ut the Italians held grimly on; they turned at bay on the Piave and in
the mountains, and checked the onrush of Austrians and Germans. Then,
supported by French and British reinforcements, but still inferior in
numbers, they continued for a year longer to hold up almost the whole
strength of Austria. That winter the poor were very near starvation in
the cities of Italy, and the peasants had to cut down their olive groves
for fuel. The following spring part of the French and British
reinforcements were withdrawn to France, together with an Italian
contingent which numerically balanced the French and British who
remained in Italy.

The Austrians also lost their German support and sent some of their own
troops to France, but they retained their numerical superiority on the
Italian Front. In June they launched a great attack on a seventy-mile
front, which was to have made an end of Italy; but the Italians beat
them back. Then four months later, after an intense effort of
preparation, Italy, still inferior in numbers and material, struck for
the last time and utterly destroyed the Austrian Army in the great
battle which will be known to history as Vittorio Veneto. The Austrians
lost twice as many prisoners and four times as many guns at Vittorio
Veneto as they had taken at Caporetto.

The war on the Italian Front was over, the Austrian Army was broken
beyond recovery, the Austrian State was dissolving into its national
elements, which only tradition, corruption and brute force had for so
long held together. Italy, heroic and constant, had endured to the end,
and with her last great gesture had both completed her own freedom, and
given their freedom to those who had been the instruments of her
enemies.

PART II

SOME EARLY IMPRESSIONS

CHAPTER II

FROM FOLKESTONE TO VENICE

On the 6th July, 1917, I arrived at Folkestone armed with a War Office
letter ordering my "passage to France for reinforcements for Siege
Artillery Batteries in Italy." I had a millpond crossing in the
afternoon, and that evening left Boulogne for Modane.

Next morning at 2 a.m. I was awakened from frowsy sleep by a French
soldier, laden with baggage, who stumbled headlong into the railway
carriage which I was sharing with three other British officers. We were
at Amiens. I was last here ten months before, when my Division was
coming back from rest to fight a second time upon the Somme. I did not
sleep again, but watched the sunrise behind