alians, particularly those of the upper class,
as late-rising, easy-going, and not particularly in love with work--a
sort of _dolce far niente_ people. But the war has shown how unsafe
are such generalizations. There is no harder worker on any front than
the Italian officer. Even the highest staff-officers are at their desks
by eight and frequently by seven. Though it is easier to get from the
Italian front to Milan or Florence than it is to get from Verdun to
Paris, or from the Somme to London, one sees little of the week-end
travelling so common on the British front. Officers in the war zone are
entitled to fifteen days' leave of absence a year, and from this rule
there are no deviations.

Through the mud we came to the Judrio, which marked the line of the
old frontier. We crossed the river by a pontoon bridge, for the
Austrians had destroyed the other in their retreat.

"We are in Austria now, I suppose?" I remarked. "In Italia Redenta,"
my companion corrected me. "This region has always been Italian in
everything but name, and now it is Italian in name also." The
occupation by the Italian troops, at the very outset of the war, of
this wedge of territory between the Judrio and the Isonzo, with
Monfalcone, Cervignano, Cormons, Gradisca--old Italian towns all--did
much to give the Italian people confidence in the efficiency of their
armies and the ability of their generals.

Now the roads were filled with the enormous equipment of an army
advancing. Every village swarmed with gray soldiers. We passed
interminable processions of motor-lorries, mule-carts, trucks, and
wagons piled high with hay,[A] lumber, wine-casks, flour, shells,
barbed wire; boxes of ammunition; pontoon-trains, balloon outfits,
searchlights mounted on motor-trucks, wheeled blacksmith shops,
wheeled post-offices, field-kitchens; beef and mutton on the hoof;
mammoth howitzers and siege guns hauled by panting tractors; creaking,
clanking field-batteries, and bright-eyed, brown-skinned, green-caped
infantry, battalions, regiments, brigades of them plodding along
under slanting lines of steel. All the resources of Italy seemed
crowding up to make good the recent gains and to make ready for the
next push. One has to see a great army on the march to appreciate how
stupendous is the task of supplying with food the hungry men and the
hungrier guns, and how it taxes to the utmost all the industrial
resources of a nation.

[Illustration: A Heavy Howitzer