s to
be found in any of the theatres of war. On countless occasions Italian
heroes went forth on forlorn hopes to scale and capture impossible
precipices, and sometimes they succeeded. Through that bloody series of
offensives the Italians slowly but steadily gained ground, and drew ever
nearer to Trento and Trieste. Only those who went out to the Italian
Front before Caporetto, and saw with their own eyes what the Italian
Army had accomplished on the Carso and among the Julian Alps, can fully
realise the greatness of the Italian effort.

It must never be forgotten that Italy is both the youngest and the
poorest of the Great Powers of Europe. Barely half a century has passed
since United Italy was born, and the political and economic difficulties
of her national childhood were enormous. For many years, as one of her
own historians says, she was "not a state, but only the outward
appearance of a state." Her natural resources are poor and limited. She
possesses neither coal nor iron, and is still partially dependent on
imported food and foreign shipping. She is still very poor in
accumulated capital, and the burden of her taxation is very heavy.

From the moment of her entry into the war her economic problems became
very difficult, especially that of the provision of guns and munitions
in sufficient quantities, and the extent to which she solved this last
problem is deserving of the greatest admiration. Her position grew even
more difficult in 1917. After the military collapse of Russia she had to
face practically the whole Austrian Army, instead of only a part of it,
and a greatly increased weight of guns. The Austrians had 53 millions of
population to draw from, the Italians only 35. Moreover, just before
Caporetto, a number of German Divisions, with a powerful mass of
artillery and aircraft, were thrown into the Austrian scale, while from
the Italian was withdrawn the majority of that tiny handful of French
and British Batteries, which were all the armed support which, up to
that time, her Allies had ever lent her. Only five British Batteries and
a few French were left on the Italian Front. By the defeat of Caporetto
she lost a great quantity of guns and stores and practically the whole
of her Second Army, while half of Venetia fell into the hands of the
enemy, and remained in his possession for a year. The inferiority of the
Italian Army to its enemies, both in numbers and in material, was thus
sharply increased.

B