ITALIAN ARMY

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9791, 15 October 1917, Page 6

ITALIAN ARMY

WONDERFUL FIGHTERS Cr.ptaia Bruce Dnirn'fathcr. the cartoonir.t, says in an interview v.ith a London paper: — I have just returned front a trip taken at the invitation of the Italian Government, vrhich embraced the Isonzo ami the Carso fronts, and the Dolomites and Julian Alps, finishing up at Treviso, just on the edge of tho Trentino.

I went in search of jokes and characters for a no’.v series of cartoons, and I enmo away sayin-J to myself, "If only my oid friends. Bill, Bart, and Aif. had to hunt Huns here; what a chanco for seeing tho precious trio at their very best!”

To anyone whe has spent, as I have spent, nearly three years, on and off, oli tho Western battlefields, a tour such as X have just finished comes as a rcveiation to a soldier. Methods, atmosphere. environment—all aro different—so different from war as tho British have t;o wage it that it upsets nil one’s preconceived notkyis as to how a war should be run.

Italy's fighting material is still wonderful. No better soldiers for the work they have to do exist in any part of this world-war’s arena. Take tho famous Alpini, for instance. ‘“Olo Bills” and "Berts" are there in hundreds—and when I say that, I mean tho soldiers of the Mons school, men who will "stick it” till all is blue. Italy’s war is divided into two sections—tho Carso, which is reminiscent of cur own front in France and Flanders, and the mountain mar in tho Alps. IVhat Italy has been able to do in the latter theatre is perfectly amazing; when you see the mountain fortresses our Ally has wrested from the Austrians it seems incredible that any fighting men in the world could have bien found to scale those dizzy heights with guns, ammunition, and food. Hero it is that the Alpinis have so distinguished themselves. In many cases these mountain fighters are fighting in their own villages, and they see ro it all the time that no Austrian comes anywhere near their hearths and homes.

Your officer guide will suddenly point out to you through his glasses a little hole in tho rock some ffiWOft or so up a mountain, side; you look, and just) tee tho nosa of a big howitzer' peeping out < from a cavern. Nothing can touch that gun in tho way of shell fire; it is there till tho. war is over. Tho gunner toils up. a few thousand feet to his i gun, finds ho has left his pocket-handkerchief down .below, and oft he goes down again to fetch it!

Italy “has a bulge” on tho Austrians now, and is not likely to let go. either. Ono feels that in the pir. The Alpini are probably the most healthy and joyous troops in tho world, and what they do not know about the Alps is not worth knowing. When I came across these mountain gnomes manning a trench at ,an angle of about 60 degrees with a drop of 6000 ft immediately beneath the jtitrapet of the trench, it made me wonder what “’OJe Bill” would have said in the way of “language” if any new chum had quite accidentally let bis only tape and ’bacca box drop over that parapet. There being no system of reliefs, these hardy fighters exist in the same trenches for months on, end with never a- change into rest billets or a new part of tho line, such as our men get. They are granted fifteen days’ leave a year; the rest of the_ time they are holding on to their bit of mountain like grim death, taking pot shots at th© enemy when they deign to offer anything in the . way of a target. One , party of men with a searchlight has been perched on top of a certain peak thousands of feet up ever since Italy started the war; on© can imagine a aciuad of tho loir landers running up to tell them when the day oomes that the war Is over!

During my trip X drove about ten miles into Austria through a part of what were onco tho Bnrporor’s shooting grounds. If young Karl ever comes,into his own again there —a doubtful point—he won’t know tho place, for when 1 was there Italian sappers were making military roads through the preserves and cutting tho timber on all sides. The mountain wireways—box-like artango raonts running on wires between the mountain peaks—amazed mo from the point of view of their utility. . They uso them for practically all purposes, for guns, shells, equipment, and food. Tho Italian soldier still gets in his rations a liberal allowance of the wine ot tho country, nnd thrives on it amazingly. No healthier body of fighting men exists to-day anywhere. One of then ever-present perils is the avalanche. Everywhere you go along the trenched there are notice boards: “Beware of the avalanche.”

T came across lots of material for the new work I am doing. “Italian Fragments.” There is plenty of delightful humour to bo got out of Italy’s campaigning joys. Hero is a funuy ease in point. Work it out for yourself. A certain character I camo across lived in a nondescript area claimed by Auslwia, hut which is really Italian soil. He was captured by the Austrians early in the war and used as a very reluctant soldier against th* Hessians. He w«* thou taken prisoner by the Russians in one of their big drives and used in turn against the Austrians. Once moro he was “pinched” by the Austrians, and once more employed as an unwilling recruit against the Italians.

Ultimately he escaped, and now M sn-nd-3 his time ns a verger, looking luted a derelict old church on tho Carso! I met Gabriele d’Annuuzio. the poet, in rather curious circumstances.He is in the Italian firing service, and when I first saw him he was peering through smoked glasses at the inscriptions on tomb-stouc® in an old Rorpan chapel at Ac 11 ilea.

There is a fine field for hnmour when a shell does burst anywhere hi one’s immediate vinicnity On the Italian front. Tho explosion 1. terrific —mnch more terrific than anything on onr fronts —for the simple reason that where the shell falls is almost always hard rock, and von get not only the ehel) fragments hub huge chunks of boulder iu addition. I know of several "better ’oles” myself on the French front after a strafing bont has taken place.

TUhen Lord Hugh Cecil cynically suggested that among other absurdities in connection with female suffrage tho Government might make it a corrupt practice for women to dye their hair, bo must bare remembered that wigs and dyed hair caused grave controversy to the Church of old. How could there bo a true laying on of bands upon a bowigged woman’s head? the Christian Fathers argued. Tertullian urged that women might bo wearing the hair of those who were in hell. As to dyed hair, be was emphatic that it was a contravention of tho declnration that a man cannot make ono hair white or black. But cannot present day women I

Prom 1790 to 1650 the world’s wars cost -23,047,000,003 and 4,470.000 Htc-s. A railway engine may roughly be eoid to bo aquci in strength to 300 horses. Scotland Yard has returned to tho owners in one year lost proparty to the rains of .£31,500? A Ewell (England) farmer, now 81 vc-ars of ago. has lived in tho same house since iio was six months old.

A uorson is actually killed by lightning only when tho current pastor through his body on its way to tho earth.