ustrians cause for anxiety regarding the
western defenses of Tyrol, for by a double flanking movement along the
Cordevole River and the Dolomite road the Italians in Cadore had
extended like two arms around one of the principal systems of defense.
General Dankl hurried reenforcements to the Cadore front to check the
thrust up the Cordevole Valley. At the end of this valley was the
focal point of the system of railways that carried food and munitions
to both the Trentino forces and those in southern Tyrol. If the
Italians had succeeded in cutting the railway at this point the enemy
would have had great difficulty in maintaining his armies on the
Trentino and Tyrol fronts. The Italian effort was not pushed to
success; but it at least had the effect of discouraging any plans
General Dankl might have formed of invading the plains of northern
Italy at the foot of the frontier mountains.

Only twenty miles south of the Austrian outposts was the important
city of Verona, famed for its memories of Romeo and Juliet. Nearer
still was Brescia with the fertile lands of Lombardy surrounding it.
But by his maneuvers at the opening of the war, General Cadorna
effectively protected Italian territory and forced the enemy to devote
all his attention to resisting the attacks of active light infantry
and mountain artillery. The great 12-inch Skoda howitzers, upon which
Austria depended to batter down the defenses of these Italian cities,
were needed elsewhere, behind the Julian and Carnic Alps, and
especially in the corner of the frontier near Predil Pass, by which
Napoleon invaded Italy, and on the Isonzo front between Tolmino and
the Adriatic.

Thus with his infantry, Cadorna overcame the artillery handicap under
which Italy labored during all the first months of the war. The Skoda
gun was reputed to be the best in the world. It had proved its worth
in Belgium and Russia, and the fact that the Austrians were able to
lend guns to their ally proved their wealth of big-gun power. Now,
even after ten months of war, when thousands of the great howitzers
were busy in Galicia and along the Danube, the Skoda works could still
produce an armament superior to that of Italy. Much of the
effectiveness of the Skoda gun lay in the fact that it could be
separated into two parts for easier transportation. In addition to
these 12-inch mortars, Austria had a 6-inch steel Skoda, designed in
the summer of 1914, for use in the Carpathians and well adapted