The Dominion FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1917. ITALY'S PART

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3058, 20 April 1917, Page 6

The Dominion FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1917. ITALY'S PART

The Austro-Italian theatre has * provided very little news during the last few months, but it is likely in ' the.'near future to witness events ' taking a not unimportant place in the evolving, scheme of the Allied ] general offensive. One of the. predictions in favour, before the ] present tide of battle arose on 1 the West front was that Italy would ! be selected by Von' Hindknbuhg as -. : the target of an offensive. It seems - 1 now most improbable that.the pre-. ! diction will be verified, but whether ■ or not Italy is again called upon to ] defeat an attempt by the enemy to ] break into the Venetian Plain, it j is certain that she is prepared this ' year to very greatly extend and ex- ' pand her past achievements ia the i war. The best indication of what .. Italy is likely to accomplish in the .j critical phase of the struggle which ' has now been reached is afforded in ■! what, she has accomplished to date. ■ At a cursory view it may seein that ' her achievements are limited. When ( she entered the war two years ago ; the task facing her was to open a j gateway through the -strong fron- j tier on the north and north-east which separates her from her unredeemed provinces. The frontier has not yet been pierced, and on the map ' the progress made by the Italian • armies may seem insignificant in ; comparison with the formidable task by which they are still confronted. Nevertheless it is impossible to look into the facts without realising that Italy ,has a record of...military.\ achievement behind her which, ! though established in very different circumstances, compares not unfav- ; ourably with that of her principal Allies. Like every other country engaged, even Germany not wholly excepted, Italy has had to largely shape her military plans and pre?arations in the actual stress of war. n 1915: she was restricted in the main to a defensive policy, and in particular had to bend her efforts upon safeguarding the Trentino frontier, on which she lay dangerously open to invasion. Here,' as on every other part of the alpine frontier and in the highlands north of the Adriatic, the advantage of position was overwhelmingly with the enemy." 1 , "We had to fight the Austrians," an.ltalian journalist wrote, "but, above: all, to overcome the almost insuperable difficulties of the ground;,steep mountains from, 8000 to 12,000 feet high, .covered with, thick woods, snow, and glaciers; bare rocky : walls like the dreadful gates of the Dolomitesand the rugged, waterless, inhospitable . Carso,. with its deep crater-like depressions, its sharp stones, and'dark brown, peaty earth." Handicapped as she was at the outset, Italy, like Britain, has'created, a new army—an army which has proved itself able to.compete victoriously -with the Austrians,. in. spite of "the enemy's pronounced advantages'of strategic position and warlike experience. It was in the winter of 1915-16. •that Italy effected the development of her military power in a great work of reorganisation and production in which the whole nation' participated. What her armies as _ a result were enabled to accomplish is succinctly set,forth in an' official statement published some months ago.' "In the spring we sustained, in the Trentino, the powerful longprepared Austrian offensive which the enemy, with insolent effrontery, styled a punitive expedition against our country.. But, after the first sue-, cesses which were due to the preponderance of material means collected, above all in artillery, the proposed invasion was quickly stopped and the enemy was counterattacked and forced to retire in haste into the mountains, leaving on the Alpine slopes the flower 1 of his army and paying bitterly the price for his fallacious enterprise not only here but also on the plains of Galicia." • Building rapidly -upon this success, the Italians launched in the early days of August the irresistible offensive which reached its first big success in the capture of the strong fortress of Gorizia, and ultimately dislodged the enemy from the first and second lines of his formidable defences across the Carso plateau. Between the beginning of August and December, when winter imposed a halt on operations, the Italians captured 42,000 prisoners, : 60 guns, 200 arid an I immense quantity of material. The " conquest of Gorizia and of the Carso ' defences represents unquestionably 1 one of the greatest achievements of ' the war. The Italians have demon- ] strated not less conclusively than ' their Allies in 'the Western theatre their ability to-dislodge the enemy from bis strongest available positions. I With another winter of preparation behind it, the Italian army is ' waiting in perfect confidence' 1 and readiness to renew its eff&rt for victory. It has signally proved its t worth and is backed by a considerable body of reserves. An indication > of the scale on which Italy is developing her resources for_ war _ is ' given in the fact that in coping with the problem of communications and

transport the troops have built nearly four thousand miles of roads and three hundred miles of Decauvillo light railways. The upkeep of roads alone requires the daily employment of 20,000 men. It is not the least important aspect of Italy's., participation in the war that in her relations with her Western Allies the ideal of the single_ front has been realised. When he visited Petrograd in February last, Lord Milner stated that however desirable it might be to establish unity of command over the Russians and Allied armies, there was great difficulty in the way of creating one General Staff for the Eastern and Western fronts, owing to the distance separating them; But he added that, "the idea embodied in the phrase 'One front' was one that had already been attained in respect of the high command of the British, French, and Italian forces." From every point of view, equally on account of the stage she has reached in military preparation and organisation and on account of the unity in which she is working with her Allies, Italy is now well_ placed to build upon the past achievements which have been described by as high an authority as General Castelnatj as conspicuous landmarks on the Allied road to victory. ',