100 років тому - флот

COALING AT SEA

OIL-FIRED BOILERS.

Photographed while the ship was running at full speed

OIL-MOTOR ROOM OF A GERMAN SUBMARINE




OIL BUNKERING IN PORT

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-visit-to-the-grand-fleet-lmbmnsrnr

A visit to the Grand Fleet

Count Alexis Tolstoy contributes a further article to “ The Times” giving some of his impressions of the recent visit paid by the Russian authors and journalists to the Grand Fleet

March 9, 1916

By Count Alexis Tolstoy.


It all passed before our eyes like a dream. In the evening we took our places in a special sleeping-car. Wo engaged in conversation about trifles. That was not surprising after a week of uninterrupted banquets, receptions, reviews, calls, and interviews. We smoked till the air became unbearable, and then retired to our berths, agreeably lulled by the rattle of the rain on the carriage roofs.


When morning broke our train was steaming through the snowclad hills of Scotland. Here And there streams of water were coursing down the white valleys. Slowly a long viaduct passed, and was hidden behind the hill. High up an old tower peeped above the ruined walls of a castle adorning the crags. A stag lazily shifted from the immediate vicinity. of the train, and, turning his antlers, gazed after us.


At a deserted wayside station two Scotsmen in plaid stood regardless of frost and bare knees. They are a well-grown, incredibly hardy people. Like the ancient Romans they consider it a disgrace to wear trousers. Suddenly ahead of us appeared the sea. From the snowy hills we descended into a green, damp valley, and stopped in an old-world, clean-swept town, spaciously paved, composed of two-storey dwellings built, as the custom goes in Scotland, of brownish-grey stone. On all sides we saw bright gardens, comfortable cottages, and low walls of lichen-covered stone. Over the still waters of the little harbour flocks of screaming seagulls whirled. Trucks carried all sorts of war material, huge floats, and wire-netting for the capture of submarines.


A red-faced warrior with a turned-up nose and attired in the fashion of the days of Ossian walked backwards and forwards with fixed bayonet guarding the precious trucks, and the wind blew about the ribbons of his bonnet and the tartans of his kilt. From a crane alongside depended a projectile which looked as big as the Scottish sentry. Slowly it began to descend into the hold of a vessel, whero rows of similar projectiles were being laid. Each one of these missiles would have blown to pieces a five-storeyed house.

THE GUARDIAN WARSHIPS.


Continuing its course our train frequently sallied on to the sea-shore. A smart breeze was blowing, and the foaming waves broke merrily on the weed-grown rocks beneath us. On many a green meadow the sheep were grazing. An old man was bending to the plough, while overhead a swarm of white gulls hovered over the black furrows. Clouds darkened the hill-tops and suddenly down came a strong, slanting shower, obscuring the sea-line and almost concealing the huge squat forms of the guardian warships.


We spent the whole time sitting in red-velveted armchairs, at the windows of the dining car which was to accompany us to the end of our journey and back. Everything had been arranged for our comfort. We had only to converse and look out of the window. The Senior Naval Officer met us at N-, and took us home to his cottage, which stands in a garden full of snowdrops. On the following day our hostess thoughtfully provided each of us with a bunch of these flowers. After tea we wandered about the seashore gazing at the waters which, like everything in the North, the houses, the rocks, and the hills, reflected a brownish yellow tinge. Huge clouds loomed in the distance over rockbound islands. The inrushing tide moaned on the rocks below.


In the morning our captain, armed with huge leather gauntlets, muffled up in a heavy scarf, offered me a seat beside him in his motor-car. We went ahead of the others along a frost-bound causeway skirting the coast, towards a cove where we could see the dark hull of a destroyer, whose captain was pacing the shore awaiting our arrival. I used to think that such sailors lived only in the pages of a novel. The peak of his cap slightly raised, he stood facing the keen wind in a light jacket, an extraordinarily handsome figure with eyes the colour of sea water, his sunburnt shaven face breathing, good nature and energy. In two years he had been absent on leave for only one day. Answering the question “How did he bear the hardships of sea service complicated by constant hunts after German submarines?” he smilingly remarked that it was all easy enough if you took things cheerfully.


The others having arrived, we were invited to go on board the destroyer. Her men donned oilskins and sou’westers. The engines started, we cast off our moorings, and the destroyer, leaving her berth, turned her head towards the wind and waves. Nabokoff, Choukovsky, and I hauled ourselves up on the bridge. Throughout the ensuing run we were drenched by the flying spindrift. Gazing aft I saw the narrow snaky body of the destroyer settling lower in the waves as we speeded up. The crew on deck were being freely dowsed. We were flying through the water faster than some express trains travel on land.

100 Years Ago

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/story-of-german-raider-0jx8qrmk0

january 19, 1917

Story of a German raider

The Admiralty reports that 10 vessels (including eight British boats of large tonnage) have been sunk. The Dramatist sighted a vessel on December 28 going the same way and closing in. At 1.15pm the vessel came alongside, broke out a German naval ensign, and signalled “Stop immediately”. The side of the German vessel under the forecastle bulwarks was dropped, revealing two guns of 2½in calibre, trained on the Dramatist, which stopped and surrendered. Armed crews boarded, and the crew were conveyed to the raider. At 7 o’clock the steamer was sunk. The crew were transferred to the Hudson Maru, with others from sunken vessels — in all 237 — with instructions to follow the raider to Pernambuco. When any vessel was sighted all on deck were driven below and the watertight doors were locked. The heat was stifling. The men heard from the raider’s crew that had a British cruiser been met they would not have been allowed a chance of saving themselves.


The raider looks like an ordinary cargo steamer. When passing neutral vessels she hoists British colours. When she sights a British vessel she hoists the German ensign. The captain stated that he did not intend to sink passenger steamers; he did not wish to kill women and children; he only wanted to sink big cargo boats. One of the crew of the Minieh states that the officer of the raider asked for papers. When he was told that they had been destroyed he laughed, and said: “Well, it can’t be helped you have played the game.”


The Radnorshire’s experiences were similar to those of the Dramatist. The captain was told, when asking what the raider would do with his Indian firemen, that they would be kept at work aboard and sent with the next batch of prisoners. The captain was informed that if he had fired a gun, he would have been sunk with all hands. “When the raider was near I gave the alarm and everybody donned lifebelts. Six German officers and 20 men boarded us and assumed charge. After seizing all the coffee and food they planted two bombs on each side of the vessel, but we were given time to remove our personal necessaries. After we left the bombs were exploded. We were kept in the raider’s port bow practically without air, and compelled to sleep for five days with “roughnecks”.

100 Years Ago - VCs

V.C.'S AT THE PRESENT A TION IN HYDE PARK, JUNE 2, 1917.

In khaki, left to right: Private Hughes, Private Cunn:ngham, Capt. White, Col. Bradford,

Lieut. Palmer, and Capt. Alien.

MRS. MOTTERSHEAD RECEIVES FROM THE KING THE V.C. WON BY HER

HUSBAND, SERGEANT THOMAS MOTTERSHEAD, R.F.C.

BT. MAJ. WM. LA TOUCHE CONGREVE,

D.S.O., M.C., Rifle Brigade

SERGT. W. E. BOULTER,

Northamptonshire Regt., receiving the congratulations of his friends


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-king-and-his-brave-subjects-qzlgb539t

The King and his brave subjects

A widow came next to take the Victoria Cross from the hands of the King, Mrs Lilian Mottershead, whose husband, Sergeant Thomas Mottershead, VC, Royal Flying Corps, died of burns after bringing back his blazing aeroplane and saving the life of his observer

June 4, 1917

There has been little or no pageantry connected with this war. Battle pictures, parades, guard mountings are all studies in drab colours, and always the unimpressive khaki note predominates. Much ceremony has gone by the board. But on Saturday there was held one of the most impressive military functions of the last three years, when the King decorated over 300 of his sailor and soldier subjects and 50 relatives of men who have died after winning decorations for valour. Twelve nurses also received the Royal Red Cross.

Early in the afternoon there was a bustle and a stir round Buckingham Palace and Wellington Barracks, and at 2 o’clock a detachment of Scots Guards, headed by the massed bands of the Brigade of Guards, marched up Constitution Hill to Hyde Park Comer and so along the Row to the enclosure fenced in for the investiture. There was a soft wind blowing, just enough to straighten out the folds of the Colour carried by a tall lieutenant of the Scots Guards.

The Colour party entered the Park to the music of brass and reed instruments, but they marched along the Row to the skirl of the pipes. It was a scene to remember. Overhead there was a blue sky, blocked in with great white masses of clouds. The trees, in their best leaf and not yet spoiled by the dust of summer, made a cool canopy. The Row itself was lined with an expectant crowd, and the massed bands in their scarlet uniforms, the gold-laced coats of the drum-majors, and the line on line of bearskin busbies, made a fine showing by very contrast with the khaki of the guard. The pipers, each with the wonderfully worked silken bannerette fluttering from the drone, and the drummers with their painted drums, looked the proudest men in the procession.

With a right wheel the party swung into the enclosure and the lines of sentries presented arms to the colours. The tune they marched in to was an American one, and the compliment was appreciated to the full by the little group of United States Army nurses and men of the medical corps to the right of the dais. The scene was changed from moment to moment during the next half-hour, but by half-past 2 most of the spectators had settled into their places.

To the right of the dais as one fronted it was a gay group of military uniforms with much gold oak-leaf braid, many medal ribbons and red tabs. On the other side were the representatives of the Navy, while farther to their right again were the American nurses in their sober blue uniform and workmanlike wide-awake hats. Just near them was a splash of colour made by the scarlet cloaks of a group of children from the home for soldiers’ orphans. The main colour of the big circle was blue, for on each side, sitting in chairs and lying full length on the grass, there were 300 wounded soldiers in their hospital kit. The bright blue tunic with its white lapels and lining and the scarlet ties gave a most pleasing effect.

100 Years Ago

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/the-reply-to-the-wilson-note-rwpvbw252

january 12, 1917

The reply to the Wilson note





Courteous and friendly in tone, clear and positive in statement, closely reasoned, and animated by the lofty ideals of politics and of morals to which the people of the United States have always paid homage, the Reply of the Allies to Mr Wilson’s Note must command the approbation of the great nation across the Atlantic.

The German Government curtly refused the information for which the President asked. They made no “avowal of their views as to the terms upon which the war might be concluded”, and they told him, in substance, that he had mistaken the road to peace. The Allies do not pretend to be at present in a position to state all their war aims in detail. These cannot be set out in full until the moment for negotiation has been reached. But they declare their general objects with more amplitude and more precision than in any statement yet made. First among them, it need hardly be said, ranks the restoration of the small nations whom Germany has trodden under her heel. Belgium, Serbia, and Montenegro must be set free, with the compensations owed them. The liberation of the occupied portions of France, Russia, and Rumania, with reparation for the damage done them, is equally imperative.


The peace which they desire must be based on the right of “all peoples, small and great”, to full security and to liberty of economic development. It must ensure the liberation of the Italians, Slavs, Rumanes, and Czecho-Slovaks and the risorgimento of Poland; it must free the populations under Turkish tyranny and end for ever the rule of the Ottoman in Europe.


The Allies appreciate the lofty sentiments which make the United States eager to cooperate, as Mr Wilson declares, in considering the formation of a league of nations to ensure peace and justice throughout the world. They heartily associate themselves with the plan, but point out that discussion of it presupposes a satisfactory settlement of the war. Anxious as they are for peace, they sadly acknowledge that they are at present unable to see any prospect of bringing about the only kind of peace they can accept. These things cannot be safeguarded without securing the reparation, the restitution, and the guarantees which they claim.

100 Years Ago

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-01-06/register/health-of-the-field-armies-hfnjrndb7
january 6, 1917
Health of the field armies
In his dispatch Sir Douglas Haig made a statement which is among the most sensational ever put forth by a Commander in the field. He said: “The health of the troops has been most satisfactory, and, during the period to which this dispatch refers, there has been an almost complete absence of wastage due to diseases of a preventable nature.”

That boast is unique in the history of the world. Ten years ago it would have been regarded as evidence of mental instability to suggest that preventable disease could be expelled from any army. The old wars were the starting-points of plagues and epidemics. The history of war was also the history of disease, nor were these two ever separated. Whole armies were swept away by the unseen foe; the hand of pestilence was more to be feared than the onrush of the enemy.

Nor do we need to look far back for examples of the double horror of war and disease. In the Spanish-American War thousands of young men were swept away by typhoid fever. In our own South African War the same disease destroyed battalions. We congratulated ourselves in those days that we had coped successfully with the problem of field hygiene, and yet out of every 100 men lost to the forces only 20 fell to the weapons of the enemy. The unseen foe was responsible for 80 per cent of the total casualties. Pestilence walked with the marching men and brought the strength of the strongest to ruin.

Looked at from the vantage ground of this tremendous war, all these other wars seem insignificant. Yet this war, in which pestilence might have been expected to work almost universal destruction, has been, so far as the Western theatre is concerned, a war without pestilence. The man who has done this is the scientist — the man who has been reviled as an experimenter and torturer of animals, a callous seeker after worthless knowledge, who has nearly always had to face great difficulties, has almost invariably been underpaid, and, as these things are measured nowadays, has had only second-rate honours doled out to him. He is the man who has saved battalions to the Army, preserved countless homes from bereavement, husbanded the young strength of the country, and by so doing sharpened all the weapons of war.

В якості тізера

Нижче - вступ до розділу (досить великого) у цікавій книжці, що з Божою поміччю вийде цього року


Епоха змін



Період між першим поділом Республіки Обох Народів (1772 р.) і кінцем Великої (Першої Світової) Війни (1918) надзвичайно насичений подіями, історичними процесами і змінами. В українській історичній свідомості він часто-густо залишається поза увагою – за винятком Великої Війни – бо на перший погляд йому важко конкурувати в історичній звабливості чи то з періодом Київської Русі, чи то з Козаччиною. Але дуже й дуже варто придивитися до цього часу уважніше. Хоча б тому, що саме тоді зароджується цілком впізнаваний сучасний світ. Більш того, саме тоді зароджується впізнавана сучасна Україна, і в кінці цього періоду вперше – і назавжди – виходить на арену європейської і світової політики.


За вісім років до початку розглядуваного проміжку часу Російська імперія знищує зоставшийся у спадок по Богданові Хмельницькому інститут гетьманства – вдруге, і на цей раз назавжди. Через три роки після початку розглядуваного проміжку часу знищується Запорізька Січ, і історія нашого козацтва входить у епоху сутінок, що поступово переходять у глуху ніч. Ще через півтора десятки років стираються з адміністративної мапи імперії козацькі полки і сотні. Їм на зміну приходять намісництва, тоді губернії – і від Козацької Держави, здавалося б, не залишилося й сліду. Вона була знищена ретельніше, ніж Польща, що в той таки час продовжила хай зомбіподібне, але життя через Конґресове Королівство Російської імперії чи Галицько-Володимирське Королівство імперії Габсбургів.


Але ось у кінці розглядуваного періода європейські політики були здивовані, як це, чому це і звідки це раптом вистрибнула як Пилип з конопель ця дивна країна, де її бути було не повинно (відродження незалежної Польщі такою несподіванкою не стало). Країна, що виводила свій родовід із знищеної начебто впень Козацької держави, і що претендувала на території, про які сам Богдан Хмельницький міг лише мріяти. Сьогоденна Україна є вже безперервною спадкоємицею України, що постала у 1917-18 роках


Історія не йде зарані прокладеною залізничною колією. Наш світ, як би нам це ни було важко уявити, міг би й не відбутися, а замість нього був би інший, для нас дивний і незнайомий. В 1772 році землі нашої країни опинитися поділені між Російською імперією, імперією Габсбургів, та ще на недовгий час між Кримським ханством і Республікою Обох Народів, поки ці дві держави не зникли поглинені Росією. Якби ці кордони закріпилися надовше, перейшовши у ХІХ століття, то цілком можливо, що замість однієї модерної української нації утворилося б дві, а то й три споріднених, але різних народи.


Що так не сталося, подбали війни, про які ми згадаємо пізніше – починаючи з війни 1788-91 року Російської імперії й Османської, та війни 1792 року її ж із Польщею, і зікінчуючи Великою Війною, що в історії України постала як початок Перших Визвольних Змагань (про які мова піде в іншому розділі), і в підсумку якої й з’явилась Українська держава.


Погляд на мапу також допомагає усвідомити, що зміни відбувалися, принаймні на поверхні речей, не суцільним потоком – серйозні здвиги ставали результатом довгого накопичення дрібніших змін у житті, праці, думках і поведінці людей. Які б історичні процеси ни відбувалися в Україні протягом ХІХ століття, на мапі кордони залишалися практично незмінними – на схід від Збруча Росія, на захід Австрія (із дрібними тимчасовими змінами, як от перебування Тернополя в 1809-1815 роках під чорним двоголовий орлом із Святим Юрієм на грудях, а не під чорним двоголовий орлом із червоним левом та трьома срібними дроздами на нагрудній тарчі. Іншим епізодом тимчасової короткочасної зміни кордонів стало перебування у 1856-1878 роках півдня нинішньої Одеської області у складі Молдавського князівства і потім Румунії. Але коли вже зміни відбувалися, то ставали справді радикальними.


Мінялося суспільство – за розглядуваний проміжок часу наші землі пережили впровадження кріпацтва і його скасування, блискавичну колонізацію Великого Чорноморського Степу і впровадження товарного рільництва (експорт хліба з України становив значну статтю доходів Російської імперії, і забезпечення контролю за шляхом його вивезення в Європу – що пролягав через протоки Босфор і Дарданели поруч із столицею Османської імперії – стало чи не основним завданням зовнішньої політики Російської імперії, що внесло свій вклад у клубок протиріч, розрубаний Великою Війною), зріст промисловості (добування нафти в Галичині, вугілля на Донбасі, виробництво чавуна і сталі у Катеринославській губернії, цукру із цукрових буряків на Правобережжі), а разом з ним – виникнення та зміцнення промислового робітничого класу, створення міжнародної мережі залізниць та телеграфного зв’язку, нарешті, виникнення мережі державної народної освіти, масової преси, і нарешті поява модерної «громадської думки», модерних націоналізмів і патріотизмів, модерних політичних партій і парламентської роботи.


У військовій справі зміни були не менш драматичними. Якщро у 1772 р. армії воювали не надто відмінно від своїх прадідів за сто років до того (а британська армія навіть воювала тією самою моделлю рушниці що в 1700, що в 1800 році), то у 1918 р. ми бачимо незаперечно знайомі нам елементи сучасної війни – масові механізовані армії з танками, авіацією, радіозв’язком – і навіть із знайомою нам пропагандистською війною.

100 Years Ago om Italian Front

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/archive/first-world-war/article4742559.ece



The whole Italian Front engaged

May 17, 1916



Most stubborn was the fighting in the Monfalcone zone, where, after an alternating struggle, the enemy were counter-attacked with success and left in our hands 254 prisoners

The Austrians have made a general attack on the Italian front, and they claim numerous successes, chiefly in Southern Tirol, where over 2,500 prisoners are said to have been taken. The Italian communique reports heavy fighting at several parts of the front and admits a retirement in the Trentino, between the Adige and Astico Valleys.

Rome, May 16. The following official communique is issued here On the Trentino frontier the enemy followed up an intense bombardment which they carried out on the 14th with an attack by masses of infantry against the part of our front between the Adige Valley and the Upper Astico. After our first resistance, during which we inflicted on the enemy very serious losses, our troops from their most advanced positions fell back upon their principal lines of defence.

Along the whole rest of the front to the sea the enemy’s activity did not deploy their artillery fire and infantry attacks having the character of a diversion. Such were the actions which developed in the Val Sugana, between Monte Collo and Santanna, in the Upper Seebach, on the heights north-west of Gorizia, on the slopes north of Monte San Michele. Everywhere the enemy were promptly repulsed.

Most stubborn was the fighting in the Monfalcone zone, where, after an alternating struggle, the enemy were counter-attacked with success and left in our hands 254 prisoners, including some officers and two machine-guns.

A raid by enemy aeroplanes upon places on the Lower Isonzo is reported to have taken place on the night of the 15th, upon Venice and Mestre the same evening, and upon Udine and Treviso at dawn on the 16th. There were few victims and the damage was very slight.

A squadron of our Caproni aeroplanes at dawn this morning bombarded the railway station of Ovcia Draga, and the enemy cantonments at Kostarievica, Lohvica, and Segeti on the Carso. Fifty bombs were thrown with very effective results.

Our squadron, though the object of fire from many batteries and assailed by very many enemy aeroplanes, returned undamaged, after having brought down two enemy aeroplanes which fell in their territory near Gorizia. Reuter.



http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/archive/first-world-war/article4742554.ece


The Part of Italy


May 23, 1916


On the greatness of the service which Italy has rendered, and is rendering, the common cause we need not dwell. It may be measured by the fury with which the enemy has abused her.

It is just a year today since Italy took her stand with the Western Powers in the great cause of European liberty. The anniversary finds her gallantly defending the first line of her conquests in the Trentino against a heavy and determined Austrian attack. She has been forced back a few miles in the pronounced salient which she had seized between the valleys of the Terragnola and the Astico, but by Saturday the costly advance of the enemy appears to have been stayed. Strong Italian counter-attacks were in progress, and there is every reason to expect that the initial success of the Austrians at Zugna Torta may prove as illusory as the first German gains before Verdun.

The movement is evidently intended to be of the most serious character, and to be part of some large strategical design of which the scope and nature are not yet fully disclosed. Immense preparations have been made to execute this plan, and an Italian semi-official note states that the hostile forces on the frontier have been increased from twenty to thirty-eight divisions since November, of which sixteen were told off for operations between the Adige and the Brenta, while quantities of heavy artillery, withdrawn from the Russian front, have been massed in the same sector.

But General Cadorna has not been taken by surprise. He has withdrawn his troops after a desperate resistance from some advanced positions, but withdrawn them only to more defensible lines. His troops are still fighting upon part of that Austrian soil which they and all their countrymen feel it is their mission to redeem. The Italians may fairly boast that, at the end of a year of war, they alone of our Continental Allies have carried the war on all fronts into the territories of the enemy.

When it is remembered that the frontier forced upon Italy in 1866 was specially designed to facilitate invasion from Austria, that this frontier extends for 500 miles, that Austria has been fortifying it for years, that she was fully prepared for the struggle, and that pacifists and pro-Germans in high place had left Italy unprepared, the greatness of the effort which has achieved this result may in some degree be gauged. Italy has practically reversed the situation which existed a year ago. It is she, and not Austria, who now holds the key to the passes through which the Teutonic barbari have so often poured to devastate and to plunder her.

On the greatness of the service which Italy has rendered, and is rendering, the common cause we need not dwell. It may be measured by the fury with which the enemy has abused her. The Austrian Emperor, the German Chancellor, and the North-German Gazette have rivalled each other in the bitterness of their invective. The mere refusal of Italy to be dragged into the war as the accomplice of the Central Powers relieved the Allies from anxieties and dangers of the gravest kind in the first weeks of the war. By drawing the sword against, her hereditary oppressors and enemies twelve months ago she gave the progressive Powers very valuable military support, and immensely strengthened their moral position. It is true that she has never issued a formal declaration of war against Germany, even after she found German soldiers fighting in the Austrian ranks, but that is an omission which it is not difficult to understand.

There are internal situations in each of the Allied countries which it would be injudicious for other members of the Alliance to probe too curiously, even did they possess all the knowledge needful for the operation. The attitude of Italy towards Germany - and that of Germany towards Italy - are not the less clear because they have refrained from declaring war. Italy’s adhesion last winter to the Agreement of September, 1914 is conclusive upon that. She is pledged to make no separate peace with the enemy, and by that pledge, given with full knowledge of what the Allies had declared their general terms to be, she has bound herself with them to see that these terms are enforced. Prominent amongst them are certain conditions directly and exclusively, affecting Germany to which Germany will never assent except at the point of the sword.

Italian feeling is stronger and more united in the cause of the Allies than it was when she resolved to throw in her lot with them. The war has clarified and deepened it. The sincerity of Italy in the cause of right and freedom is shown in a remarkable way by the date at which she finally broke with Austria. A year ago Mackensen was driving the Russians before him in Galicia, and the month which the English had spent in Gallipoli without making progress had revealed something of the task that lay before us there and of its probable result. This was the moment at which Italy came in - not on the crest but in the trough of the wave of our fortunes. The diversion was doubly valuable by reason of its timeliness, and particularly welcome as an indication of the high and chivalrous spirit of Italy. The Western peoples felt from the first that, sooner or later, they must find her by their side. She could not have opposed them, she could not even have remained neutral, without being untrue to the principles from which she draws her life. She is essentially liberal, progressive, democratic, and humane. She is the splendid creation of the rights of nationalities. It was not conceivable that with such a past - and, as we all believe, with such a future - Italy should help the military despotisms of Central Europe to stifle all to which she owes her greatness and her rebirth. Was she to stand aloof while the independent civilization which Europe first learned from her was crushed under the burdea of Teutonic Kultur, imposed upon all peoples by German pedants and German soldiers “for their good”? So great an apostasy was inconceivable to anything but to German arrogance.

Italy made her choice. She decided at all costs to be faithful to her traditions and to her generous heart. We are confident that her courage, her sacrifices, her chivalry, and her fidelity will not be without their rich reward in the present and in the memories of this tremendous war.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/archive/first-world-war/article4742548.ece


The Austrian Thrust at Venetia

May 26, 1916



The Austrians have two conspicuous advantages. They have managed to cram a tremendous weight of heavy artillery upon a small front, and it may be said broadly that they are now moving downhill

The vigorous Austrian advance in the Trentino has now been in progress for nearly a fortnight, and is gradually concentrating upon one particular area. The attacks of the enemy grow steadily more intense in the mountainous country between the Terragnolo and the Astico Valleys, though the main advance extends across the tableland of Bette Comuni as far as the upper portion of the Val Sugana.

The reasons why the Austrians chose to deliver their thrust in this region are sufficiently obvious. It is on the whole the easiest and the shortest way to the Venetian plain, and is the nearest approach to the Italian line of communications with the main army on the Isonzo. It would be foolish to disguise the fact that the Austrian advance has met with considerable success. The Italians have had to withdraw from several hardly-won positions, and are now fighting on their own territory.

The Austrians have two conspicuous advantages. They have managed to cram a tremendous weight of heavy artillery upon a small front, and it may be said broadly that they are now moving downhill. Their local superiority in guns over the Italians is not denied, and requires the prompt attention of the Allies. It must be remembered, on the other hand, that the Austrians are scarcely in touch yet with the Italian main positions, which appear to be on the Arsiero-Asiago line; but five miles below Arsiero lies the open plain which leads to Vicenza, and that is why the outlook is not free from anxiety.

The Italians, like General Petain at Verdun, have demanded a high price for each mile of ground yielded. They have withdrawn in good order, and remain calm and confident. The Austrian claims in the matter of prisoners and captured guns are denounced as greatly exaggerated, and this is specially true of the guns.

Our Milan Correspondent tells us that Italian reinforcements are pouring up to the mountains, and we do not expect to see Austrian columns debouching on the plain. At the same time, the position needs vigilant attention in a war in which all the Allies are fighting as one. The Corriere della Sera reminds us - though we have already noted the point this week - that when Italy entered the war a year ago she drew part of the Austrian pressure away from Galicia, and she again helped to relieve the Eastern front by her strenuous attacks on Gorizia and the Carso plateau last October and November. The Milan journal says with marked emphasis that “there is only one antidote to Austro-German action, and that is solidarity and cooperation between the Allies.”

The Austrian menace from the Trentino concerns us all, and we are sure it will be so regarded. It is really one more proof of the growing desperation of the Germanic Powers, and if rightly dealt with it should yield no better results than the prolonged German onslaughts around Verdun.