aldi takes command.]

"Early in July, under cover of our guns to the south and east, the
Alpini streamed down from the Cima di Falzarego and Sasso di Stria,
which they had occupied shortly before, and secured what was at first
but a precarious foothold on the stony lower eastern slope of the Col di
Lana. Indeed, it was little more than a toe-hold at first; but the
never-resting Alpini soon dug themselves in and became firmly
established. It was to the command of this battalion of Alpini that I
came on the 12th of July, after being given to understand that my work
was to be the taking of the Col di Lana regardless of cost.

[Sidenote: Scientific man-saving needed.]

"This was the first time that I--or any other Garibaldi, for that matter
(my grandfather, with his 'Thousand,' took Sicily from fifty times that
number of Bourbon soldiers) had ever had enough, or even the promise of
enough, men to make that 'regardless of cost' formula much more than a
hollow mockery. But it is not in a Garibaldi to sacrifice men for any
object whatever if there is any possible way of avoiding it. The period
of indiscriminate frontal attacks had passed even before I left France,
and ways were already being devised--mostly mining and better artillery
protection--to make assaults less costly. Scientific 'man-saving,' in
which my country has since made so much progress, was then in its
infancy on the Italian front.

[Sidenote: Out-gunned by the Austrians.]

[Sidenote: First time of gallery-barracks.]

"I found many difficulties in the way of putting into practice on the
Col di Lana the man-saving theories I had seen in process of development
in the Argonne. At that time the Austrians--who had appreciated the
great importance of that mountain from the outset--had us heavily
out-gunned while mining in the hard rock was too slow to make it worth
while until some single position of crucial value hung in the balance.
So--well, I simply did the best I could under the circumstances. The
most I could do was to give my men as complete protection as possible
while they were not fighting, and this end was accomplished by
establishing them in galleries cut out of the solid rock. This was, I
believe, the first time the 'gallery-barracks'--now quite the rule at
all exposed points--were used on the Italian front.

[Sidenote: Working under heavy fire.]

"There was no other way in the beginning but to drive the enemy off the
Col di Lana trench by trenc