HAPPENINGS OF THE ITALIAN RETREAT

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 131, 20 February 1918, Page 3

HAPPENINGS OF THE ITALIAN RETREAT

ESCAPE OF BRITISH RED CROSS. Now that a party of uurses and men of tho first British lied Cross unit for ltn.lv is back, a stirring story can be told of their retreat with tho Italian Army, states a correspondent of tho '•Daily Nuns." The unit lias ken at work on the Isonzo front since September, 1515. Its car servico had won the unstinted praise of the Italian command, and its members now bold between tliem eleven Italian medals "For Military Valour." The hospital at Villa Trento was a model of British nursing work, and had treated .5000 in-patients and 8000 out-patients. When the Italian retreat began_tho patients were, evacuated in good time, but the staff did not receive orders to Jeavo until lain in tho afternoon of Saturday, October 27. The roads were terribly* congested by tho retreating Italian transport and the civilian refugees, and it was no light matter to bring away forty-five cars, a pcrnonnnl of two doctors, twenty-five nurses, and sixty-five mule drivers and mechanics, and live officers. The staff were saved, but nineteen of tlm cars had to be abandoned in the impenetrable block-'on tho east of the Taglialneiito.

Mr. 'Geoffrey Young, who -will be remembered for his brilliant work for the '''Daily Neivs" as a war correspondent in France and Belgium, and who was recently wounded while working bcjciiid Gorizia, and lost his leg, had to leave bis car unci to travel for ten hours by any. means that came to hand, sometimes on crutches, sometimes on a stretcher. Once he was pushed along the railway line for a few miles on a trolley, and was linally brought into safety in a mule-cart that was picked up by the wayside.