ront. From then till dawn the night sky
was continually breaking into a glare like that of gigantic sunset, and
the crash of destroyed artillery ammunition shook the ground. The less
brilliant, but steadier, glow of burning stores and sheds and houses was
constantly multiplied, and the flash of every new explosion revealed
fresh masses of black smoke rising in sharp outline against the lurid
horizon. It was an apocalyptic spectacle; nothing short of a volcanic
eruption could produce those tremendous effects of infernal
illumination. Millions of pounds' worth of material, all the fruits of
two and a half years of labor, were burned and blasted out of existence
in a few hours.

[Sidenote: The necessity for speed.]

[Sidenote: Valuable stores abandoned for lack of lorries.]

The difficulty that complicated the Italian evacuation of their war-zone
was the fact that every hour the need for speed became more urgent, if
utter disaster was to be averted. A unit would be given twelve hours to
get to the point on the railway where it was to entrain and then an hour
later its time-limit would be reduced to two hours. A headquarters might
be told that a sufficient supply of motor-lorries would be available to
evacuate all its material and that it had better begin getting rid of
chairs and tables and its superfluous stuff at once, but no sooner had
these less important stores gone than word would come that no more
transport was available and that all the immensely valuable stores and
reserves of ammunition that still remained, must be abandoned, as no
lorries could be found for them.

[Sidenote: Difficulties in a sudden retreat.]

[Sidenote: Every officer tries to save his supplies.]

Moving a great army is an affair of time-tables. There is room for only
a certain amount of men and material on the roads and railways at one
time, and every man and every wagon above that maximum becomes a factor
of confusion and retards the movement of the whole mass to a dangerous
degree. The sudden retreat of an army is often reduced to chaos, first,
because a thoroughly worked-out plan of general retirement exists but
rarely in the strong-boxes of any general staff, and secondly, because
in the absence of a time-table drawn up in detail and strictly enforced,
the elementary principle of self-preservation leads every unit of the
army to put itself on the road as quickly as it can get transportation.
This is not to say that confusion is an inv