Italy

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 33, 9 June 1915, Page 5

Italy

THE AUSTRIANS' PLANS. STORIES OF WANTON ACTS. Times and Sydney Sun Service. (Received 8 a.m.) London, June 8. The Times' correspondent states that before abandoning idvanced positions on the Frontier, the Austrians arrested thousands of Italian sympathisers, and told the inhabitants they were sending them to Askaria. The troops violate the women and pillage and destroy every tiling. The people promptly evacuated. The Austriaiis barricaded the passes with chains, interwoven with wire entanglements, and burnt and destroyed the bridges, and retired to stronglyprotected mountain positions. The Austrians purposely left the rich valley of Ison/,0 open and the towns unprotected so as to lure the Italians into a trap, believing that the ardor of the troops would cause them to occupy it, and so enable the Austrians to decimate them from the surrounding hills, but the Italians did not enter, assailing the hills.

A GALLANT EFFORT, FORTRESS CAPTURED BY ITALIANS. (Received 9.55 a.m.) Rome, June S Italians captured Cortinia after a difficult ascent of a rocky mountain range and the perilous occupation of a ridge. Here they were nearly outflanked l>y the Austrian infantry, hut the mountain batteries were cleveily brought up in the night and opened a deadly lire, which cut ofl' the Austrian* and they were ohliged to withdraw to a pine forest. The Italians then won the fortress armed with the famous Skodwa guns.