MARCH INTO ITALY.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 February 1918, Page 7

MARCH INTO ITALY.

FIRST BRITISH' CAMPAIGN. EVERY PROMISE FULFILLED.' On6.can have 110 conception of the enormous task involved in the transference of tlie British Expeditionary Force to the Italian front unless he imagines the- transport of a gigantic factory employing many tens or even hundreds of thousands .of men to a point several hundred nnles awaj-, Mr. I). Warner Allen wrote on December n. All the machinery of the army—and with modern artillery, ammunition, and all its • other impedimenta, it is far more cumbrous than the machinery of a factory employing as many hands as there are soldiers in the Expeditionary Force—has 'been conveyed, across France and the Alps by two railways, tlie Mont Cenis and the Riviera Coast line. To make matters worse, our allies, the 'French, were also bringing over the same railway systems the important force that they have sent to aid the Italians. The ctrain on the railways and the organising capacity of tlie Powers concerned baft been inumi.re. It is scarcely a:i exaggeration to say that there is not a village h r.ll this great stretch of country the transport an J cur.centration of tlie force; rent by tin Allies fo reinforce the barrier that the Italian Army has erected r-gaius,': tho invader descending from the Alps. The centre and heart of 3-H thb complicated organisation lies in r,n Italian village. British soldiers .ire to be seen wnl'-Jnf in cheerfi'l, orderly groups along the t'ori.uo-.io street:, tilting to the inha.l> : tantr, in a strange mixture of French and English, with a generous addition of Italian terminations. In tho beginning the scenes in France and Belgium, in which the uniforms of our islands and the uniforms of the Continent mingled its they never had been for a century, seemed strange beyond all imagining. Vet the customs and environment wer? far less startingly different than those which surround the British Expeditionary Force in Italy. French, Belgians, and British have fought with and against one another since ages beyonj memory. Never before has a British army been able to boast an Italian campaign. The base station was crammed with men and trains. To all appearances it was a chaos, but order prevailed" everywhere. The stores dump was admirably tidy. Heterogeneous objects were stacked on a disused railway siding as carefully as if tliey had all been set out by an expert window dresser. Barbed wire, wheelbarrows, trench tools., rolls of felt, wire netting, timber in every shape and form, weird apparatus required by aerial photography—in fact, all conceivable kinds of material were stored so as to be easily and immediately available. t Italians and British work, d side- by side unloading the trucks, and the stately Thornycroft lorries carried off everything destined for the dumps outside the station. It need scarcely be said tfhat the officers directing the work were still dissatisfied with the results attained. The men in charge had no eves for the thing accomplished so j long as there was something incomplete. They had not the good luck to see the full fruits of their labors. While they were trying desperately to multiply the transport powers of t'h e Italian railways their efforts were being transformed into solid facts several hundred miles away, where the British divisions, commanded by General Plumer, ttere advancing to take their place in the line. Thanks very largely to the untiring toil of the men behind the lines the British Army was fully up to time. Xot a promise was made that was not completely fulfilled. The - men who had been fighting practically without a respite for a whole year, during which tliey had earned fresh laurels, marched up ready, and with their equipment complete, at the appointed date. As they went forward their splendid discipline and condition filled the Italians with admiration. An Italian officer said to me: "The Tenth Legion that was never elated !iv victory since it knew that it, deserved it, and never cast down t,y defeat since it knew that it had done everything that soldiers could do, has risen from the grave and returned to Italy.''