Mountain fi g htin g in late autumn and winter is so precarious
a business that it is difficult to make any predictions as to what will happen in the Italian theatre of war. It does, however, look as if the long resistance of the Austrians were breaking down under the Italian attack, and as if we may very shortly bear of the occupation of Gorizia and the falling back of the enemy. If so, the road, we trust, will be open to Trieste. The long agony of that unfortunate city cannot be contem- plated without an aching heart. The vast majority of its inhabitants are Italians by blood and language, and are deeply devoted to their true country, but the Austrians have made no allowance for this fact. They have held them strictly to account as subjects of the Hapsburg Emperor. An Austrian ruler, like the Prussian, when he is in doubt or difficulty, always flies to death as the remedy, and we fear that a very large number of innocent citizens of Trieste have paid the supreme penalty within the past few months. Heaven grant that deliverance may come soon to the second city of the Adriatic I
