United States or Lebanon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
North of Jamiano, after heavy fighting, the strongly fortified heights Hills 235 and 247 were carried and the Italian positions extended as far as the outlying houses of Versic. The Austrians attempted to lighten the Italian pressure on the southern Carso by violent counterattacks from Castagnievizza to Frigido. All these efforts failed.
The bodies of the soldiers who fall on the Carso are not infrequently found to have been baked hard and mummified after lying for a day or two on that oven-like floor of stone. The Carso is probably the strongest natural fortress in the world. Anything in the shape of defensive works which Nature had overlooked, the Austrians provided.
South of the Vippacco we held the Volconiac and Dosso Faiti, but not Hill 464, though this had been taken and lost again, nor yet the hills further east, nor any of the northern foothills of the Carso, except Hill 123. To the south again the Hermada had proved a great and bloody obstacle.
In the centre of our view rose the great mass of San Gabriele; Italian patrols were out on its southern slopes, clearly visible through field-glasses. Then Santa Catarina and the long low brown hillside of San Marco. Away to the right the flat lands of the Isonzo and Vippacco valleys, and beyond these again the northern ridge of the Carso, from Dosso Faiti to the Stoll, beautifully visible.
I note how men discuss the suggestion that America may play a large part in such a permanent world pacification. There I end my account rendered. These things are as much a part of my impression of the war as a shell-burst on the Carso or the yellow trenches at Martinpuich.
Although the line of the Isonzo was, as has been shown, the only feasible line on which Italy could advance, no serious offensive could be attempted until the outlets from the Trentino were thoroughly and effectively stopped up. For Italy to have advanced in the Carso, with her rear open to attack by the Austrians coming through the Tyrolean passes, would have been foolhardy.
The Infantry were reported to be unable to make headway against machine guns on Hill 464 and the Tamburo. To the south, on the Carso, the ruins of the village of Selo had been taken, but not much else. But, though we did not know it then, the Italian Army in those first three days had won magnificent successes to the north of us.
Finding, however, that the Austrians had been strongly reenforced, General Cadorna abandoned his storming tactics, and began advancing along the plateau by the slower methods of siege operations. From the beginning, both Italians and Austrians recognized the Carso Plateau as the key to Gorizia, and around it have been waged some of the bitterest conflicts of the war.
A massed attack was directed against Point 208, but was broken up by concentrated fire. By November 4, 1916, the Austrian resistance had stiffened to such an extent that a lull became noticeable in the Italian enterprises east of Goritz and on the Carso Plateau.
Goritzia itself was not organised for defence, and the Austrians were so surprised by the rapid storm of the mountains to the north-west of it and of the Carso to the south-east, that they made no fight in the town itself. As a consequence when I visited it I found it very little injured compared, that is, with such other towns as have been fought through.
Word Of The Day