the essential 
nodal point through which all the communications of what 
was once the Italian-Isonzo front, now ruined, pass. 
The line upon which our Allies must now retire is that of 
the Tagliamento, or rather of the prepared positions which 
run parallel to that broad complex of shallow streams, por 
the Tagliamento, though it has a large catchment area up in 
the mountains and discharges into the sea a considerable 
volume of water in the early summer thaw, is no considerable 
obstacle in itself. It is the only convenient line from the high 
Alps to the sea. A lateral railway runs (too near) along its 
course, and it has an excellent road system behind it. But 
there is no observation and the numbers required to hold 
that open plain will be higher than those detailed for the 
original mountain front. 
Of tlje future of this great operation still in progress we 
can say nothing. All we know is that the left of the Italian 
hne has been shattered ; the right, therefore, turned ; the 
Plains entered and the armies of our Ally at once in full refreat 
and summoning such reinforcements as can be obtained from 
the points further west. 
[The gravity of the situation created by the Italian 
defeat is indicated in Mr. Belloc's article : but we are 
not permitted by the Press Bureau to publish all 
his conclusions.] 
The French Victory on the Aisne 
EarUer in the week the French in a highly successful action 
had' shown once more that on the North- Western Front the 
Allies, through superiority both in material and the present 
spirit of their troops, could break into the enemy's lines 
at any chosen point, though that, of course, only after long 
preparation. 
The point chosen was the elbow of the great angle made by 
the German lines in Northern France, and the value of an 
