[Footnote 1:  Next summer the introduction of mustard gas made it unsafe to leave our knees uncovered.]

Our rations at this time were a special Anglo-Italian blend; less meat, bacon, cheese and tea than in the British ration, but macaroni, rice, coffee, wine and lemons from the Italian.  It was a good ration and no one suffered from eating a little less meat than at home.  In order to check the spread of dysentery, it was ordered by the medical authorities that no meat was to be eaten at midday.

We were not doing a great deal of firing when I came, though we had always to be prepared to come suddenly and quickly into action, especially at night.  Most of our prearranged daylight shoots were observed from an O.P. in a ruined house at S. Andrea, on the plain just outside Gorizia, where one had a fine view southwards of the Tamburo and of the whole boundary ridge of the Carso from Dosso Faiti to the Stoll.  Observation was beautifully easy on these high hills and in this clear air.  What worlds away is this country with its wonderful cloudless sunshine from the dismal flat lands of the Western Front!  Said one enthusiast of ours, “This is a gunner’s heaven!” The Austrians fancied, I think, that we had our O.P. in Vertoiba, which is north of S. Andrea, for they shelled this frequently, but S. Andrea seldom.  They shelled Vertoiba heavily, I remember, all one afternoon, while I was on duty at S. Andrea and while the Italian Staff were present in large numbers for two hours to watch our shooting.  I remember thinking what a fine bag they would have got if they had lifted about four hundred yards!  The Italian Staff were always most complimentary and enthusiastic over the work of our Batteries.

We had taken part in the Italian May offensive, the results of which had been claimed by the Daily Mail, with characteristic good taste and sense of proportion, as a “great Anglo-Italian victory.”  Our part had been more justly described by General Cadorna, who in a special Order of the Day had said that “amid the roar of battle was clearly heard the voice of British guns,” and in his summary of the results of this offensive, which lasted from May 12th to May 30th, after remarking that the number of Austrians taken prisoners was 23,681 men and 604 officers, and that, in addition, at least 100,000 Austrians had been put out of action, continued as follows, “Our brave Infantry fought indefatigably for eighteen days, without pause and without proper food supplies, on difficult ground, in almost mid-summer heat, impetuous in attack and tenacious in defence.  Most effective at all times was the fraternal co-operation of the Artillery, Siege, Field or Mountain, one Field Battery not hesitating to push right up to the firing line.  Excellent help, too, was lent by ten Batteries of medium calibre of the British Army and by the guns of the Italian Navy.”

Cadorna had inspected our Batteries soon after their arrival in Italy, and we had been visited and officially welcomed on behalf of the Italian Government by the Minister Bissolati, perhaps the most vivid and vital personality in Italian politics, and a wise counsellor, whose advice has more than once been disastrously ignored.[1]