ITALY'S GREAT VICTORY.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 January 1919, Page 6

ITALY'S GREAT VICTORY.

AUSTRIAN ARMY DESTROYED.

300,000 .MEN CAPTURED; 5000 GUSTS.

November 4. The following Italian official communiques have been issued: The war against Austria-Hungary, which tinder the high guidance of his Majesty the King—supreme leader —the Italian Army, inferior in number and in material, began cn May 24, 1915, and with unbending faith and tenacious valor conducted uninterruptedly and bitterly for 41 months, has been won.

The gigantic battle engaged on the 24th of last October and in which 51 Italian Divisions, 3 British, 2 French, I Czecho-Slovak, and 1 American Regiment participated against 63 Austro-Hungari-an Divisions ia ended.

The daring and very rapid advance of the XXIX. Army Corps on Trento (Trent), closing up the -way of the enemy's armies to the Trentino, who were overcome to x the west by troops of the 7th Army and to the east by those of the Ist, 6th, and fth, -determined the total collapse of the enemy's front. From the Brenta to the Torre the irresistible dash of the 12th, Sfch, and 10th Amies and of the Cavalry Divisions is driving the fleeing enemy always further away.

In the plains his Royal Highness the Duke of Aosta is advancing rapidly at the head of his unconquered 3rd Army, longing to return to those positions which it had already victoriously captured.

The Austro-Hutigarian Army is destroyed; it suffered very heavy losses in the fierce resistance of the first days of the struggle and in the pursuit; it has lost an' immense quantity of material of all kinds, and nearly all its stores and depots; it has left in our hands about 300,000' prisoners -with commands complete, and not less than 6000 guns. Those left of that which was one of the most powerful armies in the world are in disorder and without hope, returning along the valleys from which they descended with haughty assurance.

JOY OP LIBERATED PEOPLE.

(Times' Correspondent.) 1

Italian Headquarters, Oct. 31 It is the end. There may he resistance of rearguards to save something from military stores and to save somewhat the honor of regiments, but the Austro-Hungarian Army has fought its last battle, and lost it. The object of the Italian Army at present is a very definite one, and it would be a mistake to think that in following the Austrians during the period, when they are apparently suing for unconditional peace it was rather superfluously pursuing a man about to drop deadThe aim of the Italian forces is to get at the enemy's chief centres of provision and traffic so fast that his re« treat becomes a rout and his roads of escape jammed. Out of all this litter and confusion, there may finally be erupteed on to Austrian soil only a herd of defenceless and demoralized men.

Yesterday from before dawn till late at night, I followed up the Austrian retreat. It was at Vittorio, at that time the farthest point of the Italian advance, that I caught up with it. I crossed tho piave with delighted. artillery men, who when tliey reached the opposite bank did not so much cheer as turn round and grin happily at each other. It was a curious process. Each man, as if by rote, turned with a huge smile of complete satisfaction to the I comrade behind him. "Partenza per Udine" shouted- one and whistled like a

train about to start. At Conegliano one comes into the dominion of shame and of sorrow. A notice-board I picked up in a ditch beside a bridge before I came to the town had prepared me for something of the sort. "Civilians muts not pass this line," it said, "anyone breaking this regulation will be shot." I brought it along with me, and a group of people of Conefjliano who were grouped round the

fountain iti the centre of their town, on which the green, white, and red waved, when I showed the notice to them, just shrugged their shoulders, and said that the enemy were like that. On either side of the street, just beside that old fountain, there had once been a fine arcade of houses. Now there was nothing but a deplorable ruin, a sort of spew of bricks between decayed walls. The Syndic of the town explained to me how it happened- The Germans were here till last February, he said, but this they did immediately after their arrival about a year ago. They went into the houses, put inflammable material? sprinkled with petrol in them, then threw in lighted candles. When the next day the houses were smoking ruins, the Germans photographed them, grinning as they did it, and afterwards in other parts of the occupied territory circulated postcards of the scene, entitled, "Wanton damage to Italian towns ordered by the Italian senerals and Italian Government- 3 ' Tliey

showed these cards to the inhabitants. Othel' houses, which appeared to the intact, were stripped of everything. A great iitomber had no-floors even, as the

Hungarians, who lorded it here after the Qehiians, continued their work. TileJ"'tarried off all the teams of houses, so' that the -floors fell in'. Nowhere was• there any glass left, as far as X could : see, sft- any of the windows I! tif the lofty" houses along the ccntraiJ -'street, nor in the those of the littered .ind gutted^ 1 'back'' streets I walked rt through. '• • 1 ' But the Syndic Hold; of worse things "than the destruetibn" of One hesitates to speak 1 Ofi the «vil; • Much of. it hung like a cloud over the W{>men of the town. Hungarians used td come to houses and tell mothers they wanted their daughters. They would take ladders and try openly and unashamedly to enter houses at night.- It was. confirmed to me and to juy Italian colleagues toy many witnesses that many a time honest girls were forced to take refuge on the roofs in winter nights to j escape from their tormentors. Thi s bestiality of character took another form when Hungarians captured four brave soldiers of the Czeclio-Sloval-Army. They shot them and hanged them, which first is not clear; but they were hanged to trees in an avenue of the town, and papers branding them "traitors" were pinned to their breasts; the blood-covered corpses being exposed three or four days, as a lesson, it was said, to thfe inhabitants. I arrived eoon enough after the occupation to see myself, both here and at

liberated people. Men raised their caps and shouted, "Vive Italia! Vive la liberta ! Liberi dai carnefici!" (free from the murderers), wildly without intermission. The women flung out their arms—this was at Vittorio, where I came in with tile main body of the occupying troops —and shouted indistinguishable welcomes. I got many, a Viva Inghilterra. and livvivano i AUeati! and even Evviva Wilson! November 1-

The Italian campaign may be considered as virtually over. All semblance of effective resistance by the Austrian® has disappeared. They have been beaten toy the Italian Army finally and for good.

In its pursuit the 10th Army, under Lord Cavan, is approaching Pordenonc, eight miles east of the Livenza, and troops from the western mountain sectors have crossed the frontier and reached Grigno, in the Val Sugana. But today conditions are really beyond the stage of fightingI have just heard an example of unsurpassed Austrian brutality. The story is told by Signorina Besnini, of Conegliano, in whose house lived an Austrian commander. She recounts how two English airmen fell in that vicinity, their machine in flames. One of the airmen was still living, and Hungarian officers slashed his face with a ldfe and kicked him till he was dead, declaring that this treatment was for the English.

November 5.

The suspension of hostilities against Austria-Hungary has temporarily arrested the advance of our troops, but the enemy has saved from being captured but a small part of his armies in the Trentino.

Before 3 p.m. yesterday our columns, having passed every obstacle and overcoming every resistance, had advanced with great impetus and firmly estab-

lished themselves behind the 'enemy in the Adige Valley, closing the openings of all the roads convergent to it. The 7th Army, by rapidly taking the region to the west of the Adige, became master of the Passo della Mendola, and had pushed patrols on the river in the direction of (Bolzanl. The Ist Army, which, with the advance made on the 3rd inst. of its XXIX- Corps, had crowned the brilliant manoeuvre for the taking of Trento (Trent), occupied Monticelli, dominating the confluence of the Adige Noce. Yesterday at 3 p.m. the Headquarters of the Army was at Trento. 'On the remainder of the front the enemy had been driven well into the mountains. In the Plains the cavalry, throwing into panic the large units still on the maTch, had encircled them and obliged them to lay down their arms.