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195 33 The Piavi River Front and the War in the Alps. SEPTEMBER 30 A fine and interesting day. General Treat took me out with him (and Colonel Davidson, the medical officer) to the Piave River front where our troops are stationed. We drove through the city of Treviso, much bombed and mostly deserted . We stopped at one small town where the Monday market was going on and went among the sturdy peasants who had brought in their oxen, pigs, fruits, and vegetables for sale. It looked not like a hungry country though the prices for everything were tremendously high. A fine pair of oxen was set at 4,000 liras, a moderate-sized pig at 400 liras ($64.00 in our money), and the like. All the way out, also, on these roads were entanglements and back trenches. The women in the beautiful orchards were gathering the grapes and here and there in the little towns the wine presses were busy. There are no young men, except those in uniform, all the work being done by children, women, and old men. Near the front we ran swiftly along camouflaged roads, saw the sausage balloons above the lines and an occasional Italian aeroplane high overhead— for the Italians are now wholly master in the air. We found our boys in gravelly trenches and well-built dugouts on the shore of the Piave where one could look out quite safely across the broad, shallow, swift stream to the green banks on the other side where the Austrians lay hidden in their trenches. Soon after we arrived shells began to fly and strike not far off on the flat land behind us. They had evidently observed the general’s automobile, which we left behind the second line trenches, and when we got back later we found that one Austrian shell had fallen within thirty feet of it, but it was uninjured. Our American boys have been in these trenches over three days and are full of the spirit of adventure. They’d like to be sniping at the Austrians all 196 | Reporting on Public Opinion in Great Britain, France, and Italy the time, but are under strict orders not to “start anything,” While we were there, the Italians on our left began a lively but wholly harmless machine gun fire across the river. We had luncheon in the officers’ mess in the front-line trench, and a very good one it was, too—good meat, potatoes, salad, and white bread. The major in command of the battalion is an excellent man—Major Everson, who was—of all things!—a farmer preacher from Ohio. We had in quite a number of Italian officers, most of whom have been at it since the war began. Our men say that our coming has greatly improved the spirits of the Italians, and I should think it would. We had great talk of the progress of the war, for the men in these front trenches get little news and much speculation as to whether the Italians would launch another offensive. OCTOBER 1 A remarkable trip today with Captain Scaravaglio to the Alpine front where the Italians are clinging to the edge of granite cliffs above the Venetian plain and keeping the invading Austrians from penetrating to the fertile lowlands of the Brenta and the Adige. We drove through the bombed and halfdeserted city of Vicenza and then upward by the way of Thiene to the peaks south of the valley town of Arsiero. The Italians have built marvelous new mountain roads up the steep cliffs, angling back and forth, and giving from the top one of the most wonderful views across the green Venetian plain that ever I saw. At the top we had luncheon with an Italian artillery captain in his little quarters clinging to the mountainside, and while we were eating veritable hell broke loose, for the guns all around us began to blaze away at something beyond the Austrian lines among the far Alps. Soon the Austrians replied and the earth shook with the explosions. All the shells went over us to the valley below. Some of these artillerymen have been here a long time. After luncheon we climbed to the very summit of the ridge where we could look northward up the Astico valley into Austria. Mount Pasubio rose to the clouds on our left and to the right were the high peaks and plateaus of theAsiago battleground—a marvelous view. Below...

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