either been driven back
across or into the river by Italian counter-attacks, or had been cut off
and compelled to surrender. We, therefore, came back to the Plateau
without firing a round.

But we did not remain there long. The idea of a mobile Artillery of
manoeuvre was much talked of at this time, and early in July a Brigade
consisting of three British Siege Batteries, my own included, was moved
westwards up into the Trentino. We travelled all the way by road,
through Verona up to Brescia, "the eagle that looks over Lombardy," and
thence beside Lake Idro, up the Val Chiese, past Storo into the Val
D'Ampola.

All this last stretch of country is famous in Italian history as the
scene of Garibaldi's campaign of 1866, which, had it not been
interrupted by the course of events elsewhere, would probably have
hastened the liberation of Trento by more than half a century, and
greatly modified the problems of Italian policy in recent years. The
story is well known of the recall of Garibaldi, which reached him at the
moment of victory at Bezzecca, and of his famous reply, a model of
laconic self-discipline, in the one word "Ubbidisco"--"I obey." The
little town of Bezzecca lay this July behind the Italian lines, but in
full view and easy range of the Austrians. A company of Arditi was
billeted here, with whom I lunched one day, returning from a front line
reconnaissance. The Piazza had been renamed by the Italians "Piazza
Ubbidisco," and under cover of darkness they set up one night on the
mountain side just above the town a memorial stone to Garibaldi and his
volunteers of 1866, a provocative target for Austrian gunners.

No other British troops, except these three Batteries of ours, ever
fought in the Trentino. It was a proud distinction and a very memorable
experience. The natural scenery was superb, a series of great mountain
ranges, uneven lines of jagged peaks, enclosing deep cut valleys, the
lower slopes of the mountains densely wooded, the higher levels bare
precipitous rock. The Austrian front line ran along one ridge of peaks
and ours along another; between ran a deep valley, all No Man's Land,
into which patrols used to climb down at night, often with the aid of
ropes. One mountain mass, a continuation of Cima d'Oro, was partly in
our possession and partly in theirs, and up there by night among the
rocks patrols grappled for the mastery, poised high above the world, and
in these struggles men sometimes slipped, or