ommand of the air, but by flying low they
often threw into confusion with their machine guns the Austrian
infantry. Their wonderful work in bringing in military information, and
in bombing expeditions, was not excelled, if it was equaled, by the
airmen of any other country. The Italian airplanes themselves were
engineering triumphs. The inventive genius so notable in these days in
Italy found expression in their development. Some of their machines were
the biggest made during the whole war, and the long journeys made by
such machines deserve special mention. The most interesting feat of this
kind was performed on August 9th by the famous poet, Captain Gabrielle
D'Annunzio. Accompanied by eight Italian machines, he flew to the city
of Vienna, a total distance of 620 miles, and dropped copies of an
Allied manifesto over the city. They crossed the Alps in a great wind
storm at a height of ten thousand feet, and all but one returned safely.
The manifesto, which was written by D'Annunzio reads as follows:

People of Vienna, you are fated to know the Italians. We are flying over
Vienna and could drop tons of bombs. On the contrary we leave a
salutation and the flag with its colors of liberty. We Italians do not
make war on children, the aged and women. We make war on your
government, which is the enemy of the liberty of nations,--on your
blind, wanton, cruel government, which gives you neither peace nor
bread, and nurtures you on hatred and delusions. People of Vienna, you
have the reputation of being intelligent, why then do you wear the
Prussian uniform? Now you see the entire world is against you, do you
wish to continue the war? Keep on, then, but it will be your suicide.
What can you hope from the victory promised to you by the Prussian
generals? Their decisive victory is like the bread of the Ukraine,--one
dies while awaiting it. People of Vienna, think of your dear ones,
awake! Long live Italy, Liberty and the Entente!

It was said that copies of this proclamation in Vienna had a value of
fifty dollars a copy. D'Annunzio's great fame had seized upon the
popular imagination. His career in the war would have been interesting
in itself, but when one recognizes that he was already a world figure,
the greatest modern Italian dramatist and novelist, his life seems
almost like a fairy story. Before the war began he made addresses all
over his country, urging Italy's participation in the war, and when war
was declared, to