grado. On the other side of the river, almost opposite Gorizia, are
the equally strong positions of Podgora and Monte Sabotino. Their
steep slopes were slashed with Austrian trenches and abristle with
guns which commanded the roads leading to the river, the bridge-heads,
and the town. To take Gorizia until these positions had been captured
was obviously out of the question. Here, as elsewhere, Austria held
the upper ground. In a memorandum issued by the Austrian General Staff
to its officers at the beginning of the operations before Gorizia, the
tremendous advantage of the Austrian position was made quite clear:
"We have to retain possession of a terrain fortified by Nature. In
front of us a great watercourse; behind us a ridge from which we can
shoot as from a ten-story building."

The difficulties which the Italians had to overcome in their advance
were enormous. From their mountain nests the Austrian guns were able
to maintain a murderous fire on the Italian lines of communication,
thus preventing the bringing up of men and supplies. It therefore
became necessary for the Italians to build new roads which would not
be thus exposed to enemy fire, and in cases where this was impossible,
the existing roads were masked for miles on end with artificial hedges
and screens of grass matting. In many places it was found necessary to
screen the roads overhead as well as on the sides, so that the
Italians could move up their heavy guns without attracting the
attention of the enemy's observers stationed on the highest mountain
peaks, or of the Austrian airmen. But this was not all, or nearly all.
An army is ever a hungry monster, so slaughter-houses and bakeries and
field-kitchens, to say nothing of incredible quantities of
food-stuffs, had to be provided. Fighting being a thirsty business, it
was necessary to arrange for piping up water, for great tanks to hold
that water, and for water-carts, hundreds and hundreds of them, to
peddle it among the panting troops. A prize-fighter cannot sleep out
in the open, on the bare ground, and keep in condition for the ring,
and a soldier, who is likewise a fighting-man but from a different
motive, must be made comfortable of nights if he is to keep in
fighting-trim. So millions of feet of lumber had to be brought up,
along roads already overcrowded with traffic, and that lumber had to
be transformed into temporary huts and barrackments--a city of them.
But the preparations did not end even