ns been able to hold out
longer in Galicia, there is little doubt that Cadorna would have had
something to show for the month of July besides a few local victories
which did not vitally affect the main campaign.

[Illustration: Italian Attack on Austria.]

On June 9, 1915, the capture of Gradisca completed the Italian control
of the lower Isonzo, and Cadorna prepared for a general attack on
all the strongholds guarding Trieste. Of these the most important were
the Carso tableland on the south, Gorizia barring the river-valley of
the Vipacco between the Carso and the foothills of the Julian Alps,
the fortified system of heights north of Gorizia surrounding the town
of Tolmino, and the great intrenched camp of Tarvis above Tolmino
extending to Malborghetto and the other Alps of Carinthia. These
fortified points had to be attacked generally or not at all. Any
attempt to mass an army against any one of them would have spelled
disaster, for the Italians would have been flanked by Austrian forces
from the north or south. A properly defined advance against Trieste
called for a simultaneous thrust at Tolmino and the Tarvis fortress
commanding the road to Vienna. The Austrians had been strengthening
Tarvis ever since 1859, after Napoleon III overthrew the Austrians in
the battles that freed Lombardy. The Austrian fortresses were again
strengthened after the siege of Port Arthur had demonstrated the power
of high-explosive shells, and again in 1910 when the Teutonic allies
made their great discovery that their new giant howitzers laughed at
modern defense works of steel and concrete. In remodeling her Alpine
strongholds Austria selected positions on the plateau for systems of
earthworks containing mobile siege guns.

The key to this immensely strong Austrian line of defense was the
railway town of Plava on the eastern bank of the Isonzo under the
wooded heights of the Ternovane Forest. Plava was in a salient
occupying about the middle of the Austrian line.

Here, on the night of June 17, 1915, the Italians began their general
offensive by an attack from Mount Korada on the opposite side of the
river. Under cover of darkness the Italian sappers built a pontoon
bridge, and the Bersaglieri crossed and carried the town and the
surrounding heights at the point of the bayonet. The Austrians
realized the importance of the position and quickly returned to a
violent counterattack. The Italians threw all their available men into
the g