attacked during the fortnight by a strange combination of the
advanced wing of the pro-war party who considered that the ministry was
not displaying enough firmness in its conduct of the campaign, with the
pacifist socialist party who denounced the Government for infringing
the constitutional rights of the people in the interests of militarism.
A feeling of _malaise_ was in the air. All the elements of success were
present in the Italian Army except the most important of all, the
psychological element.

[Sidenote: Evacuation of Udine.]

By this time motor-lorries had already begun to pour back through Udine,
and in the streets the Signal Corps were taking down the
telegraph-wires. You saw little parties of father, mother, and children
suddenly emerge from house or shop, each with hand-luggage. If you
looked closely you generally saw that the woman was crying.

[Sidenote: Air fights between Germans and Italians.]

On the twenty-sixth there were frequent attempts to reach Udine by
German flyers who were new to the ground. It was the first time that the
Italian Air Corps had had to deal with a German attempt to contest their
supremacy and they came well out of the trial. Ten enemy machines were
brought down during the day, two individual Italian airmen accounting
for three each. When the enemy machines were sighted heading for Udine
the jarring scream of a siren gave the alarm, and the police cleared the
streets.

Saturday, October 27, was the day of general exodus.

[Sidenote: Batteries hold rearward positions.]

I left Udine early on Saturday morning, in the car of the British
general commanding our artillery contingent on the Italian front, to go
up to the batteries and see how they got on in the retreat. We crawled
out toward the front along roads blocked with rearward-moving traffic
for which there was no organization, and after lunching at the general's
headquarters at Gradisca, I went on to Rubbia, just across the Isonzo,
to the south of Gorizia, where was the group headquarters of the
batteries. Already the supply service of the Third Army were pouring in
a black mass along the road, screened at the side and overhead by
rushmats from the observation of the enemy. Voices and hammering under
the long wooden bridge across the Isonzo at Rubbia were signs that the
Italian engineers were putting in position charges of explosive to blow
it up when as much material as possible had been brought over. Some of
our bat