I have heard it said by critics of Italy that the retreat from Caporetto showed the lack of courage of the Italian soldier.  To gauge the courage of an army a single disaster is as unjust as it is unintelligent.  Was the rout of the Federal forces at Bull Run a criterion of their behavior in the succeeding years of the Civil War?  Was the surrender at Sedan a true indication of the fighting ability of the French soldier?  Every nation has had its disasters and has had to live them down.  Italy did this when, on the banks of Piave, she turned her greatest disaster into her most glorious triumph.

Because it was my privilege to be with the Italian army in the field during various periods of the war, and because I know at first-hand whereof I speak, I regret and resent the disparagement of the Italian soldier which has been so freely indulged in since the Armistice.  It may be, of course, that you do not fully realize the magnitude of Italy’s sacrifices and achievements.  Did you know, for example, that Italy held a front longer than the British, Belgian, French and American fronts put together?  Did you know that out of a population of 37 millions she put into the field an army of 5 million men, whereas France and her colonies, with nearly double the population, was never able to raise more than 5,064,000, a considerable proportion of which were black and brown men?  Did you know that in forty-one months of war Italy lost 541,000 in dead and 953,000 in wounded, and that, unlike France and England, her armies were composed wholly of white men?  Did you know that, in spite of all that has been said about the Allies giving her assistance, Italy at all times had more troops on the Western front than the Allies had on the Italian?  Did you know that she called up the class of 1919 two years before their time, a measure which even France, hard-pressed as she was, did not feel justified in taking? (I have mentioned this before, but it will bear repetition.) Have you stopped to think that she was the only one of the Allied nations which won a clean-cut and decisive victory, when, on the Piave, she attacked with 51 divisions an Austro-German army of 63 divisions, completely smashed it, forced its surrender, and captured half a million prisoners?  Did you know that she lost more than fifty-seven per cent, of her merchant tonnage, while England lost less than forty-three per cent, and France less than forty per cent.?  And, finally, had you realized that Italy made greater sacrifices, in proportion to her resources and population, than any other country engaged in the war, having devoted four-fifths of her entire national wealth to the prosecution of the struggle?  There is your answer, chapter and verse, for the next man who sneeringly remarks, “The Italians didn’t do much, did they?”

Just as the Trentino and the Upper Adige have been added to the kingdom as the Province of Trent, so the redeemed regions of which Trieste is the center, including the towns of Gorizia, Monfalcone, Capodistria, Parenzo, Pirano, Rovigno and Pola, have been consolidated in the new province of Julian Venetia, with about a million inhabitants and an area of approximately 6,000 square miles.