cept for the Vippacco
Valley, which, though wretchedly cultivated hitherto, would richly repay
the application of capital and modern methods. Here, I think, is a clear
case where strategic considerations, which are definite, must prevail
over racial considerations, which are dubious. These lands must be
Italian after the war, if, with even the dimmest possibility of war
remaining, Italians are to have peace of mind. Nor does a strong
defensive frontier for Italy here imply a weak defensive frontier for
her eastern neighbours. For the tangle of mountains continues for many
miles further east.

* * * * *

Venosta told me that, when they took San Michele in July 1916, the
Italians lost 7000 in killed alone, seasoned soldiers of their old Army,
whom it has been hard to replace. But when San Michele fell, they swept
on and took Gorizia and all the surrounding plain at one bound, and, in
the same offensive, Monte Sabotino. This victory has a special
significance in modern Italian history, for it was the first time that
an Army composed of men from all parts of United Italy fought a pitched
battle against a great Army of Austria, Italy's secular enemy and
oppressor. Monte Cucco and Monte Vodice were taken in the offensive of
May 1917, and here, as at Monte Nero, the Alpini performed feats of arms
which, to soldiers accustomed to fighting on the flat, must seem all but
incredible. In one case twenty Alpini climbed up a sheer rock face at
night by means of ropes, and leaping upon the Austrian sentries killed
and threw them over the cliff without a sound, so that, when the main
body of Alpini, climbing by hardly less difficult paths, reached the
summit, they took the Austrian garrison in the rear and by surprise, and
the heights were theirs.

Monte Santo was still Austrian when I came, though the Italians held
trenches half-way up. On the summit the white ruins of a famous convent
were clearly visible. Here some of the bloodiest Infantry fighting of
the whole war took place in May 1917. The Italians were on the top once
in the full flood of that offensive, but could not hold it. Four gallant
Battalions charged up those steep slopes only to find that the Artillery
preparation had been insufficient and that the convent wall had not been
destroyed. Austrians poured out from deep caverns in the rock, where
they had taken refuge during the bombardment, and threw down bombs from
the top of the wall upo