- 'Climbing the Snow-Capped Alpian Peaks
- with the Italians'
- told by Whitney Warren
- an American on the Austrian Front
"Battling Where Men Never Battled Before"
brute manpower hauling heavy artillery up the mountainsides
After climbing Carso peaks with Cadorna's Alpini, descending into shell craters with Petain's poilus and fraternizing with Haig's Tommies on the shell swept fronts of the Somme Mr. Warren, an American, has made the world comprehend the loyalty, the sacrifices and the practical services of the Italians. Fired by his enthusiasm for the courage, devotion and military ability of the Italians, he tells the vivid story of the comparatively little known fighting on the Italian-Austrian front.
I — Over the Alps with Cadorna's Men
Sly hints are about in America as to the pusillanimity of the Italians. Some persons are ready enough to absorb these hints. Nothing could be more monstrously false. It is not a matter about which I need to argue — I know. No one with the full use of eyes and ears and possessed of moderate intelligence could spend twenty-five days with Cadorna's fighting men without being thrilled. They are battling where men never battled before — upon the tops of high mountains, elevations that only eagles knew before Germany put the torch to civilization. They are swinging bridges across incredible chasms. They are chiselling roadways where monkeys could scarcely cling. They are blowing off the tops of gigantic mountains in order to progress a few meters. They are accepting the most frightful hardships with that charming acceptance of the inevitable which, it seems to me, is so characteristically Italian. They freeze. They starve. But always they go ahead — and Vienna knows with a drag at the heart that the standards of Italy will shortly snap from the housetops of Trieste.
I say that men never fought before in country so frightfully convulsed by nature. Wily Austria, peering into the future, knew that the hour would come when Italian forbearance would strike twelve and demand the liberation of oppressed Italians in the Trentino, and so Austria in the Peace of Villafranca brought about an iniquitous boundary which left her with her feet planted in Italian territory, with her fortresses upon Italian mountain crests. And that desperate handicap was what Italy faced when she went to war to liberate her people. All the odds were against her. But she is winning — winning a few hundred meters at a time. She conquers first one peak, then a whole range, then another peak, then another range, and all the time fights classical warfare, the classical warfare that has been abandoned in France and Belgium. Hear this story — one of fifty such:
from a British newsmagazine
II — Story of an Italian-American Who Blew Up a Mountain
Fifteen years ago a charming, cultivated young Italian, son of the Duke of Sermonetta, came to the United States to study mining engineering. He sank his identity in a family name, Gealsio Caetani, earned his degree in the Columbia School of Mines, went West and labored at $2 a day with pick and shovel so as to know his business from the ground down, became superintendent (out of sheer ability) of a great mine in Alaska and eventually opened a consulting office in San Francisco. When the Germans overran Belgium Caetani threw up his business, hastened to Belgium and volunteered. When Italy was ready to fight he joined his own colors and entered the aviation service. I saw him in flying man's toggery.
"But you, Caetani, are an engineer," I said. "Why not overthrow mountains and build bridges instead of winging about as an observer." Then I went away to see how successful the Austrians had been in destroying the art treasures of Venice and Milan; and after a while men told me the story of an engineer who uprooted a mountain range upon which two battalions of Austrians had defied an army for many months. This engineer who had solved nature's great problems in the Rocky Mountains and in Alaska climbed like a fly up the face of sheer rock cliffs, managed to drag after him the necessary drills and then, with Austrian riflemen patrolling high overhead drilled a tunnel of 300 meters length into the solid rock. It took three months. He stuffed the tunnel with seven tons of explosives, attached his fuses and his wiring, scrambled back down the cliffs and invited the army to a spectacle. A touch of the forefinger, a cataclysm, cheers ringing through the defiles. The mountain top was gone. This engineer was the American trained Gealsio Caetani. The mountain was the Col di Lana in the Trentino.
When one visits such men one climbs to the aeries of eagles, for it is at such heights that the troops of Italy are fighting. To such heights — 2,000 meters, 3,000 metres, often 4,000 meters, they must swing or drag the great guns, their stores of provisions, their supplies of ammunition. Major Neri, a great engineer, nonchalantly bridged two mountain ranges with slender wire cables. They had told him it couldn't be done. He did it. I asked him how. "By fastening one end of the bridge to one mountain and the other end to another mountain — so," said Neri. What does one reply to such men?
In the Carso I formed a pretty good idea of the difficulties of the Italian campaign. From the point of view of attack the character of the country is the crudest imaginable. It is simply inconceivable that any human beings could persist for two years blasting out trenches inch by inch, building up both sides to a proper height with fragments of rock and myriads of sand bags under the most terrific and plunging crossfire of mitrailleuse, musketry, hand grenades and all kinds of artillery, until at last a trench was constructed varying from ten to twenty meters in distance from the paralleling enemy's work. Everywhere were barbed wire and chevaux de frise, endless lines of them. The rocks between the trenches were literally and absolutely covered with shells of every caliber, exploded and unexploded, and with thousands of hand grenades, so that it was a very serious matter where one should put one's feet. Many of the dead were lying under stones, and fragments of bodies were strewn about.
In the beginning there may have been some stunted trees upon these hills, but when I was there all verdure was gone, burnt up in shell fire or gas attacks. An officer who accompanied me described these attacks as the most inhuman imaginable. I had known this man for years and no better sportsman or soldier exists. His mother was an Austrian and he entered the war without any great enthusiasm. But he told me that never in his life had he experienced the sensation of hate until he witnessed the first gas attack. The sight of his men returning under its influence filled him with passion, and the finding of the iron spiked maces which were used by the Austrians to hammer the heads of the bewildered, gasping Italians left no room in his heart to doubt the baseness of the enemy. One of these maces was given to me. I have it.
Ill — Gigantic Feats of Italian Engineers
The engineering problems solved in the Carso are such as would be considered insurmountable in peace times. Fighting has been taken to the very tops of the mountains. In order to get material where it is needed and to transfer troops quickly from one sector to another more than 6,000 kilometers of automobile road have been literally chiselled out of the solid rock of almost sheer cliffs. To the most difficult peaks mule paths have been carved, and after victory comes a whole new and marvelous country will be opened to the dilletante tourist by means of these extraordinary trails. The Italian engineers have hesitated at nothing. Mountains considered unscalable have been mastered, and one now goes up to a forbidding peak or crag as one formerly went up to an easy pass. Palisade formation is no longer an obstacle, the roads traversing the palisades being of perfect type and execution. The admiration and marvel I experienced going over them are indescribable and the feats that have been accomplished well nigh unbelievable. Over the roads and mule paths stretching higher and ever higher to the snow-piled mountain tops cannon of all calibers are hauled by traction or man power and are installed in impregnable positions. Often heavy cannon are passed from mountain top to mountain top by means of wire cables, just as cash boxes are flung by wire trolleys from department store counters to cashiers' desks.
Having motored nearly to the summit of a mountain, I entered a tunnel. Presently I found myself on the other side of the mountain, in a gallery where a battery of heavy artillery was mounted. On the one side as we entered we had looked down upon the sunlit plain of Vi-cenza. On the other side, in the shadow, we faced the tops of the Trentino Alps. The contrast was bewildering. Praise is poor recompense for the men of science who dared to imagine and for the willing hands that dared to execute those extraordinary feats. And the one I mention was not exceptional. An Alpini remarked to me: "It is indeed the death of Alpinism, for every one now is an Alpinist!"
Where it is impossible to use roads or mule trails for the transport of troops or supplies the Italians use aerial railways, called telleferica. I saw one of these consisting of a single span of 2,160 meters — this was Neri's remarkable accomplishment. And ever so often cannon in leash, men in baskets go swinging from post to post over chasms that make the heart pound as one darts a look into their recesses. There is to-day in all that mountain country scarcely a spot upon which a bird may roost or to which a goat may climb that the Italian engineers have not conquered, and in conquering achieved so much in pressing back the detested Austrians. And with what cheerfulness, light- heartedness, courtesy, consideration for one another, devotion and loyalty are the Italians accomplishing these miracles of warfare. When one has looked upon their work and has associated with them in the deep snows and in their tunnelled quarters one is seized with an irresistible desire to tell the world how wonderful they are — to describe, however poorly, their triumphs of will and courage.
from a British newsmagazine
IV — "Aviva Italia!" Unconquerable Latins
It is not in the army alone one finds that spirit. In the little villages along the roads the very bright-eyed children cry, "Aviva Italia!" and there is the soul of it. There is expressed a profound love of country. Italy no more doubts that she will reconquer Trieste and Trent than France doubts the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine. The despoiled Latin is determined to have justice, to wring justice, from the Teuton maurauder, and peace talk is a weariness to them in their exalted mood. The spiritual and economic interests of Italy and France have been held apart only by Teutonic perfidy, intrigue and insinuation, but all misunderstandings are disappearing and absolute confidence is taking the place of doubt. A captain of Alpini said to me: "France and Italy are one — is it not so, sir?" How many times have we heard discussed the reasons why Italy was so long in declaring war against Germany! For my part I have never doubted that Italy's reasons were perfectly legitimate. One does not quit one system of alliance for another without damaging a whole series of interests. Italy, so to speak, found herself in the position of an individual who must divorce in order to remarry. But what must be remembered is the absolute loyalty of the Italians. Never have they changed since the beginning of hostilities. They are a people of heroes.
Let me speak of Milan and Venice as I saw them in intervals of visits to the mountaintop fighting fronts. At Milan my first care was to study the precautions taken against the destruction of art treasures. Always the Latin, who creates, is forced to protect and defend his works from the German, who destroys. The cathedral, all in stone, risks little from fire, all the glass and precious objects having been taken to places of safety, and it remains intact and marvellous under its mantle of lace, intact in spite of the Austrians and marvellous in spite of Ruskin. At Santa Marie del Grace the "Last Supper" of Leonardo is protected by a wall of sandbags and by a fireproof curtain. Churches and museums have been emptied of their riches. In the streets I watched the crowds — a people astonishing in purity of line and proportion, moving always with grace and harmony. Here lies for me the secret of their artistic superiority, for it is well known that the artist, in spite of himself, reproduces in his work his physical perfections and faults.
In Venice the same precautions are taken as at Milan. The Scaliger tombs are covered with sand and the more important ones are enclosed in stone turrets. All statues are shrouded in a preparation of straw and plaster sufficient to protect them from fragments of bombs, but what a wonderful mark for some aerial bandit San Zeno and St. Anastasia, with their wooden ceilings, would be. In the middle of the night I disembarked in Venice, where two carabinieri conducted me to a hotel hermetically sealed so that no ray of light escaped. And here I stayed in the pitch dark with a prospect of being lodged under the Piombi of the Ducal Palace if I betrayed the slightest evidence of having a light.
As always Venice presents an incomparable aspect. There is no better moment to visit Italy than during a war, for it is only then that one finds the Italians really at home. A war clears the scene of a whole world of intruders. A great calm reigns over Venice. All classes fraternize. Life is very normal, and no one regrets the absence of the Germans, Austrians and Hungarians, who used to arrive from Trieste — no more hobnailed shoes, no more Tyroleans, no more alpenstocks, no more noisy vulgarity. The harbor is empty except for a few captured Austrian vessels. Off in the distance to the southwest is the great fleet, ready at a moment's notice to take position in the open sea. The city presents no particularly wartime characteristics excepting at night. I know of no pen or brush that has been able to render justice to Venice — Turner perhaps; but Guardi and Canaletto were too much the slaves of detail and of other conscience. At 8:45 p.m. all lights were put out. It is absolute darkness with the exception that a little blue light, very feeble, burns at the end of each street, just enough to give guidance for direction. Even the little lamp of the fisherman which hangs before the Virgin on St. Marc's has been extinguished. Happily one is permitted to smoke, otherwise it would be difficult to navigate about the narrow streets. One cannot imagine the intensity that a lighted match takes, and the cafes, which are better patronized than ever, resemble enormous nests of glow worms, everybody puffing at a cigarette or a Virginia. An amusing detail is that one must pay in advance for one's refreshments, because in case of an aerial attack the general cry is "Sauve qui peut?" and heaven help the proprietor.
V — Dropping Bombs on Venice
The aeroplane — that is the great question; not that they are feared. It is that every one asks with feverish anxiety what possible further ravages will be accomplished among the marvellous art treasures. At the time of Titian, when fashion decreed that every woman must have that wonderful blonde hair for which Venice was famous, many of the houses had constructed upon their roofs an open loggia, which was called "Paltana." It wos there that the beautiful Venetians after having bathed their hair in some mysterious fluid remained for hours allowing it to dry. Well, it is from these "Paltana" that the guard watches over the city, armed with mitrailleuse and furnished with megaphones, and every half hour one hears the sentinels calling as they repeat the cry ringing from the Campanile of St. Marc: "Per I'aria, buona guardia." And throughout the entire night the silence is broken by a chain of cries which reunites these invisible belfries. Nothing lacks. Searchlights, special cannon, aerial squadrons and aquatic squadrons — all are ready for defence. But Venice is so filled with treasures that it is only by the greatest luck that a bomb does not destroy some unique object. It is my firm conviction that some day St. Marc's or the Ducal Palace will be smashed by the Teutons. Although everything possible in the way of protection has been done, one trembles at the thought of what may happen. Already the Church of the Scalzi has been pierced, and of the wonderful fresco of Tiepolo not a piece as big as one's hand remains. Bombs have fallen within a few feet of St. Marc's. These are the attacks of savages, purely barbarous, with the sole intent of destroying something.
From the third story of the Hotel Danielli I witnessed raids by Austrian hydravians. At n - .30 p.m. the signal of danger came. A gun roared from the Moline. Sirens shrieked in many parts of Venice. Then there was temporary silence, disturbed only by the rustle and shuffle of feet as people scurried to shelter. Presently all the batteries surrounding Venice opened fire. In intervals of this din one heard the whine of the Austrian air motors, a noise like the buzzing of a gigantic fly. I advanced over rooftops. Many batteries spat fire into the air. But the only sign of the air machines that I observed was what might be called a faint, very vague sort of electric fluid which seemed to appear momentarily in different parts of the heavens. From time to time all firing ceased. Silence came. One again heard the hum of the invading motors. Then the air was assailed by the explosion of a dropped bomb, followed by the crash of breaking roofs, the splintering of glass, the shrieks of injured persons. The whole effect was stupefying to me, not terrifying; but there is, too, s feeling of quite utter helplessness. Shortly after the last bomb was dropped the signal came that it was all over. The people fairly flung themselves into the streets searching for souvenirs, scratching about amusingly with candles and matches as they recounted laughable or tragic experiences. Such raids are made preferably during the moon. It is known that the defence is imperfect, that the only perfect defence is one of reprisals, but as an English General said to me, "That is a dirty game, dirty ball, as you Americans say. It is pretty hard to descend to their methods."
Sem, the caricaturist, has a picturesque method of noting the odious uselessness of bombarding Venice. "To fire on Venice," he says, "is as if one amused oneself by firing at the chandelier."
I spent twenty-five days among these Italians, upon the plain and among the mountains, days of wonderment. One must see the difficulties in the midst of which they are fighting, the thousand obstacles, to do them justice even feebly. The King is the soul of the army and of the Government. He directs the struggle upon the field of battle — and he is "always on the job." He is always in the place of danger and honor and yet no one hears him spoken about. He disdains the theatrical attitude. Beside the King is the Duke of Aosta, a fine presence and a fine character, and Gen. Cadorna, an energetic chief. Cadorna is a great friend of France. In an hour's talk with him he supplied me with a vivid sense of the unfaltering spirit of Italy. I saw much of D'Annunzio and I cannot resist the temptation to add my humble praise to all that has already been addressed to him. He made every effort in lifting Italy to arms against the Teutonic Powers and he well personifies in his ardor and simplicity the people who followed his exhortations. He spoke with good humor of the sufferings he endured, saying that in their attempt to save his sight the doctors forgot that he was possessed of a body and a soul. I read a letter of his, written when he was 14, in which he predicted that his mission on earth would be to chastise the hereditary enemy of his country. It is a beautiful letter. I thought of that first chapter of Macchiavelli in which he writes:
"The people who habit the countries on the north, situated on the other side of the Rhine and the Danube, are born in these prolific regions in such multitudes that a portion are forced to abandon the native soil and to look about for a new country where they may advance themselves." The Germans of to-day proceed differently, but in the same spirit — but they are finding their match and more than their match in the indomitable Italy of today.
pulling heavy artillery high up into the Alps
