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Updated: June 12, 2025
Better hurry. Coffee's waiting. So I threw the strange man a good-bye and bolted. "That day we were going some. They were heaving eggs from the other side of the Piave and we were bringing back wounded to the dressing stations as fast as we could make it over that wrecked land; going back faster for more. When I stopped for chow at midday, I found Ted Frith near me, eating also.
The Italian outposts on the Piave have not yet crossed it, for the reason that they must keep distances with their regiments, but will do so as soon as these get nearer to the river. If it was not that this is always done in regular warfare, they could beat the country beyond the Piave for a good many miles without even seeing the shadow of an Austrian.
But the Italians, greatly to their credit, had reorganised their broken forces, and, with their left resting on the mountains, had repelled all attempts of the enemy to cross the Piave, swollen with autumn rains. By the end of December the British and French Armies were fully concentrated, and a period of immobility set in, not to be broken for six months.
On May 23, 1918, the Czecho-Slovak troops welcomed the Prince of Wales to Rome, and soon afterwards they distinguished themselves on the Piave and were mentioned in one of General Diaz's dispatches and also in the official Italian communique of September 22, 1918. From the recognition of the Czecho-Slovak army followed the full recognition which the National Council obtained from the Allies.
Two British Divisions were moved down to the plain, and one was left in the mountains. The Heavy Artillery was divided proportionately and, of my own Brigade, one Battery was left in the mountains but the rest moved down. Our new Battery position lay between the ruined village of Lovadina and the river Piave, about three-quarters of a mile from the nearer bank.
I stood again on the bridge at Bassano, looking up the Val Brenta, with Monte Grappa towering above me on my right hand, and then turning south-eastward across the level plain I heard again the rushing waters of the Piave and, crossing to the farther side, passed through Conegliano, burnt out and ravaged, and Vittorio Veneto, a name that will resound for ever, to the broken bridge over the Meduna, east of Pordenone, and the village of Nogaredo, whither I came as one of its first liberators.
Titian was a child of the Tirol Mountains, handsome, strong, full of health and fine purposes, even as a boy. He was born in a little cottage at Pieve, in the valley of Cadore, through which flows the River Piave; and he wandered daily beside its banks, gathering flowers from which he squeezed the juices to paint with.
And it was only by the valour of the Italian soldier that the retreat was stayed on the Piave line, which the High Command pronounced to be untenable and wished to abandon, but which the Cabinet at Rome, pinning their faith to the qualities of the Italian soldier rather than to the opinions of the High Command, ordered to be held at all hazards. And the Cabinet at Rome was right.
But if the Piave was to be held, the German threat to turn it by a descent from the Alps down either side of the Brenta valley must be defeated; and it was here that the Caporetto campaign was fought to a standstill in November and December.
The retreat became a rout before evening of that day, the Italians pursuing and capturing over 50,000 men and cannon, and cutting off some 200,000 Austrians in a trap between the Brenta and Piave rivers. General Diaz, the Italian commander, after considerable entreaty, consented to receive General Weber of the Austrian command, who brought a plea for armistice.
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