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Behind Monfalcone ran the red ridge of the Carso, of which the Italians had just captured the eastern half. Behind this again rose the mountains to the east of the Isonzo which the Austrians still held. The Isonzo came towards me from out of the mountains, in a great westward curve.
The five Batteries of this Group, known as "B2," were all in positions on or near the Vippacco, firing on the northern edge of the Carso, and eastward along the river valley. The southern Group, "B1," were on the Carso itself and operating chiefly against the famous Hermada, a position of tremendous natural strength, directly covering Trieste.
Our guns, which will never fire any more, sit in a neat row, "dressed by the right," along the garden path outside the Villa, their noses pointing across a grass lawn. Their names, which are the Battery's Italian history, are painted on their muzzles and their trails in large white letters, picked out with red upon a dark green ground: Carso, Piave, Altipiano and Trentino. Trentino is my gun.
In the Plava zone the Italians made farther progress on the slopes of Hill 363 in the Rogat Valley. The total number of prisoners captured so far on the Julian front from May 14 to 25, 1917, was 22,419, including 487 officers. It was now the fourth day of this new Carso battle. Still the Italians extended their positions.
Sept. 7 Germans and Bulgarians capture Roumanian fortress of Tutrakan; Roumanians take Orsova, Bulgarian city. Sept. 19 German-Bulgarian army captures Roumanian fortress of Silistria. Sept. 14 British for first time use "tanks." Sept. 15 Italians begin new offensive on Carso. October 2 Roumanian army of invasion in Bulgaria defeated by Germans and Bulgarians under Von Mackensen.
What happened was the brilliant and bloody storming of Mounts Podgora and Sabotino on the western side of the river above Goritzia, and simultaneously a crossing at Sagrado below Goritzia and a magnificent rush up the plateau and across the plateau of the Carso.
West of Goritz the town of Cormons also was shelled heavily. The great German guns opened enormous craters and literally tore the towns to pieces. The heaviest pressure began to be felt on the Carso front on Friday, October 26. The Teutons then increased their bombardment to deafening intensity and supplemented this with huge volumes of poison gas and tear-shells.
During the next few days the advance was pushed across the Doberdo plateau, south of Gorizia, and beyond the Vallone on to the western end of the forbidding and formidable Carso. By the 15th the Italian line ran from Tivoli, north-east of Gorizia, down the river Vertoibizza, across the Vippacco and along the Carso east of Nad Logem, Opacchiasella, and Villanova.
At the head of the staircase, which was made in a spiral shape, the first room was painted by Santi Titi, a painter of Florence, who acquitted himself very well; the larger room, which is beside the first, was painted by the above-named Federigo Zucchero, the brother of Taddeo; and the Sclavonian Giovanni dal Carso, a passing good master of grotesques, executed another room beyond it.
In another movement the troops of General Cadorna were successful in obtaining a firm footing on the western face of the Carso Plateau, occupying Sdraissima, Polazzo, Vermegbano, and Monte Sei Bussi, which overlooks Monfalcone.
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