June J 7, igi8 
Land & Water 
which would have given him a complete decision, and to 
concentrate his energies upon the Piave line alone. 
It is essential to understand this if we are to understand 
the battle at all. It is really two battles, with a change of 
plan in the middle corresponding with Monday. There is a 
first battle, the main operation of which is an attempted 
descent from the mountains on to the communications, with 
the crossings of the Piave as a secondary feature. This first 
battle ends on Monday. There is a second battle from 
■•'onday onwards, in which the crossings of the Piave become 
♦he main feature and the mountain sector merely holds 
fast. 
[n thus attempting to do something new on the Piave, 
the enemy was taking second best. Even if he compelled 
an Italian retirement he could get no decision because the 
retirement would take place along untouched communica- 
tions behind it, and it was too late to hope for a breach in 
the line. However, to compel such a continuous retirement 
would have sufficiently grave consequences. It would 
uncover Venice and therefore lose Italy vast masses of 
material and all naval power in the Adriatic — apart from 
the political effect. It would probably compel a retirement 
right to the Adige, and that certainly at great expense, and 
perhaps at some peril. 
These consequences, however, would not be what the 
consequences of the first plan would have been. They 
would not involve the complete destruction of the opponent. 
The new battle was also second best because the Austnans 
on the outside of a bend could not concentrate as rapidly 
against any point as could the Itahans on the inside of the 
bend, and this difference was aggravated by the fact that so 
considerably a portion of the enemy's forces were in tUc 
mountains, and could only get down with difficulty to the 
plain, as there are few roads leading thus down southeastwaid 
To compel the Italians to retire trom the Piave, it was 
necessary to turn their line along that river either by the 
left extremity or by the right, or by both. If the vvhole of 
the Montello, which is some eight miles long, could be seized 
it would put the enemv right on the left flank of the Italians, 
and give the enemy excellent observation o all their move- 
ments. If at the other extremity of the iin he could make 
a really large bridge-head opposite St. Dona, with the 
advantage of the main road and of the main railway behind 
him to feed him, it would enable him to turn the Italian line 
by its right. He tried both points, and at the same time 
held the Italians all along the river between him by hard 
fighting at each of the crossings he had obtained. 
This second battle, which may be called the Battle for 
outflanking the Piave line, had two phases : The first, in 
which the chief effort was being made to turn the Italians 
by their left — that is, by the Montello — the second in which 
more and more weight was put into the effort by St. Dona — 
that is, by the Italian right. 
The effort against the Montello was made very largely 
with Hungarian troops, and it suffered particularly from the 
sudden rising of the river, which took place upon the afternoon 
of Tuesday and all during Wednesday, and the effect of which 
we have already described. The Italian concentration was very 
rapid also, and the enemy, though the battle fluctuated on 
the hill, gradually lost ground. Already bv Wednesday the 
enemy was beginning to put his trust m^ .• w "^he alternative 
effort near St. Dona, and had here five pontoon bridges; 
the fury of the rising current was less so far down the river, 
and a'.so its increase in height was lc=s. His bridges were 
therefore secure. By the evening of Thun day he had crossed 
the next obstacle after the Piave in ths region, the Fosselta 
Canal, and by Tliursday he was m a position to prepare for 
a considerable attack m this region hi the direction of Losson. 
He may have had a? many as five divisions — or, at any rate, 
he had units from five divisions — on the west bank here. All 
Thursday there was furious fighting en the central part of 
the river and on the Montello, where the enemy was gradually 
losing hold, and it seemed as though the tide had turned all 
along the line. But there was one more effort to be made, 
and that was, of course, in Iront of St. Dona. In spite of 
the rapidly increasing concentration here, the enemy launched 
upon Friday his main assault. It suffered a very heavy 
and expensive check in front of I tsson ; but, as we have 
seen, this was not the only cause of anxiety for him. He 
might have attempted a still f'lrther westward extension by 
t 11' ting more men across the river, for he still had perhaps 
?x unused divisions when the news came of the threat to his 
extreme left near the mouth of the Piave, which was being 
developed ti^' the forces which had forced the water obstacle 
at Cavazuccherina, and which could be easily supported 
from tlie sea: It was clearly on the next day (Saturday) 
that the decision to give up this attempt to turn the 
Piave line was made by the enemy command. Con- 
sequently the apologetic dispatch written to prepare 
Austrian opinion for the collapse appeared fairly early upon 
the Sunday morning, and in the early ^ afternoon of the same 
day the Italians announced that the enemy was already in 
full retreat across the river, adding that this retreat was 
being carried out in some disorder, and was being pursued. 
At this point our information ends. The second great 
Austrian offensive in Italy has failed. 
The Pacifist 
PACIFIST is an ugly and very vulgar word ; made up on 
an ignorant echo of Latin. But it has obtained cur- 
rency and must be used. It designates at this partic- 
ular moment, not a man who prefers peace to war in general 
— as sane men mostly do — but a man who desires to-day the 
particular peace which can be immediately obtained by con- 
senting to negotiate with an undefeated Prussia, ruling direct- 
ly and indirectly, over 200 million souls, and at the height 
of her power ; yet dreading a prolongation of the war, be- 
cause famine, disaffection among Allies, and American re- 
cruitment all menace in the near future. 
A Pacifist is he who would, at such a moment, parley. 
To-morrow the word may seem something more That is 
what it means to-day. 
Public men have recently given to a certain enemy man- 
oeuvre on the poUtical side the excellent title of "A Peace 
Offensive." To that title there has been raised an objection, 
by which the Pacifist may be examined. The objection has 
not been raised publicly by those who stand for weightier 
and more respected of their kind. Nor by those who are sin- 
cere men and carry weight. It has been raised by parhamen- 
tarians. But we owe it to their betters for whom they say 
they speak, and also to ourselves to explain what a peace 
offensive means, why it should be regarded seriously, and 
why the overwhelming mass of the nation will have none 
of it. 
The objection taken to the phrase Hes in its imphcation. 
When we say that the enemy is preparing or will dehver a 
peace offensive we mean that his proposals for peace (he has 
made them several times already in the course of the war) 
are as much directed towards our defeat as are the operations 
of his armies. We mean that the proposals he has already 
put forward certainly and the proposals we expect he will put 
forward probably, have for their object a state of European 
society in which the civilised West, notably Great Britain, 
would sink to a position of inferiority, and would for the 
future (did we yield to those proposals) find itself suffering 
from all the consequences of a military defeat. That is, the 
older Western nations would find their national vitality 
lowered and threatening to fall lower still. They would 
find their possessions oversea either cut down or so menaced 
in the immediate future that one could limit their loss. 
They would ultimately find themselves impoverished to the 
advantage of the victors. Worst of all, the tradition for 
which they stand — a tradition of chivalry in war and of 
respect for European conventions, pubUc and private — 
would be supplanted in the future life of Europe by the threat 
of Prussian war with all its abominations, and the oppression 
of Europe by a dominating Central Power of lower culture 
than the rest. 
The thesis of those who do -not believe that such results 
would follow upon accepting the enemy's proposals, past or 
future, and who are ready to make terms with Prussia, is 
made up of four very different elements which, if you will 
examine them you will discover to have very httle to do one 
with the other ; but which combined produce the pacifist 
mood. 
The first undoubtedly is a conviction that (as they would 
put it) "No complete mihtary victory against Germany can 
be achieved." Mr. Philip Snowden said that in so many 
words in the House of Commons the other day. True, Mr. 
Philip Snowden's opinion upon a military situation is not 
worth having ; but he speaks for a certain body of men 
more reputable than tiimsolf, and there does undoubtedly 
run through that body^which, though small, carries weight 
in this fourth year of the war, after all its fatigues and dis- 
