[Sidenote:  German propaganda has created disaffection in every Allied country.]

[Sidenote:  Soldiers everywhere are weary of war.]

One of the successes of this year’s German offensive was the creation in the heart of an efficient and gallant army of this canker of disaffection by propaganda that has been as energetic and as dangerous to our cause as any of the enemy’s operations in the field.  In every Allied country it has been active; among the English it is at work corrupting labor, preying on the nerves of the overstrained worker, and whispering any subtle lie that will sap his will and undermine his spirit.  In France one fractional part of the widespread organization that carries on this treacherous work is being exposed by the revelations in the Bolo case.  In Italy the Germans cunningly twisted fanatics, both socialist and clerical, into agents for forwarding their work, and they had flooded the country with money to corrupt the army which they had not been able to beat in the field.  The individual soldiers of every country, including above all the Central empires themselves, are dead-weary of the war, but the enemy alone has had the cunning and the baseness deliberately to exploit this feeling to his profit, working through the agency of bought traitors and hired spies.  And so the Austro-Germans had managed to imbue a limited part of the Italian Army with the distorted idea that the quickest way to regain the longed-for comforts of peace was to refuse to fight and thus open the way for a rapid Austrian victory.

When this ferment of disloyalty had done its work, the Germans were ready to attack the particular sector of the line held by the troops that it had most affected.  These were on the left wing of the Italian Second Army, which held the front of the Isonzo from Plezzo down to Tolmino, and it was on that point that the enemy directed his first thrust.

[Sidenote:  The news of the taking of Caporetto.]

The news of the taking of Caporetto on the morning of October 24 had about as startling an effect at Italian headquarters as would be produced on the British front if it were suddenly announced that the Germans were in Ypres.  Not only was Caporetto a town on the Upper Isonzo which the Italians had seized by dashing forward across the frontier the very morning that war was declared, but it also stood at the head of a most important strategical valley leading back into the mountains on which the Italian main line lay, and from the town lead several easy roads that follow various routes into the plain beyond.  Already the enemy was pressing in force along those roads.  The Italians had, indeed, fallen back to reserve positions, but were the enemy to win through—­as he did within two days—­he would be on the flank and almost in the rear of the whole Italian Army of a million men.

[Sidenote:  Rapid progress of the Germans is difficult to explain.]

[Sidenote:  Italian outposts are surrounded.]