there. To insure the
co-ordination and co-operation of the various divisions of the army,
an elaborate system of field telegraphs and telephones had to be
installed, and, in order to provide against the lines being cut by
shell-fire and the whole complex organism paralyzed, the wires were
laid in groups of four. Then there had to be repair-stations for the
broken machinery, and other repair-stations--with Red Cross flags
flying over them--for the broken men. So in the rear of the sector
where the Italians planned to give battle on a front of thirty miles,
a series of great base hospitals were established, and, nearer the
front, a series of clearing-hospitals, and, still closer up,
field-hospitals, and in the immediate rear of the fighting-line,
hundreds of dressing-stations and first-aid posts were located in
dugouts and bomb-proof shelters. And along the roads stretched endless
caravans of gray ambulances, for it promised to be a bloody business.
In other words, it was necessary, before the battle could be fought
with any hope of success, to build what was to all intents and
purposes a great modern city, a city of half a million inhabitants,
with many miles of macadamized thoroughfares, with water and telephone
and telegraph systems, with a highly efficient sanitary service, with
railways, with huge warehouses filled with food and clothing, with
more hospitals than any city ever had before, with butcher-shops and
bakeries and machine-shops and tailors and boot-menders--in fact, with
everything necessary to meet the demands of 500,000 men. Yet Mr.
Bryan and his fellow-members of the Order of the Dove and Olive-Branch
would have us believe that all that is necessary in order to win a
modern battle is to take the trusty target-rifle from the closet under
the stairs, dump a box of cartridges into our pockets, and sally
forth, whereupon the enemy, decimated by the deadliness of our fire,
will be only too glad to surrender.

The most formidable task which confronted the Italians was that of
constructing the vast system of trenches through which the troops
could be moved forward in comparative safety to the positions from
which would be launched the final assault. This presented no
exceptional difficulties in the rich alluvial soil on the Isonzo's
western bank, but once the Italians had crossed the river they found
themselves on the Carso, through whose solid rock the trenches could
be driven only with pneumatic drills and d