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"Bombs were employed in great number, and are found to be even more effective here than on the Carso, the friable rock breaking into millions of fragments under the explosion. The arduous mountaineering feat of arriving on the mountain's overhanging brow was accomplished on rope ladders by infantry Alpini and Bersaglieri.
In the Castagnievizza sector, on the Carso, the Italians surrounded an outpost and captured the garrison, comprising nine men and one officer. On March 12, 1917, there was the usual artillery activity in the Trentino. The Austrian batteries showed increased activity in the Tolmino Basin on the Julian front.
But Italy showed the public that the "military experts" didn't know what they were talking about, for in little more than a month after the Italian guns had ceased to growl amid the Tyrolean peaks and passes, they were raining a storm of steel upon the Austrian positions on the Carso.
The Carso, the possession of which by the Austrians has been a deciding factor in many memorable struggles, was completely hidden by smoke until 3.30 in the afternoon. The general attack had been arranged for 4 o'clock, but the waiting troops on the Sabotino by 3.30 could endure restraint no longer. Their commander ordered the cessation of the bombardment and ordered the advance.
Italy's allies at least were not surprised when during the latter half of June her armies regained the ground evacuated by the Austrians in a skilful retreat, including Posina, Monte Cimone, Arsiero, Asiago, and the whole of the Sette Communi. Having thus protected his flank, Cadorna reverted to his frontal attack along the Isonzo and on the Carso.
On January 18, 1917, the Austrians attempted, after especially violent artillery preparation, an attack against the Italian positions between Frigido and the Opacchiasella-Castagnievizza road on the Carso, south of Goritz. Italian gun and rifle fire, however, stopped the Austrian attack before it had fully developed.
Every waggon that goes up full comes back empty, and many wounded were coming down and prisoners and troops returning to rest. Goritzia had been taken a week or so before my arrival; the Isonzo had been crossed and the Austrians driven back across the Carso for several miles; all the resources of Italy seemed to be crowding up to make good these gains and gather strength for the next thrust.
For upon the Carso there are neither roads nor water, and before the Italians can thrust farther both must be brought up to the front. As we approached San Martino an Austrian aeroplane made its presence felt overhead by dropping a bomb among the tents of some workmen, in a little scrubby wood on the hillside near at hand. One heard the report and turned to see the fragments flying and the dust.
Gorizia itself remained in Austrian hands for another year, the heights east of it were not mastered until 1917, and neither Tolmino nor the Carso fell to the Italians until the war had been lost and won. There was nothing here to disturb the Austrian concentration of effort against their Russian foes or to call for German assistance to their Austrian allies.
The Karst, like the Carso, is dotted with curious depressions called dolinas, some of them as much as 100 feet in depth, the floors of which, varying in extent from a few square yards to several acres, are covered with soil which is as rich as the surface of the surrounding plateau is worthless.
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