ed for the attack when it came--and Gorizia
fell.

By the 4th of August, 1916, all was ready for the Big Push. On the
morning of that day brisk fighting began on the Monfalcone sector.
Convinced that this was the danger-point, the Austrian commander
rushed his reserves southward to strengthen his threatened line. This
was precisely what the Italians wanted. They had succeeded in
distracting his attention from their real objective--Gorizia. Now the
battle of Gorizia was really not fought at Gorizia at all. What
happened was the brilliant and bloody storming of the Austrian
positions on Podgora and Monte Sabotino, a simultaneous crossing of
the Isonzo opposite Gorizia and at Sagrado, and a splendid rush up to
and across the plateau of the Carso which culminated in the taking of
Monte San Michele. Gorizia itself was not organized for defense, and
so astounded was its garrison at the capture in rapid succession of
the city's defending positions, which had been deemed impregnable,
that no serious resistance was offered.

On the morning of August 6 a hurricane of steel suddenly broke upon
Gorizia. But the Italian gunners had received careful instructions,
and instead of blowing the city off the map, as they could easily have
done, they confined their efforts to the destruction of the enemy's
headquarters, observation posts, and telephone-stations, thus
destroying his means of communication and effectually disrupting his
entire organization. Other batteries turned their attention to the
railway-station, the railway-yards, and the roads, dropping such a
curtain of shell-fire behind the town that the Austrians were unable
to bring up reinforcements. Care was taken, however, to do as little
damage as possible to the city itself, as the Italians wanted it for
themselves.

The most difficult, as it was the most spectacular, phase of the
attack was the storming of the Sabotino, a mountain two thousand feet
high, which, it was generally believed, could never be taken with the
bayonet. The Italians, realizing that no troops in the world could
hope to reach the summit of those steep slopes in the face of barbed
wire, rifles, and machine-guns, had, unknown to the enemy, driven a
tunnel, a mile and a quarter long, into the very heart of this
position. When the assault was ordered, therefore, the first lines of
Italian infantry suddenly appeared from out of the ground within a few
yards of the Austrian trenches. Amid a storm of _vivas