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Hence, one cannot get into Gorizia unless bearing a special pass issued by the Comando Supremo. So rigid are the precautions against unauthorized visitors that, though accompanied by two officers of the Staff and travelling in a staff-car, we were halted by the Carabinieri and our papers examined seven times.
It is not unlike a huge elliptical stadium. At the north end, level with the ground, is Gorizia, with the Julian Alps mounting on all sides. The southern bank is constituted by the plateau of the Carso, in which is situated the town of Doberdo. Thus the plain of Gorizia is surrounded on three sides by elevations which serve as admirable watchmen for the city beneath.
The foothills of the Julian Alps descend sharply to a plain near where the Isonzo issued from the gorge which it has cut through the mountains. The line between the plain and the mountains is sharp and clearly marked. There is no gentle tapering off of one into the other. This line between the hills and plain is somewhat irregular in shape and incloses a pocket in which Gorizia is situated.
At our feet was a precipitous descent, clothed with acacias, at the bottom Podgora with its gutted factories, then the broad stream of the Isonzo, and Gorizia on the further side. To the left we could see the Isonzo winding down out of the mountains, between Monte Sabotino and Monte Santo, the latter hiding from our sight the Bainsizza Plateau.
The Russian blow had fallen in the first days of June, 1916; the Anglo-French attack had opened in the early days of July, 1916; now, in the first week of August, 1916, Italy suddenly launched against the Gorizia bridgehead, the gateway into Austria between the sea and the Julian Alps, which recalls in a grandiose fashion the Spartan position at Thermopylæ, the most considerable and the most successful military effort in modern Italian history.
During these weeks of preparation the Italian aviators, observers, and spies had been busy collecting information concerning the strength of the Gorizia defenses and the disposition of the Austrian batteries and troops.
The fortifications of Gorizia temporary field fortifications are not at all like the more modern fortifications of Europe, which, previous to the shelling of Liege and Namur, were considered almost impregnable.
While on the Carso, that rock-wilderness which stretches between Gorizia and Trieste, where fighting, especially in hot weather, supplies a supreme test of human endurance, the Italians have pushed on and on, from point to point, till now they are within ten miles of Trieste.
Their steep slopes were slashed with Austrian trenches and abristle with guns which commanded the roads leading to the river, the bridge-heads, and the town. To take Gorizia until these positions had been captured was obviously out of the question. Here, as elsewhere, Austria held the upper ground.
Upon the Garso and around Gorizia the Austrians had placed innumerable batteries of powerful guns mounted on rails and protected by armor plates. They also had a great number of medium and smaller guns. A net of trenches had been excavated and constructed in cement all along the edge of the hills which dominated the course of the Isonzo River.
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