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At the same time the positions on Monte San Michele were evacuated and the Italians thereby were put in full possession of the Goritz bridgehead. Their attacks of August 5, 6, and 7, 1916, had netted them territory for which they had been fighting for months, besides about 10,000 prisoners, some 20 guns and 100 machine guns and considerable war material of all description.
Goritz was supplicant referent, and as such he must have known Lucretia personally, because the influential daughter of the Pope was the constant recipient of petitions of various sorts. He had ample opportunity to observe events in the Vatican, but of his experiences he recorded nothing; or, if he did, his diary was destroyed in the sack of Rome in 1527, when he lost all his belongings.
Nivelle, more than held their own, recapturing a considerable portion of the terrain occupied by the enemy, including Fleury and the important Thiaumont Work. The greatest blow which the Italian army had struck against Austria since the beginning of the war was completed on August 9, when Italian troops captured the fortified city of Goritz, for which they had been struggling for months.
The Austrians so far had resisted all Italian attempts to take Goritz, an important town on the Isonzo, about twenty-two miles northwest of Trieste. With Goritz in the hands of the Austrians Trieste was safe. For it could not be approached by the Italians as long as this important position threatened the flank and rear of any army attacking Trieste along the seashore.
Archduke Charles had been defeated by Massena, and driven back to Villach; Bernadotte had reached Laybach; the citadels of Goritz, Triest, and Laybach had surrendered; Klagenfurth, after a most desperate struggle, had been forced to open its gates to the conquerors; Loudon, with his brave troops, had been dispersed in the Tyrol; Botzen had opened its gates to General Joubert, who, after a brief sojourn, left that city in order to join Bonaparte, who, in his victorious career, was advancing resistlessly toward Vienna.
In the upper part of the Aravionodo Valley in the midst of a heavy storm an Austrian detachment made a surprise attack and penetrated one of the advanced Italian positions west of Lake Bocete. They were driven back to their own lines. On the Julian front the artillery fighting was more intense in the vicinity of Goritz.
They were driven back with heavy loss. Other local attacks which were attempted in the Posina Valley, on the Asiago Plateau, and in Carnia failed. On the Julian front, in the sector north of Goritz, the artillery duel, already spirited, became more intense, but was not followed by infantry action. The position which the Italians captured on Hill 363, east of Plava, was consolidated.
Died at Goritz, Nov. 6, 1836, aged 79 years and 28 days." All the courts of Europe put on mourning for him, that of France excepted. The latter part of his life, with its reverses and humiliations, he considered an expiation, not for his political errors, but for the sins of his youth. As he drew near his end, his yearnings after his lost country increased more and more.
On June 5, 1917, lively artillery duels continued on the front from the Monte Nero area to the heights of Goritz. On the Carso the violent shelling of Italian positions from Versic to Jamiano was resumed, provoking an energetic reply from their batteries. South of Jamiano the fighting was less intense.
On the last day of October, 1916, the Italian artillery and mine fire had reached again great violence east of Goritz and on the Carso Plateau. It became even more extensive and vigorous early in the morning of November 1, 1916. A few hours later the Italians began their infantry attacks against the Austrian lines, many of which had been destroyed previously by the bombardment.
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