Part 8

"In July I was given command of a battalion occupying a position at the foot of the Col di Lana. Perhaps you saw from the lake, as you came up, the commanding position of this mountain. If so, you will understand its supreme importance to us, whether for defensive or offensive purposes. Looking straight down the Cordevole Valley toward the plains of Italy, it not only furnished the Austrians an incomparable observation post, but also stood as an effectual barrier against any advance of our own toward the Livinallongo Valley and the important Pordoi Pass. We needed it imperatively for the safety of any line we established in this region; and just as imperatively would we need it when we were ready to push the Austrians back. Since it was just as important for the Austrians to maintain possession of this great natural fortress as it was for us to take it away from them, you will understand how it came about that the struggle for the Col di Lana was perhaps the bitterest that has yet been waged for any one point on the Alpine front.

"Early in July, under cover of our guns to the south and east, the Alpini streamed down from the Cima di Falzarego and Sasso di Stria, which they had occupied shortly before, and secured what was at first but a precarious foothold on the stony lower eastern slope of the Col di Lana. Indeed, it was little more than a toe-hold at first; but the never-resting Alpini soon dug themselves in and became firmly established. It was to the command of this battalion of Alpini that I came on the 12th of July, after being given to understand that my work was to be the taking of the Col di Lana regardless of cost.

"This was the first time that I--or any other Garibaldi, for that matter (my grandfather, with his 'Thousand,' took Sicily from fifty times that number of Bourbon soldiers) had ever had enough, or even the promise of enough, men to make that 'regardless of cost' formula much more than a hollow mockery. But it is not in a Garibaldi to sacrifice men for any object whatever if there is any possible way of avoiding it. The period of indiscriminate frontal attacks had passed even before I left France, and ways were already being devised--mostly mining and better artillery protection--to make assaults less costly. Scientific 'man-saving,' in which my country has since made so much progress, was then in its infancy on the Italian front.

"I found many difficulties in the way of putting into practice on the Col di Lana the man-saving theories I had seen in process of development in the Argonne. At that time the Austrians--who had appreciated the great importance of that mountain from the outset--had us heavily out-gunned while mining in the hard rock was too slow to make it worth while until some single position of crucial value hung in the balance. So--well, I simply did the best I could under the circumstances. The most I could do was to give my men as complete protection as possible while they were not fighting, and this end was accomplished by establishing them in galleries cut out of the solid rock. This was, I believe, the first time the 'gallery-barracks'--now quite the rule at all exposed points--were used on the Italian front.

"There was no other way in the beginning but to drive the enemy off the Col di Lana trench by trench, and this was the task I set myself to toward the end of July. What made the task an almost prohibitive one was the fact that the Austrian guns from Corte and Cherz--which we were in no position to reduce to silence--were able to rake us unmercifully. Every move we made during the next nine months was carried out under their fire, and there is no use in denying that we suffered heavily. I used no more men than I could possibly help using, and the Higher Command was very generous in the matter of reserves, and even in increasing the strength of the force at my disposal as we gradually got more room to work in. By the end of October my original command of a battalion had been increased largely.

"The Austrians made a brave and skilful defense, but the steady pressure we were bringing to bear on them gradually forced them back up the mountain. By the first week in November we were in possession of three sides of the mountain, while the Austrians held the fourth side and--but most important of all--the summit. The latter presented a sheer wall of rock, more than 200 metres high, to us from any direction we were able to approach it, and on the crest of this cliff--the only point exposed to our artillery fire--the enemy had a cunningly concealed machine-gun post served by fourteen men. Back and behind, under shelter in a rock gallery, was a reserve of 200 men, who were expected to remain safely under cover during a bombardment and then sally forth to any infantry attack that might follow it. The handful in the machine-gun post, it was calculated, would be sufficient, and more than sufficient, to keep us from scaling the cliff before their reserves came up to support them; and so they would have been if there had been only an infantry attack to reckon with. It failed to allow sufficiently, however, for the weight of the artillery we were bringing up, and the skill of our gunners. The apparent impregnability of the position was really its undoing.

"This cunningly conceived plan of defense I had managed to get a pretty accurate idea of--no matter how--and I laid my own plans accordingly. All the guns I could get hold of I had emplaced in positions most favorable for concentrating on the real key to the summit--the exposed machine-gun post on the crown of the cliff--with the idea, if possible, of destroying men and guns completely, or, failing in that, at least to render it untenable for the reserves who would try to rally to its defense.

"We had the position ranged to an inch, and so, fortunately, lost no time in 'feeling' for it. This, with the surprise incident to it, was perhaps the principal element in our success; for the plan--at least so far as taking the summit was concerned--worked out quite as perfectly in action as upon paper. That is the great satisfaction of working with the Alpino, by the way: he is so sure, so dependable, that the 'human fallibility' element in a plan (always the most uncertain quantity) is practically eliminated.

"It is almost certain that our sudden gust of concentrated gunfire snuffed out the lives of all the men in the machine-gun post before they had time to send word of our developing infantry attack to the reserves in the gallery below. At any rate, these latter made no attempt whatever to swarm up to the defense of the crest, even after our artillery fire ceased. The consequence was that the 120 Alpini I sent to scale the cliff reached the top with only three casualties, these probably caused by rolling rocks or flying rock fragments. The Austrians in their big 'funk-hole' were taken completely by surprise, and 130 of them fell prisoners to considerably less than that number of Italians. The rest of the 200 escaped or were killed in their flight.

"So far it was so good; but, unfortunately, taking the summit and holding it were two entirely different matters. No sooner did the Austrians discover what had happened than they opened on the summit with all their available artillery. We have since ascertained that the fire of 120 guns was concentrated upon a space of 100 by 150 metres which offered the only approach to cover that the barren summit afforded. Fifty of my men, finding shelter in the lee of rocky ledges, remained right out on the summit; the others crept over the edge of the cliff and held on by their fingers and toes. Not a man of them sought safety by flight, though a retirement would have been quite justified, considering what a hell the Austrians' guns were making of the summit. The enemy counter-attacked at nightfall, but despite superior numbers and the almost complete exhaustion of that little band of Alpini heroes, they were able to retake only a half of the summit. Here, at a ten-metres-high ridge which roughly bisects the cima, the Alpini held the Austrians, and here, in turn, the latter held the reinforcements which I was finally able to send to the Alpini's aid. There, exposed to the fire of the guns of either side (and so comparatively safe from both), a line was established from which there seemed little probability that one combatant could drive the other, at least without a radical change from the methods so far employed.

"The idea of blowing up positions that cannot be taken otherwise is by no means a new one. Probably it dates back almost as far as the invention of gunpowder itself. Doubtless, if we only knew of them, there have been attempts to mine the Great Wall of China. It was, therefore, only natural that, when the Austrians had us held up before a position it was vitally necessary we should have, we should begin to consider the possibility of mining it as the only alternative. The conception of the plan did not necessarily originate in the mind of any one individual, however many have laid claim to it. It was the inevitable thing if we were not going to abandon striving for our objective.

"But while there was nothing new in the idea of the mine itself, in carrying out an engineering operation of such magnitude at so great an altitude and from a position constantly exposed to intense artillery fire there were presented many problems quite without precedent. It was these problems which gave us pause; but finally, despite the prospect of difficulties which we fully realized might at any time become prohibitive, it was decided to make the attempt to blow up that portion of the summit of the Col di Lana still held by the enemy.

"The choice of the engineer for the work was a singularly fortunate one. Gelasio Caetani--he is a son of the Duke of Sermoneta--had operated as a mining engineer in the American West for a number of years previous to the war, and the practical experience gained in California and Alaska was invaluable preparation for the great task now set for him. His ready resource and great personal courage were also incalculable assets.

"Well, the tunnel was started about the middle of January, 1916. Some of my men--Italians who had hurried home to fight for their country when the war started--had had some previous experience with hand and machine drills in the mines of Colorado and British Columbia, but the most of our labor had to gain its experience as the work progressed. Considering this, as well as the difficulty of bringing up material (to say nothing of food and munitions), we made very good progress.

"The worst thing about it all was the fact that it had to be done under the incessant fire of the Austrian artillery. I provided for the men as best as I could by putting them in galleries, where they were at least able to get their rest. When the enemy finally found out what we were up to they celebrated their discovery by a steady bombardment which lasted for fourteen days without interruption. During a certain forty-two hours of that fortnight there was, by actual count, an average of thirty-eight shells a minute exploding on our little position.

"We were constantly confronted with new and perplexing problems--things which no one had ever been called upon to solve before--most of them in connection with transportation. How we contrived to surmount one of these I shall never forget. The Austrians had performed a brave and audacious feat in emplacing one of their batteries at a certain point, the fire from which threatened to make our position absolutely untenable. The location of this battery was so cunningly chosen that not one of our guns could reach it; and yet we had to silence it--and for good--if we were going to go on with our work. The only point from which we could fire upon these destructive guns was so exposed that any artillery we might be able to mount there could only count on the shortest shrift under the fire of the hundred or more 'heavies' that the Austrians would be able to concentrate upon it. And yet (I figured), well employed, these few minutes might prove enough to do the work in.

"And then there arose another difficulty. The smallest gun that would stand a chance of doing the job cut out for it weighed 120 kilos--about 265 pounds; this just for the gun alone, with all detachable parts removed. But the point where the gun was to be mounted was so exposed that there was no chance of rigging up a cable-way, while the incline was so steep and rough that it was out of the question to try to drag it up with ropes. Just as we were on the verge of giving up in despair, one of the Alpini--a man of Herculean frame who had made his living in peace-time by breaking chains on his chest and performing other feats of strength--came and suggested that he be allowed to carry the gun up on his shoulders. Grasping at a straw, I let him indulge in a few 'practice manuvres'; but these only showed that, while the young Samson could shoulder and trot off with the gun without great effort, the task of lifting himself and his burden from foothold to foothold in the crumbling rock of the seventy-degree slope was too much for him.

"But out of this failure there came a new idea. Why not let my strong man simply support the weight of the gun on his shoulder--acting as a sort of ambulant gun-carriage, so to speak--while a line of men pulled him along with a rope?

We rigged up a harness to equalize the pull on the broad back, and, with the aid of sixteen ordinary men, the feat was accomplished without a hitch. I am sorry to say, however, that poor Samson was laid up for a spell with racked muscles.

"The gun--with the necessary parts and munition--was taken up in the night, and at daybreak it was set up and ready for action. It fired just forty shots before the Austrian 'heavies' blew it--and all but one or two of its brave crew--to pieces with a rain of high-explosive. But the troublesome Austrian battery was put so completely out of action that the enemy never thought it worth while to re-emplace it.

"That is just a sample of the fantastic things we were doing all of the three months that we drove the tunnel under the summit of the Col di Lana. The last few weeks were further enlivened by the knowledge that the Austrians were countermining against us. Once they drove so near that we could feel the jar of their drills, but they exploded their mine just a few metres short of where it would have upset us for good and for all. All the time work went on until, on the 17th of April, the mine was finished, charged, and 'tamped.' That night, while every gun we could bring to bear rained shell upon the Austrian position, it was exploded. A crater 150 feet in diameter and sixty feet deep engulfed the ridge the enemy had occupied, and this our waiting Alpini rushed and firmly held. Austrian counterattacks were easily repulsed, and the Col di Lana was at last completely in Italian hands."

* * * * *

During the late spring and summer of 1916, there was waged in France that great series of battles participated in by both British and French armies known as the battles of the Somme. Next to the defense of Verdun, they formed the most important military operations on the western front during that year. These battles are described in the narrative which follows.

THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME

SIR DOUGLAS HAIG

The principle of an offensive campaign during the Summer of 1916 had already been decided on by all the Allies. The various possible alternatives on the western front had been studied and discussed by General Joffre and myself, and we were in complete agreement as to the front to be attacked by the combined French and British armies. Preparations for our offensive had made considerable progress; but as the date on which the attack should begin was dependent on many doubtful factors, a final decision on that point was deferred until the general situation should become clearer.

Subject to the necessity of commencing operations before the Summer was too far advanced, and with due regard to the general situation, I desired to postpone my attack as long as possible. The British armies were growing in numbers and the supply of munitions was steadily increasing. Moreover, a very large proportion of the officers and men under my command were still far from being fully trained, and the longer the attack could be deferred the more efficient they would become. On the other hand, the Germans were continuing to press their attacks at Verdun, and both there and on the Italian front, where the Austrian offensive was gaining ground, it was evident that the strain might become too great to be borne unless timely action were taken to relieve it. Accordingly, while maintaining constant touch with General Joffre in regard to all these considerations, my preparations were pushed on, and I agreed, with the consent of his Majesty's Government, that my attack should be launched, whenever the general situation required it, with as great a force as I might then be able to make available.

By the end of May, 1916, the pressure of the enemy on the Italian front had assumed such serious proportions that the Russian campaign was opened early in June, and the brilliant successes gained by our allies against the Austrians at once caused a movement of German troops from the western to the eastern front. This, however, did not lessen the pressure on Verdun. The heroic defense of our French allies had already gained many weeks of inestimable value and had caused the enemy very heavy losses; but the strain continued to increase. In view, therefore, of the situation in the various theatres of war, it was eventually agreed between General Joffre and myself that the combined French and British offensive should not be postponed beyond the end of June.