File:The Bridge of Sighs in Venice.jpg

Identifier: literarydigesthi09hals (find matches)
Title: The Literary digest history of the world war, compiled from original and contemporary sources: American, British, French, German, and others
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: Halsey, Francis W. (Francis Whiting), 1851-1919, comp
Subjects: World War, 1914-1918
Publisher: New York, London, Funk & Wagnalls Company
Contributing Library: Columbia University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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region, until it was now admitted by Vienna that all Aus-trian positions west of the river had been abandoned.This restored to the Italians the west bank from northwestof the Montello plateau to the sea. How serious had been the menace to Venice was indicatedby the fact that Austrian guns at one time were only fivemiles away. It was due to the valor of the gunboat crewsof sailor-soldiers fighting deep in mud, water, and reedsthat an Austrian flanking movement was blocked. Thefighting was specially arduous on canals behind the lagoondistrict, where every cellarless hut was transformed into amachine-gun nest. The Italians had to make night attacks,swimming with knives in their teeth until they surprizedand killed machine-gun defenders. Artillery played nightand day upon everj road in between the canals. One nightwhen there was heavy shelling an Italian captain kept upthe courage of a group of reserves by saying each time !• Cable dispatch from Austin West to The Times (New Yorli). 140
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THE BRIDGE OF SKillS IX VENICE This famous bridge narrowly escaped being hit by an Austrian airplane bomb 141 L\ THE EAST, NEAR EAST, AND SOUTH a shell fell: The Americans are coming over faster thanthat. Caporetto was avenged in this fight on the Piave. Inall his unlucky reign. Kaiser Franz-Josef had undergone noghastlier reverse than this one of Kaiser Karl. Italy hadwon her greatest victory of the war—the greatest she hadwon since her rebirth as a nation. This battle in northernItaly would probably be reckoned the major turning-point in the 1918 campaign. It was won by steady courage,unity of effort and admirable generalship against Teutonicgenerals over-ambitious in strategy, with poor coordinationof armies, and representing a government end peopleapproaching the last stages of military disorganization. Thevictory promised to remain an enduring incident in the his-tory of the Italian people, one more landmark in theirbrilliant record—a history in which defeat had been fre-quen

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