Italian
towns on the other side of the old frontier, Udine for example, but with
a certain element of a heavier and more _rococo_ style, the Viennese.
There is still a fairly large civilian population in the town, and one
restaurant still keeps open.

I found the British Red Cross in the Via Ponte Isonzo, in what had once
been a big boarding-house, with a large untidy garden behind. Most of
those stationed there were motor ambulance drivers, about twenty in
number, some too old to fight, some rejected for health, some Quakers,
unwilling to kill, but willing to risk their own lives on behalf of the
wounded, others again boys under military age, who go, as soon as they
can, to the Navy or the Flying Corps. It is brave and nervous work they
do, driving ambulances in the dark, without lights and under fire.

After dinner I sat out in the garden in the twilight and talked with an
old acquaintance of mine, who has had a large share in the organisation
and daily work of the British Red Cross in Italy. The Italians, he said,
are really beginning to feel their feet, as a united nation, in this
war. Men of all classes from all parts of Italy are meeting and mixing
with one another as they have never done before, and the old
_regionalismo_ is being rapidly undermined. He himself has almost ceased
to think critically of the past or speculatively of the future, but just
lives and works in the present. As to the state of the world after the
war, he is very confident, provided we go on fighting long enough.
Nothing that happens at home is of great importance, all the pressure is
on the Fronts. Everything is looking now in the direction of democracy.
Even Russia, in the long run unconquerable, has got her good out of the
war already, whatever miseries and transitory anarchy she may have yet
to undergo. In England and elsewhere many of the present political
leaders are vile, but we shall all know what we want the world to look
like, and to _be_ like, after the war, and new leaders will arise and
lead us. When the survivors of our smitten generation have grown old,
there must be a peace of hearts, as well as a peace of arms, between the
young of all lands. But our generation can never make personal
friendships again with Germans, seeing that they have killed nearly all
those who mattered most to us, and that we have to spend the rest of our
lives without them.

* * * * *

He motored me back to the Vippa