FANTASTIC WARFARE.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 June 1917, Page 10

FANTASTIC WARFARE.

THE STRUGGLE OF SMALL MEN ON HIGH MOUNTAINS. WHAT THE AJPLINI HAVE ACCOMiPLTSHED. The Italian assault on a spur of Piccolo Lagazuoi—the Lesser Lagazuoi, to distinguish it from the bigger one in the same region—is typical of all the opcrp- ' tons on the sector. Back in February the Austrians claimed to have destroyed Italian positions on the southern slopes of the Lesser Lagazuoi 'by the explosion of a great mine, and even at that time the Italians were busy driving a tunnel or their own under the enemy's lines. Now their mine has been exploded successfully, and they are able to claim that it enabled them at occupy an important spur of the mountain. Entering Austrian territory, as the Italians did, by way of Cortina and the Ampezzo valley, there is a choice of two routes of advance, one to the west of the Falzarego Pass and the other to the north past Schluderbacli. The Italians promptly occupied all the surrounding heights and then proceeded to secure their occupation of the possible roads for an Austrian counter-offensive, and the fighting on the mountains has "for its prime purpose the control of the high road through the Dolomites. Simultaneously there was an Italian advance by the Agordo valley and the Cordevole, and the cooperation of the two columns led to intensely violent mountain, warfare, in which the struggle for Col di Lana was perhaps the most noteworthy phase. The first fighting on the Lesser Lagazuoi occurred in the course of the struggle, for the Italians, working round the peak, were able to attack Col di Lana from the east. SNOW FROM 18 TO 30 FEET. Mr. Percival Gibbon paid a visit to this front a few months ago, just after the Austrians had exploded their mine, and his despatch makes very interesting reading just now. "The positions which I visited," he saya, "are those j situated beyond" Cortina, once a favorite centre for mountain climbers, where the great Dolomite road rises and falls below ! that porcupine bristle of red rock peaks 1 which is called the Dolomites. Here the snow of late storms lies in Tepths varying from 13ft to 30ft, and battalions of Alpini, Italy's regiments of grey-clad mountaineers, maintain bitter and incessant war upon the landscape, which has been stood on edge here. Officers in mighty liob-nailed boots point to the sheer rock walls of peak 12,000 ft high, and relate casually haw this was captured bv a night attack: how others were stormed by bombers who scaled the rockv face, cigars in mouth, whence they lit the bomb fuses; likewise they Indicate a point where a detachment of men and mules was killed by an avalanche thus emphasising the significance of the notice along the road warning (passers-by of the danger from avalanches, HUMAN MQLES IN SNOW WARRENS. "Lesser Laga;uoi is an abrupt rock, 2779 metres in height. The Italian positions upon the face are roughly 7000 ft up. These are reached by a terrible communication trench coiling up heartbreaking slopes One moves, bent double, in pitch blackness, lit at intervals by deep windows, looking up the valley under a blinding sun, where in the distance the Austrian lines show faint grey traceries upon the immaculate snow slopes. These snow galleries are the work of the Alpini, who have excavated scores of miles on this front, the whole vast army, with mule transport, circulating invisibly as moles in a great system of snow warrens between the positions and the lower roads. MIXES AND COUNTER-MINES. "I arrived finally at the rocky platforms blasted out of the inert carcase of Lagazuoi, which constitutes the Italian front line at this point, against the end of which tho boasted Austrian mine iwas aimed. Here I was able to talk at first hand with the men who frustrated that mine. Later in the day, upon another mountain whose identity and whereabouts I must not indicate, I saw the manner of these workings under the inmost heart of the hills, aud beheld the bucking, screaming devils of compressed air drills. The story of the Austrian mine was related by these mountaineers better than the official account. The Austrians did actually drive a gallery for a mine towards the Italian positions, while the latter proceeded forthwith to counter-mine. The Austfian work was still far short of completion when their listeners became aware of countermining work. They decided to load and touch off their fire-works, while there was vet time. The Italian mine was yet uncharged, but its proximity to the Austrian mine so altered the line \ of least resistance of the latter that instead of Wowing through to the surface, the main effects of the explosion drove back along its own shaft, producing some score of casualties simong the Austrians. The Italian casualties were nil. The event, portentously claimed as a success in the bulletin, is rt standing joke among the Alpini. WEIRD EFFECT OF GUN FIRE'. "I witnessed later in the day staple fighting which the weather permits on this front, from a point' overlooking a vast white hollow. On one hand were knife-edge crests. Black spots in the rock faces were Austrian loopholes from galleries blasted in the rock, whence field machine guns spattered into the valley. Opposite the heights were Italians, similarly fighting in rock tombs. Oufc on the naked snow, very far, and minute, were black moving figures of the Alpini on ski. When the Austrian machine guns and field guns opened fire on them, each shot, sharp and distinct, diminished to a handclap in that great emptiness; but upon every boulder in the valley sat a bull-monthed echo, which took' up the noise, repeated it uproariously, and passed it on to the next, till the whole vast theatre of red rock and daw,ling snow was reverberant witli sound. The Italian guns answered, splashing shell in brief blossoms of flame about the Austrian loopholes, and again the ghostly choristers lifted their trum- ■ pet voices. These are not the only : sounds that travel upon snotw. J came . on a very secret observation post at ; the head of a hack-breaking series of ladders in the rock-clefts, where one was ; able to lift one's head'cautiously through a 'blowhole in the snow-crust and set , above the disputed summit of the moun. ; tain, and actually hear as though in a whispering gallery tiny clear trickles of . the speech of the Austrians in the snow ; and r#ck trench above."

HEROIC TASKS. It is a fantastic kind of warfare, as one way judge froitt the account oi evetf visitor to the front. Lord Nortlicliffe, Coran Boyle and H. G. Wells are among the distinguished men wlio have tried to do justice to it—and failed. Julius Price, the artist of the 'illustrated London News," has tried to describe it in words as 'well as to picture it with tfin pencil, but he, j too, misses the eseniial fact—tic- unceasing struggle of the small man on the big mountain. It is only when one realises that the soldiers are undertaking 'heroic tasks of mountaineering as well as waging war that the magnitude of their achievements is even dimlv appreciated. Julius Price will teTl you how the reservists built the remarkablo road to Asiago in a "few days, and how he encountered peasant women carrying barbed wire up to the trenches on" tlie rugged slopes of Pal Grande, on the frontier line ®wav to the east, hut, fascinating as his narrative proves to be, it leaves something still to be written regarding the mountain front.