ITALIAN FRONT.

Taihape Daily Times, 11 July 1918, Page 5

ITALIAN FRONT.

AUSTRIA’S LOSSES AT PiAVE MOUTH.

LONDON, July 9.

Mr. Ward Price writes: —The Austrians are bitterly reluctant to lose the half-drowned position on the Piave delta for which they made terrible sacrifices last winter. Two Italian officers recently taken prisoner escaped. They describe an exalted Austrian admiral and a large staff assembled at Caorle, ten miles behind the front, waiting to assume command of the naval base of Venice. The Austrians retreated from the delta only when liable to complete extermination. Added to the increasing Italian shelling and machine-gun fire there was the spectre of imminent starvation, owing to the cutting off of supplies. Retirement under heavy fire disorganised the remnant of the shattered four divisions, who left heaps of corpses everywhere, sinking in the delta’s greedy mud. The dead include many of the crack Viennese infantry corps, known as the “Company of Death,” wearing as an emblem the skull and crossbones. They were noted for their special daring! The Austrian and German Governments have ordered the censorship to rigidly suppress the news of the clean sweep of the generals involved in the recent defeat. It is felt that the disclosure of incompetence of the military leaders would dangerously increase the discontent in Hungary and among the disappointed Austrians.