A TERRIBLE WAR ZONE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2837, 31 July 1916, Page 4

A TERRIBLE WAR ZONE

GRIM PICTURE' FROM THE ITALIAN FRONT AySTRIAN FRIGHTFULNESS

The Carso! Sun-seorclied, wiiid-swopt, and treeless, broken, up into rockledscd ravines, steep sloped, impenetrable; no war terrain is more ruthless, no field of battle more brutal. .So thankless is the soil that it -will not even drink in the blood of the men who have fallen, here, which, gathered in clots and pools, hardens, leaving-si deep red blur on tho grey rocks. This is the battlethose hundreds of Italian battalions which are struggling to conquer Trieste. Eising from tho bed of the Lower Isonzo to a height varying from ,')00 to SOO feet, and stretching inland to the confines of Istria; mounting, over higher,, ever steeper, as it spreads out into the interior,- this rock-ribbed plateau is the pathway of the Italian advance. Hero (writes "W. IC. "Wallace in tho "Daily Mail") no trenches can bo dug into iJie earth; no'intricate system of parapets and dug-outs devised. .Hoardings of broken stone are tho only 'ramparts.possible; and the ground heaves .upward into such sudden and irregular hillocks that the troops of the invading armies are in many places exposed to the full view of the enemy, who are everywhere entrenched on higher ground. These hillocks have, now been in part tunnelled out, in order to protect tho men and make it possible safely to link up tho fighting front. In many places tho Italian trench lines are directly under those of the enemy, often at an angle of i"> degrees. Crouching in tho leo of their parapets, tho troops are relatively protected from gun lire, while hastily-constructed barbed wire-'eutangle-lhents, thrown out in front of their lines, juard them from sudden onslaught.

Such is the battle-line of the Carso, ■which stretches i'or eighteen miles from the heights of San Sliehelo to the Adriatic. At no point have the Italian? advanced more than four miles inland on this rock-bound plateau. But looking nt this battle-front from the plain, it seems surprising that they have been able to gain even a foothold, and a visit to this sector fills one with amazement at what the troops haTo been able to accomplish in the face of the most superhuman difficulties. Now the Italians hove established themselves firmly along the whole, length of the Carso, and are forcing the enemy Ixick step by step. The Villa Hohenlohe. Our car climbs through tho long, winding drive-way of a vast park, planted with secular oaks, and halts in front of a row of broad stone steps. "Villa;* ffohenlolie," me officer with me announces. I look up. All that remains of. a once palatial country residence is a loopholqd facade. , "It belonged to Prince Hohenlohe, the Austrian Governor of Trieste,' who persecuted, the-Italians there so outrageously before the war," the officer resumed.-- Ho paused' for a moment as I looked down on the Friulian plain, on Sngrado and Gradisca, and tho many towns which have been wrested from Austria. »

"You have had your revenge," I cannot refrain from remarking as we step out on the terrace littered with debris

. "Unfortunately not," conies the quick reply. "&. few weeks before the war J'riuco Hohenlohe suddenly, quite'unexpectedly, sold this property to an Italian resident in Trieste. You see, the prince knew what was going to happen. The house has been destroyed by Austrian shell-fire. You can see that all the shells came from the cast," tho oflicer continues, pointing to the coping, which plainly indicates the direction of the shells.

We pass through a breach in the stone wall,at the back of the estate. In a. fow moments we are on the edge of the Carso. I follow my guide as he threads his way through the blocks of loose stone. Where there'is any surface soil it is dull red, rough and uneven, and hard as cement, so that it is easier to walk on the stories. : We'pass line after line' of low stone walls which had been used by the Austrians as'trenches. Finally, at a bend in the communication path, which is piled high with very large stonesjand "sandbags" filled with earth which has been hardened into a rock mass, my guide halts: '

' "We are here a mile in'the rear of our first-line trenches; ire have not yet even reached- our second lines, lint look at this." He removes a stone which permits me to look out on a hillock which rises to the right. On a patch of ground of I about three acres some thirty corpses lio c.uburied. They wear Italian -uniforms. "They have been out there three months or more,", the officer resumes; "Iheciiomy will not allow us to bury them. You see they command this, field-from their positions up there which wo have ns yet been unable to take. We have had live men killed trying to bring in one body; now it is forbidden to attempt it. The Austrians make war with all the "Schrecldiclikeit' ([rightfulness) of their German ally. Only it is not so well known." Along other sectors of the Carso front I saw many unburied dead within the Italian lines. We again quicken our pace, and soon came to a deep ravine, or doliha as it is called here. It is uothing more than n pocket of earth surrounded by steep stony slopes. Here the troops are gathered. The living crouch 'in their stone-roofed huts, on the leeside of the ravine. The dead are arranged in long rows in the improvised cemetery which lias been laid out at the bottom of the slope. This campo santo, or "sacred camp," as the Italians call their burial ground, is arranged with loving care. Sculptured headstones and crosses hewn' out cf the grey .rock mark the graves. It is a new cemefery, yet it is almost full, i'or the casualties hero are very high. A shell exploding not only wounds with its own fragments, but splintered rock is hurled as well,. trebling, so it is estimated, the destructive power of cadi shell. Yet the troops seem in the best of spirits. They ' uive t>rown accustomed to the fighting "of the Carso. How They Advance. We pass through a communication-tun-nel driven through solid rock. Finally we come out into the open again. Wo have readied the first-line trenches. Looking through the stone parapets I can follow the enemy lines which'loom over ns. Stone walls like our own, and | behind these, higher up, other trench walls are seen. There is a lull in the lighting. The loneliness, the bleakness, the "God-forsaken" atmosphere of this line of battle caiinot lie portrayed. I'or mile upon mile the rocky plain stretches onward. Kot a house, not a hovel, not even a shrub or tree breaks the terrible monotony. Even the enemy trenches do not seem real. Endlessly on and on the grev roeks and the red parehpd soil reach, desolate, silent, like (he Valley of Death. Then in the heavens to the south a small dot comes into range of vision. One cloud pulf alter another breaks close lo it. and still it follows its course unchanged, coming ever nearer to us. When overhead it circles slowly, majestically. The red, while, and green of the wings confirm to us that it is mi Italian aeroplane. It flies far out bcvond our lines: dipping closer to earth, then circling hieher -until it disappears to the north. But its message has already been received. Suddenly shell uno:i shell screeches from the rear. Big shells whirr by with an. uncanny, whistling moan like souls in agony, so ia keening with the mood of the battlefield. We turn bock. In the communication trenches we come upon men heavy laden with food for those in the firingline. Drinking water is carried in large chianli flagons ami the food brought up in baskets strapped on the men's back*. Every drop of water, everything used along this line has lo be transported by hand. Busk comes on swiftly; Ibe bombardment grows more intense. Out of the night in the east a shell in a slow ascending curv'e rises like a Hash of lb'ht. then burnt 1 ! into,a star of llame which tails slowly to earth. Another, roines lo lakes its place, and the' Carlo Ihus illumined stands forth in all it; livid horror. Across' the rock-bournl ravines tl>» whitened pillars of slow stand forth like ghosts, while Hie V'.' gun.-! in their nits burst forth a ilnsh of fire followed by a deafening roar, which crashes amid the loose stone-pilc-i, echoing aSIT re-echoing across the battleground, friend and foe are lost amid

this upturned waste of stone. The trench waits awaken. Mere mid there betwoen the barbed wire a patrol is advancing. The- men croucli under a rock head until the- "star-shell" has spent itself, it ml then crawl onwuid. A shots ring out. There to the soucn a machine-gun is spattering a band of bullets towards a spot where a moment before something had moved. Crawling, groping, stumbling amid the stones, a platoon, a company, a. battalion advances to tlio attack. Huijing itself bodily over the stone parapets the advancing column succeeds m establishing itself. The the arduous task of consolidating and linking up the conquered lino begins. Thus by rashes is the conquest of the Carso being slowly achieved.