FIGHT FOR GORIZIA

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2656, 30 December 1915, Page 9

FIGHT FOR GORIZIA

AUSTRIAN STRATAGEM. • In everything it has done 60 far the Italian Army has gone carefully from step to step, but nothing has been , more gradual and precise than the action it is now engaged upon. Out of the flash of a single test-tubs exploding in the dark near Eiva there lias day by day and movement by movement grown an offensive which no it joins Switzerland to tho Adriatic with a band of fire and a roaring road of noise. This offensive began 011 the evening- of October 13 (says J. 11. E. Jeffries, m a message to the "Daily Mail"), when a little group of soldiers clambered out of their trenches 4000 ft. up above Garcia, and went forward in advance of another larger body gathering behind them. In their hands t'hey held what aro hero known as "Japanese pipes"—tubes containing a formidable , explosive—which, under cover of the darkness, they wero to attach to the Austrian barbed-wire hedges outside l'regasina, one of the suourbs of the intricate city, of defences the enemy lias drawn arojind Eiva, and two miles and a half or so away from its centre. They crept up, fixed their "pipes," and set fcliein to explode. One man ivas quicker than the others or chance-aided, but anyhow, as they went out of range; his charge exploded first and alone, tearing away lengths of wire. The Austrians immediately fired a star-shell and opened with musketry, and then as more attackers came on the big guns were brought into play. ........ The fire died down that night eventually, but this was the beginning, and for twee days the Italians advanced methodically pace by pace, and then, on the morning of October 16, charged with a rush, and took Pregasina and the heights behind it. Meanwhile, 011 the main front, opposite Gorizia, the Austrians knew what was impending. Their aircraft dropped insuiting notices in Cormons, "Conic along, you spaghetti suckers, lye're ready and waiting for you." 011 October 17 air was about ready, and exactly at midday oil the 18th a 12in. howitzer somewhere- opposite Gorizia '. al ti - J™' l all( ' lc watchers saw the shell iall- and devastate an Austrian ob-servation-post. It was a good omen. All around the Italian artillery took up the burden. On the morning of the 21st tho artillery broke off,- and at 10 o'clock before Gorizia and 9 o'clock before Tolmino the infantry, to tho sound of trumpets, leapt from thijir trenqlies and xuslied to the attack of the main Austrian points of resistance, the trenches on the Carso, especially those on the northern end, on Monte Sa'botinoi and farther north against the slopes of Mrzji and the two saints' hills of Tolmino. The possession of these places is a cardinal necessity for the Italian advance. The men chosen for the attack on Sabotino started at the .trumpet's call from "if 11 * trenches, shouting, yelling confusedly together, opening out into loose order, and met instantly by a fierce fire from above, their own artillery also firmg over their heads till the last moment. babotino is a' slippery, inclined pliui© hithoat fold or dip in it to givo cover; and tho scrambling men, striving for their footholds, were easy marks for th°. Austrians in their fortified trenches. But the men scrambled up heroically and reached a formidable redoubt on the' hillside. On the Carso the Italians reached tho crest of a point near San Hartino.'.Near iolmino the great trench on Mount Mrztf was taken, the bulwark of Austrian aelence in thafc quarter. On October 22 and 23 the attack was resumed, and despite desperate resistance the Italians made advances on tho Carso' and on Sabotino. On the 24th they got farther up the slope of Sabotino, and wero under the Hp of tlie topmost Anstnan positions But both sides were oxJ , with-tho continuous' struggle. To-day (October 25) the Austrians succeeded in recapturing one of the all-im-portant igreat trenches taken by the Italians on the slopes of Mrzli by a stratagem such as they affect. Prom their higher position they suddenly sent rolling down on the Italians several big barrels of petrol, ana when these were close to the captured trenches they shelled with every gun they had, and, as they expected, hit anif burst the barrels, and tho whole mountain-side blazed with burning spirit. _ Under cover of this, too they ran machine-guns up a hidden communication trench like a mine galleS and- so opened fire from a point where the petrol could not readh them, and drove tho Italians out. But th.ese a T e the tricks, to make Italians wild with anger, and within an hour the Alpini ,held l' lo trench and tlio'barrel knights were prisoners.