der in chief,
resolved to attack at all the salient points. Such a plan led to a
series of movements--toward Trent, across the Dolomite passes against
the Pusterthal railway, at the Pontebba Pass, and across the Julian
Alps to threaten the line between Tarvis and Gorizia. Meanwhile the
main Italian army was to strike at the Isonzo and the road to Trieste.

The same conditions which made the Austrian frontier lines easy to
defend also would have given the Central Power a big advantage in
offensive operations, but for excellent reasons the Austrian staff did
not attack. In the first place, Austria lacked men. The Teutonic war
councils concluded that Austro-Hungarian troops were of more value in
the great drive then in progress against the Russians than they would
have been in offensive operations against the cities of the northern
Italian plains. Had the Austrians debouched from their mountain
strongholds and forced the Italians to concentrate against them in
Italian territory, as they undoubtedly could have done, the benefits
of such an enterprise from the standpoint of the alliance powers would
have been small in proportion to the risks. Only a combined drive by
both Austria and Germany, it is believed, could have gained any
telling advantage in northern Italy; and Italy, it must be remembered,
had not declared war on Germany. Ensconced in their mountain
fastnesses, the Austrians believed they could maintain a successful
defensive indefinitely. Then, after the Italian armies had exhausted
themselves beating against the mountain barrier, an opportunity might
arise for Austrian reprisals. At the time few believed that Italy
would long be able to maintain her attitude of neutrality regarding
Germany--an opinion, by the way, which was not supported by the
developments of the first year of the war.

The Austrians had months in which to prepare, and they had made good
use of their time. The natural difficulties confronting an Italian
assault had been enormously increased by trenches of steel and
concrete. The Austrian engineers had connected their elaborate systems
of wire entanglements with high-power electric stations, and dug mines
at all vulnerable points. Heavy guns had been moved, at great
expenditure of labor, to the frontier forts and rails laid on which to
move them from place to place. The broken nature of the ground
afforded ideal opportunities for the concealment of artillery
positions. It is safe to say that no