The people's war book; history, cyclopaedia and chronology of the great world war . in tendays, rallied and stemmed the , too, liad been forced to againwithdraw troops for the operations inGalicia. The Austrians halted when theyreached the main lines of the Italian de-fense and, as they hesitated, Cadornastroops began another brilliant eouiiter-offensive. Again the Izonzo and Goriziawere the objectives. The city lies in aring of hills and these natural fortifica-tions the Italians bomliarded and by elevation, the Italians ad-vanced by a series of courageous d
The people's war book; history, cyclopaedia and chronology of the great world war . in tendays, rallied and stemmed the , too, liad been forced to againwithdraw troops for the operations inGalicia. The Austrians halted when theyreached the main lines of the Italian de-fense and, as they hesitated, Cadornastroops began another brilliant eouiiter-offensive. Again the Izonzo and Goriziawere the objectives. The city lies in aring of hills and these natural fortifica-tions the Italians bomliarded and by elevation, the Italians ad-vanced by a series of courageous daslies,though at terrible sacrifices. The moun-tain fortresses reduced, the city itself wasnext bombarded and the river crossed andon August 9th, King Victor Emmanuelhimself rode into the city. The fighting in the campaigns inNorthern Italy was of a nature never be-fore attempted in warfare. Great moun-tain peaks had to be surmounted. Nar-row passes capable of defense by acomparative handful of men must bethreaded. Roaring mountain torrentshad to be bridged. At times tJie trans-. Three In a Bed. HISTORY OF THE WAR 111 portation of big gnns and supplies wasaccomplished liy huge trolleys suspendedfrom peak to peak, along which the gigan-tic loads were hauled. A whole divisionmight fight for days for the gain of a hun-dred yards through this rough hewn ter-rain. The objective won, a battalion ofmen might push them from the hard wongoal by the advantage of the height fromwhich they fought. Two objectives in the spring of 1917then were within striking (^istance by theItalians. To the south lay Trieste, thegreat Austrian seaport. To the north-east lay the strategic railroads, possessionof which would open the way to either of which one they chose, thewild and desolate territory around Gori-zia, known as the Carso plateau, had firstto be reduced. Of particularly craggednature, it served as the natural fortifica-tions of the Austrians. The fighting herevaried in success, but
Size: 1960px × 1275px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectworldwar19141918
