SCENES FROM ITALY'S WAR.*
Mn. sonox TREVELYAN commanded the First British Red Cross Unit in Italy from August, 1915, when it was "the humble sole representative of the doctrine of the frank mace," and remained at his post of honour for three years, in constant daily contact with Italians of all ranks in victory and defeat, in the gorge of the Isonzo, in the streets of Gorizia, on the Bainsizza Plateau, and beneath the crags of Pasubio. He shared in the retreat from Caporetto, and witnessed the great rally at the close of 1917, the battle on the Piave in June, 1918, and the final victory in October. It was in the main, to use the cant epithet of to-day, a " hectic " time, with occasional quiet intervals, and the record stirs the blood, for it is one of "exultation!, agonies," and "man's unconquerable mind." But Mr. Trevelyan has not turned his opportunities to sensational use. He writes not to bdiame but to enlighten, and he comes to his task with the triple equipment of an historian, a leveret Italy, and the master of a fascinating style. Nowhere have we read a better account of the difficulties of Italy in getting into the war than in the opening chapter—the commercial, political, and spiritual pens- tration of Germany, which sapped Italian idealism ; the de- nationalizing of the "jackals of intellect " ; the ascendancy of Giolitti, shattered by popular resentment at his bargain with Prince von Billow behind the back of the Italian Government. The War Party was the party of idealism, "of democratic free government and national unity " ; the Neutralists contained the materialists, "who could at first show a good case in favour of German vaesalage as the method of prosperity," the political and clerical reactionaries, and the provincialists. The issue was largely determined by the character of the war and the brutality of the Germans towards non-combatants and children. "The Italians are not a great parliamentary nation, but they are a great democratic nation," and in times of political crisis "the ' Popolo ' goes down into the streets and takes things into its gngt...1/Ure,(10T.P05G...g..1Trcvelyan. With Frontispiece and It Mops. own handle" But while the cities of Italy made the war, "the peasant has had to fight it." The war-weariness and ignorance of the pavers Janie were a fruitful seed-bed of "Defeatist" propa- ganda, and made Caporetto possible. Yet Caporetto saved Italy; the knowledge of the worst brought the beet elements to the front. "The fear of the coming of the Tedeschi ' bound every ono together in a common bond of brotherhood " ; and the new spirit of the nation was heroically shown in the Propaganda of the Mutilated, a missionary campaign started in Milan by nine maimed officers, who turned their physical infirmities into a means of lending strength to their country in her need. On the attitude of the Church, Mr. Trevelyan confines himself in the main to his personal experience. He found the Army chaplains "gallant and humble soldiers of Christ and Italy." His belief is that the Church did little direct harm to the patriotic cause in the Army itself, but much in the country behind.
Mr. Trevelyan's active service began at QUifiCB under Monte Sabotino on the Isonzo front in the zone of Cormons and Gorizia in September, 1915. Ambulance work and evacuation were carried on under heavy shell-fire, the road from Quisca to Cormons was narrow and crowded, and the Italian Cam- binieri had only one failing—they did not understand road management. It was a bad winter ; the attacks on Monte Sabotino, a stronghold of Nature and Art with great chambers and trenches blasted and hollowed out in the rock, were unsuccessful ; and cholera, derived from the enemy's trenches, was at its worst. But the peasant soldiers showed amazing endurance, and were heartened by the constant visits of the King, whose two watchwords were duty and demo- cracy. The first victory was won over cholera, by the combined efforts of the civil and military authorities, the transport of drinking.water by water.pipes, the splendid energy and ingenuity of the engineers, and the hard work of the navvies. Their achievements in road-making, bridging rivers, and constructing aerial railways transformed the Italian war front, and were carried through entirely by Italian brains and hands. In the spring of 1916 Mr. Trevelyan'e Unit moved to Playa, the pre- carious bridgehead across the Isonzo captured by the Italians in the previous June, but it was suddenly called off to the Carso when the Austrian gas attack nearly succeeded in throwing the Italians off the plateau and delayed the advance on Gorizia. This was a terrible experience, but the lesson was not lost. Thenceforward the Italians Well, provided with proper gas-masks, while shrapnel helmets actually improved the appearance of the ordinary infantry regiment, only the Bersaglieri and Alpini losing in distinction by the exchange. Of the Bereaglieri, their traditions, their trumpets, their nobility of hearing and manner; of the Anliti, the storm- troops of the Italian Army ; and of the splendid Alpini, anni- hilated and renewed, Mr. Trevelyan gives us many stifling details. When Gorizia was captured in August, 1916, his Unit took up quarters for the ambulances in the town, with the field hospital at Villa Trento. The Italian rule against women nurses at the front was at once relaxed, and their employment soon spread to the Italian field hospitals, thanks in great part to the encouragement, the wisdom, and the energy of the Duchess of Aosta. On the death of the Emperor Francis Joseph, " Cecco Beppe " as the Italians called him, Italian hatred shifted from Austria to Germany, "from the mask to the face behind it." In the spring of 1917 the British batteries appeared on the ItaltIn front ; the summer and autumn saw the great Italian offensives from Playa and Gorizia, when the high-water mark was reached in the capture of Kuk and the Bainsizza Plateau. And all through these trying times the comradeship between the British Red Cross and the Italian officers grew more intimate and cordial. By September the Unit was established on the Baineizza Plateau, the scene of terrible butchery on both sides, for the attack on San Gabriele failed.
The Italian suecese had been great, though the Russian collapse prevented it from being pushed home, and the break- through at Caporetto was a bolt from a blue sky. In a masterly survey Mr. Trerelyan distinguishes the three categories of con- duct among the Italian troops—the deliberate voluntary sur- render of a few regiments ill accordance with plan ; the war- weariness of a much larger body of men infected by the sense of disaster after the general retreat had been ordered ; the third and largest category including those who did their duty through- out. In half -a-dozen brilliant pages he proceeds to reconstruct in the person of an imaginary " Giuseppe " a type of the wren, farcfe—ignorant, suspicious of officialdom, war-weary, depressed by his wife's letters, talked down by his voluble Socialist com- rades with their enthusiasm for the Russian revolutionaries, their charges against the Ing "who pay our masters to go on with the war," and the imboscati at home. The real wonder was not the Retreat but the Rally. The story of these dark days, of the coming of the British troops, of the stand on the Piave and the final victory, cannot be read without emotion. Whatever mistakes were made in our Italian policy, "the most important item of all, the choice of commanders for the British forces in Italy, was twice done to perfection. If any one could have replaced General Plumer it was Lord Cavan." Mr. Trevelyan's Unit lost half ita ambulances in the retreat, and had never been in riposo from its arrival in August, 1915, till November, 1917. Mr. Trevelyan never misses a chance of acknowledging the heroism of his colleagues ; it is only by reading between the lines that one realizes the courage and endur- ance which sustained him through the perilous years that ended on a starlit night when, on his walk across the Piave, he "heard the distant and continuous noise of a whole army scattered over the plain, shouting all night in its joy under the glistening winter stars because their warfare was accomplished, and Europe at last was free."
Previous page
