VALIANT ITALIANS.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 March 1918, Page 7

VALIANT ITALIANS.

BORIANI'S MEN AT AS I AGO. SUCCESS AGAINST TKEMEXDOUS ODDS. In a dispatch to the New York Times, Mr. Porcival Gibbon, the war eorrosn'ji)dent, gave a stirring aoeo.mt of the stemming of the Asiago drive by the Italian troops uti'h'i' General f ßonni)i. The message, whbix is dated November 29, states:— Despair is the touchstone of valor. None hut true metal resists its test. On, the high tnblaland that takes its name from the ruined village, of Asiago that test has bi-e'i appl'ed and daily withstood ever siu«3 November l) by the body of men under General Boriani, who, outnumbered, out-gunueil, and unsupported, have burnished Italy's glories to a new lustre. They v»re the men sent thither to withstand that mighty Austrian thrust whose tolal strength reached forty-four battalions of the cream of the Austrian Army, 'nich divisions as the lOfh, which the Italians hammered down to a residue of 3000 men, while their own strength totalled no moro than twelve battalions at any one time, and their total forces from November Hth to now have'been only nineteen battalions of Alpini infantry and Bcrsaglierl.

BARRED THE ROAD TO THE PLAINS. Upon them and upon that ecstasy of strength which comes to' brave men from the knowledge o f their weakness depended on the defence of one of the high roads to the pla'.n. that old bloodsodden, hard-bought road across the Asingo plateau, which opens on the east to the Brenta Valley and on the west to the Valley of the Aatico—easy roads, both of thorn, leading by plain and straight ways to the heart of Italy. Hither after tbie retreat from the Isonzo came General Boriani and what was left of his sth Brigade of Bersaglieri, with sufficient Alpini and infantry added to them to make them look like a weak division. They had been at Liga when the enemy forced his way up Globoko and retook the batteries in a hand-to-band fight. They also fought a rearguard action at Torre bridge. Boriani bimself went into Udine at 1 p.m. on October 28th, which was about an hour a:'tcr T left it, and was fired upon by Germans in the large square overlooked by Cadorna's headquarters. They fought with the rearguard to the Taglia-vm-i'to, led by Boriani himself on font, ■ind there was never a moment throughout the tragetlv of the retreat when the Fifth Bcrsaglicri failed in .ifscipline or lost cohesion as a body. GENERAL FOUR TIMES WOUNDED. Boriani was one of the distinguished fighting leaders of the Second Army. A youngish, vivacious man, with an extraordinary flow of nursery English, speaking of the Austrians- to me, ho s;.id: "They are horrid, nasty beasts." and, showing the bandaged hand jn which lie had received his fourtli wound this year, lie complained that he could not use a fork at the table. ."I am like a beastly beast in a beastly cage," he said—all this with a'twinkle and =nap of the lively eyes in the humoroi's. strongly marked face of the man >-'io began life as a doctor and became n specialist in diseases of women, and is now famous as one of the most reckless and successful leaders of the lighting men in Italy. On November ft, wiih the Austrian forces in STeatly superior numbers threatening his whole line, he fell back from a portion of the old Asiago front to points at which Monte Longara and Monte Meletta were held by his advance, posts. That night, in blizzard, the Austrians attacked him and succeeded in forcing him back so that they took positions on Meletta Castelgomborto and a 17.%-metro height on the great upland of Monte Fior, besides the whole of that mass of steep pastures and little woods which are known a3 Meletta d'Avanti.

BORIANI TAKES THE OFFENSIVE. Faced here with the alternatives of an almost immediate further retirement to another line or an attacking with inferior forces in the hope of recovering some of the lost ground and thereby mending the situation, Boriani chose the latter, and on November 10 his men, by sheer fighting, retook then whole of Meletta d'Avanti and Mcletta di Gallio, besides thrusting out westward and .ridding themselves of a number of objectionable Austrian neighbours in the form of advanced posts. He had accomplished what he designed, but no single victory could mnke his position a good one. His front was a narrow salient, ballooning northward from Asiago on the west, taking in fiallio and Monte Longara, and turning eastward just north of the heights of Castelgombcrto and Tondarccar. Thence it ran south across P.adenecche and reached the Brenta some miles below San Marino. Its greatest width was not more than ten miles, and there; was no part of it that was no pounded daily by the ponderous Austrian artillery. The incessant bombardment and Austrian pressure made the.position daily worse. The snow wan deepening on the desolate levels of the tableland walled in by its frinffe n/ -mvit mountains. It was a case of attacking or bein squeezed or hunted out. Boriani,, of course, attacked. He organised his attack to begin on the morning of November -22, before the bitter dawn of these high, wintry deserts. He did not know—he had no means of knowing—that the Austrians were as tired of him as he of them, and had themselves arranged for an attack for that morning, to start just after the hour for which he had arranged. So, when the Italians went forward, they were met by the preliminary bombardment which was to make tilings easy for the Austrian infantry. Thev ducked from cover forthwith, | with the swift brains of their leaders went to work on this new problem. It wis settled bv the Austrians coming dnlv forward for the attack, with a 'was? in front of them, and the two jfnrcns met in the open. Boriani speai's of it, a = a sort of joke, hut then, fighting is his hobby as well as his trade-

FRIGHTFUL FIGHTING IN THE OPEN. There ensued'ppi'l'sps the moat frightful open fijrhtinj; w!hieh this war has :een. It was u melee over acres of jrround where battalions were" locked one with another and slabbed and slashed ainmr the era':; and over vlie snow while the Austrian sheik Imtsl amon.2 them lcillincr fr'e-id and foe together, There were men who fovurht bareliand*!

and others who fought with stones. It was a saturnalia of killing. Sheer numbers decided it, and bv nightfall the Italians had lost a little ground, every yard of which had been paid for with dead men. They recovered the whole of that ground in the course of the night, and it was not till the nigiht of November 20 that they fell back, without a fight and without pressure from the enemy, upon their present line. The Austrian forces engaged against them included the Nineteenth Division, to wlii h T have referred above, the Eleventh Division from the reserve, and the 100 th, whose 2nd Brigade comprised of six battalions of Kaiscrjager. and also the Eighteenth and Fourteenth Divisions-