Italy

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 43, 21 June 1915, Page 5

Italy

OUR ALLY'S FINE SHOWING VICTORY AGAINST CREAT ODDS. Cm-run Pr*h Abbociatiow. (Received 10.15 a.m.) Rome, June 20. Official.-Details of the battle for the heights on the left bank of the Isonzo, commanding Plava which is at the bottom of the pass shut in bv stoep wooded slopes with swift. deep river between., show that our troops with-great and/courageous efforts threw pontoons across in the night and attacked at dawn on June 16th in the face of terrible difficulties, including deep networks of stout barbed-wire, reinforced iron bars and numerous hidden heavy guns. The Italians, after repeated assaults with cold steel, debouched in the evening to the border first position. All counter-attacks were driven back. We carried the heights on June 17th, but the enemy concentrated a violent artillery and machine-gun fire and repeatedly sent fresh troops. These we decimated and finally the enemy was repulsed by bayonet. Our losses were serious, but the results are important.

ALPINIS AS FIGHTERS. NIGHT WORK ON THE MOUNTAINS. FLEET'S FLOATING BATTERIES. (Received 8.45 a.m.) Rome, June 20. Details of the Alpini's attack on the southern slopes of Montenero, where the Austrians were being constantly reinforced, show that the ground was so difficult that the Italian staff decided to advance in the night in absolute silence, and hoped by climbing almost perpendicular rocks to attack the enemy on two sides. The [Alpine were armed with rifles and bombs, and some took off their boots and wrapped their feet in rags, in order to climb up the crags quietly. By dawn one column was operating at Vrata in a counter-scrap, and another Avas north-west of Montepotoel. Meanwhile, the Alpini, who were within two metres of the enemy before they were detected, leaped inf,o the trenches . furiously and had a hand-to-hand fight with the bayonet and the butts of their rifles. The Italians then took the second line of trenches. An incident in the Hungarian attack followed and they.were repulsed a-s was cabled. Simultaneously, two Italian columns at night attacked Mont Kodliak, and the front got within two hundred yards of the Austrian trenches before they were detected. The Alpini, without a moment's hesitation, dashed in arid forced the astonished Austrians to retreat, and pursued them with a fire of stones and hand grenades, while the second column struck the Austrian rear and cut them off from retreat. Six hundred Austrians were made prisoners, and three hundred were left on the field wounded. The Italian losses were slight. The delta at Isoindo is impracticable to warships owing to its shallowness.

Naval gunners silenced the batteries at Duino by means of floating batteries similar to those used in Alexandria in 1882.