length of ribbon of trench and earthwork
that is drawn across western Europe.

"Here, as there, every yard is held and guarded. It is true that there
is not a continuous row of sentries; for on the Austro-Italian front
there are places where the natural barriers are impassable even for
the Alpine troops, who will climb to the aerie of the eagles. But
wherever nature has not barred the way against both sides alike the
trenches and fortified galleries run, stretching across the saddle
between two inaccessible peaks, ringing around the shoulder of a
mountain, dipping it into the valley, and then rising again to the
very summit or passing over it.

"There are guns everywhere--machine guns, mountain guns, field guns,
huge guns of position, 6-inch, 10-inch, 12-inch--which have been
dragged or carried with all their mountings, their equipment, their
tools and appurtenances, up to their stations, it may be, 3,000,
4,000, 6,000 feet above the level. And at those heights are the
larders of shell which must always be kept full so that the
carnivorous mouths of the man-eaters may not go hungry even for the
single hour of the single day which, at any point, an attack may
develop.

"Such is the long Italian battle line. When you know what it is you
are not surprised that here and there, and now and again, it should
bend and give a little before an enemy better supplied with heavy
artillery, and much favored by the topographical conditions; for he
has the higher mountain passes behind him instead of in front, and is
coming down the great Alpine stairway instead of going up.

"That of course is the salient feature of the campaign. The Italians
are going up, the Austrians coming, or trying to come, down. On the
loftier uplands, range beyond range, in enemy territory, the Austrians
before the war had their forts and fortified posts and their strategic
roads; and almost everywhere along the front they have observing
stations which overlook, at greater or less distance, the Italian
lines. Thus the Italians have had to make their advance, and build
their trenches, and place their guns, in the face of an enemy who lies
generally much above them, sometimes so much above them that he can
watch them from his nests of earth and rock as though he were soaring
in an aeroplane."

CHAPTER XXXII

THE SPRING OF 1916 ON THE AUSTRO-ITALIAN FRONT

During the early part of the spring of 1916, a large number of
engagements took place at