I JOIN THE FIRST BRITISH BATTERY IN ITALY

On the 15th of August arrived an operation order indicating our targets in the first and second phases of the great Italian offensive, which had been long expected, and also the objectives of the Infantry.  The day on which the offensive was to begin was not yet announced.  Six more British Siege Batteries, giving us now three British Heavy Artillery Groups, had arrived on the Carso and in the Monfalcone sector about a fortnight before.  The French too had sent a number of Heavy Batteries, which were in position on Monte Sabotino and elsewhere north of the Vippacco.  But the counsel of wise men had been disregarded, and no French or British Infantry, no complete Allied Army Corps, had been sent to the Italian Front, where a big military success could have been more easily obtained and would have had greater military and political results at this time, than anywhere else.

On this day I walked to and from S. Andrea, returning to the Battery in the evening greatly perspiring but with an enormous appetite.  Large numbers of Infantry were going up the Vallone and the Volconiac in the dusk.  Italian Infantry march in twos on either side of a road, not in fours on one side as ours do.

The Austrians shelled a good deal this evening, and put a lot of gas shell into Merna.

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On the 17th I was transferred to another Battery.  It was the eve of the offensive, and my new Battery was an officer short, while my old Battery was again at full strength, the officer who had been in hospital wounded, when I arrived in Italy, having now returned.  I joined my new Battery about midday.  They were in position on the Vippacco, close to the former position of my old Battery.  I was destined to stay with them for seventeen months, till after the war was won, and I came to identify myself very completely with them, and to be proud to be one of them.

This had been the first of all the British Batteries to come into action in Italy, and had fired the first British shell against Austria.  The Major in command had the reputation of being the most efficient British Battery Commander in Italy, and, so far as my experience of others went, he deserved it.  He was a Regular soldier, and had served with a Mountain Battery in India, a service which requires and breeds a power of quick decision, by no means universal among Garrison Gunners of the Regular Army.  Personally he was a most delightful man, at his best a very amusing talker, a pleasant companion and an excellent Commanding Officer.  Few officers whom I have met took as much thought and trouble as he for the material welfare of his men.  From his junior officers he combined a demand for high efficiency with a sometimes wonderful solicitude for their comfort, health and peace of mind.  He never asked any of us to do more, or even as much, as he did willingly himself, and if anything went wrong in the Battery, which it seldom did, he never hesitated, in dealing with higher authorities, to take all the blame.  He had been twice wounded already, once on the Somme and again in the Italian May offensive.  Later on he was wounded a third time.