The Project Gutenberg EBook of With British Guns in Italy, by Hugh Dalton

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Title: With British Guns in Italy
A Tribute to Italian Achievement

Author: Hugh Dalton

Release Date: November 17, 2003 [EBook #10107]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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WITH BRITISH GUNS IN ITALY
A TRIBUTE TO ITALIAN ACHIEVEMENT

BY

HUGH DALTON

SOMETIME LIEUTENANT IN THE ROYAL GARRISON ARTILLERY

WITH 12 ILLUSTRATIONS AND 3 MAPS

_First Published in 1919_

TO THE HIGH CAUSE OF ANGLO-ITALIAN FRIENDSHIP AND UNDERSTANDING

"Nella primavera si combatte e si muore, o soldato."

M. PUCCINI, _Dal Carso al Piave_.

"So they gave their bodies to the commonwealth and received, each for
his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the grandest of
all sepulchres; not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a
home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to
speech or action as the occasion comes by. For the whole earth is the
sepulchre of famous men; and their story is not graven only on stone
over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol,
woven into the stuff of other men's lives."

_Funeral Speech of Pericles_.

"Dying here is not death; it is flying into the dawn."

MEREDITH, _Vittoria_.

PREFACE

So far as I know, no British soldier who served on the Italian Front has
yet published a book about his experiences. Ten British Batteries went
to Italy in the spring of 1917 and passed through memorable days. But
their story has not yet been told. Nor, except in the language of
official dispatches, has that of the British Divisions which went to
Italy six months later, some of which remained and took part in the
final and decisive phases of the war against Austria. Something more
should soon be written concerning the doings of the British troops in
Italy, for they deserve to stand out clearly in the history of the war.

This little book of mine is only an account, more or less in the form of
a Diary, of what one British soldier saw