Monte Santo was still Austrian when I came, though the Italians held trenches half-way up.  On the summit the white ruins of a famous convent were clearly visible.  Here some of the bloodiest Infantry fighting of the whole war took place in May 1917.  The Italians were on the top once in the full flood of that offensive, but could not hold it.  Four gallant Battalions charged up those steep slopes only to find that the Artillery preparation had been insufficient and that the convent wall had not been destroyed.  Austrians poured out from deep caverns in the rock, where they had taken refuge during the bombardment, and threw down bombs from the top of the wall upon the Italians below.  For these there was no way round and no question of retreat, so they all died where they stood, struggling to climb a wall thirty feet high, clambering upon one another’s shoulders.

South of the Vippacco we held the Volconiac and Dosso Faiti, but not Hill 464, though this had been taken and lost again, nor yet the hills further east, nor any of the northern foothills of the Carso, except Hill 123.  To the south again the Hermada had proved a great and bloody obstacle.

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Three striking characteristics of the warfare on this Front impressed themselves upon my mind—­first, the shortage of ammunition; second, the enormous natural strength of all the Austrian positions; third, the work of the Italian Engineers.

Judged by the standards of warfare in France and Flanders, both Italians and Austrians were very short of ammunition.  For Italy, a young and poor country, possessing neither coal nor iron and thrown largely on her own resources for manufacturing munitions of war, this was no matter of surprise.  It was astonishing that the Italian Artillery was so well supplied as it was.  But, to bring out the contrast, one may note that, whereas in Italy “fuoco normale” for Siege Artillery was six rounds per gun per hour, in France at this time a British Siege Battery’s “ordinary” was thirty rounds per gun per hour.  And one may note further that the number of Siege Batteries on a given length of Front in France was, even at this time, more than four times as great as the corresponding number on the Italian Front.  The Austrians to some extent made up for their small quantity of guns and shells by a high proportion of guns of large calibre.  Their twelve-inch howitzers were disagreeably numerous.  It resulted, however, that neither Italians nor Austrians could afford to indulge in continuous heavy bombardments, such as were the rule in France.  There was here on neither side a surplus of shell to fire away at targets of secondary importance, and therefore there was less destruction than in France of towns and villages near the lines.  Ammunition had to be accumulated for important occasions and important targets.  Thus battles were still separate and distinct in Italy, with perceptible intervals of lull, less apt than