When, owing to the omissions of the High Command, the break in the line was swiftly widened and the whole defensive scheme of the Second Army collapsed, it is true that confusion and panic began to spread through the Second Army like fire through dry grass.  But it is not within the power of common soldiers, and especially of simple unlettered peasantry, such as most of these soldiers were, to repair the blunders of bad Staff work, and to make for themselves, on the spur of the moment and in face of deadly peril, plans which trained brains should have elaborated long before, at leisure and in safe secluded places.  When leadership fails, the best troops fail too.  But let one who comes of a nation, none of whose troops have ever acted as those troops of the Italian Second Army acted in those dreadful days, throw the first stone at Italy.  That nation will be hard to find.  It is not of this world.  Those who know the Italian soldier know that no soldier in the world responds more readily to loyal trust, to common kindliness and to efficient and inspiring leadership.  British and French officers, who have had opportunities of judging, know this as well as Italians.  But the Italian High Command denied these things to the Italian soldier.[1] It is due to him and to the good name of Italy, which has been damnably traduced by prejudiced and ignorant men, that the truth should be spoken.

[Footnote 1:  Among other charges which may be brought against the High Command at this time are, first, their failure to make adequate provision for the amusement and relaxation of the troops when in rest, such as the Y.M.C.A. and various concert parties provided for British troops, to combat inevitable war-weariness; second, failure to increase the most inadequate scale of rations; and, third, the attempt to apply, with strange disregard of the very different spirit of the Italian people, some of the worst and most brutal traditions of German discipline.  All this was altered later by General Diaz and the Orlando Ministry.]

The dark and tragic story of the Italian retreat is lit up by many deeds of heroism, wherein the Italian soldier showed all his accustomed valour.  And it was only by the valour of the Italian soldier that the retreat was stayed on the Piave line, which the High Command pronounced to be untenable and wished to abandon, but which the Cabinet at Rome, pinning their faith to the qualities of the Italian soldier rather than to the opinions of the High Command, ordered to be held at all hazards.  And the Cabinet at Rome was right.  The Italian line stiffened and stood upon the Piave, while the Allied reinforcements were still on the further side of the Alps.  If only Lloyd George and Bissolati had had their way, and these reinforcements had been sent a few months earlier, if only we had been able to put a British Army Corps, with its full complement of aircraft, guns and shells, against the Hermada, if only we had had half a dozen tanks to send down the Vippacco Valley, what a different story there would have been to tell!