INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 84, 2 January 1918, Page 5

INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH

GLORIOUS WORK OF THE ITALIAN CAVALRY IN THE GREAT RETREAT Reuter's special correspondent on the Italian front paid a fine tribute to the gallantry of the Italian cavalry during the first days of the great retreat. , "The- Italian cavalry have emulated the glory of the famous Light Brigade at Balaclava sixty-four years ago," said (in English officer who is following tho operations on the Italian front. Ever since the opening of the war the Italian cavalry have been deeply disappointed that mountain warfare gave- no opportunity for the use of their branch of the service. Cavalrymen were drafted into infantry and bomb-thrower contingents or into the air service, but Italian cavalry officers now remark JJiat the opportunity has arisen to show that oavalry is not, as a= well-known writer has said, "as obsolete as crossbowmen," but vital to the safety of the infantry and all other arms. In fact, the successful retirement , of the Italian Army along the Tagliamento River, despito strategic difficulties, was entirely, due to their self-sacrific6.

The splendid manoeuvring in great masses, and tho reckless .gallantry of the Italian horsemen ( ...against a hail cf machine-gun projectiles, will remain one of the most brilliant features of this war, and can bo compared to tho charges of the Austrian cavalry at Koniggratz, which drovo back the Prussians, enabling Benedek's defeated troops to retire in safety. The Italian cavalry practically, repeated tho same feat in soreoning, with constant daring dashes under fiio, the march of the main body of tbo army, enabling the latter to occupy a now pre-arranged position, in which they are already, busily engaged in fortifying themselves. The- charges, hand-to-hand encounters, and irresistible rushes of squadrons and whole brigades, were executed with aucb admirable precision at the highest speed as to astonish experts,, who declared that never had great masses of horsemen been more easily controlled. On several occasions magnificent feats of that, trick-riding for which t.ho Italian cavalry has always been celebrated at English military tournamonts were porformed. Riders and horses, like centaurs, climbed down the sides of tho precipitous hills on both sides of the road leading from tho Friuli Plain to the Tagliamento River, showing great mastery of both horses and weapons. Machine-guns could not arrest them. Gome regiments were practically annihilated, but their heroic sacrifice was not in vain, since- it protected the road by which the Third Army, led by the Duke of Aosta, and its munitions and stores, passed to safety.