e away fighting in the Austrian ranks, and
there are such questions as those of the Aquileia treasures, which
have fortunately been preserved intact. I must confess that it is a
novelty and a pleasure to enter an enemy's territory and sit down in a
room marked _Militaer Wachtzimmer_, with all the enemy's emblems on the
walls, but on the whole I liked best the advice _evitare di fumare
esplosioni_ painted by some Italian wag on an Austrian guardhouse, and
possibly intended as a hint to Austro-German diplomacy in the future.

"The Italians regard Austria as we regard Germany, and Germany as we
regard Austria. Austria is the enemy, but at the same time, while
every crime is attributed to Austria on slight suspicion, I find no
unworthy depreciation of Austrian soldiers. I am told that while
Austrian discipline is very severe, and the officer's revolver is ever
quick to maintain it, the Austrian private soldier has a sense of deep
loyalty toward his emperor, and that this is a personal devotion which
will not easily be transferred to a successor. In meeting the
Kaiserjaeger so often the Italians perhaps see Austria's best, but the
fact remains that the Italian has a good word for the Austrian as a
soldier, and that I did not see many signs of such willful and
shameless vandalism by the Austrians as has disgraced the name of
Germany in Belgium and in France. Even towns which are or have been
between the contending armies have not, I think, been willfully
destroyed, but they have naturally suffered when one army or the other
has used the town as a pivot of defense.

"The officers who have to keep the tally of the Austrian forces and to
locate all the divisions have my deepest sympathy. Long ago the
Austrian army corps ceased to contain the old divisions of peace
times, but one now finds army corps with as many as four divisions,
while the division may be composed of anything from two to eight
battalions. A certain number of the divisions reckoned to be against
the Italians on the whole front are composed of dubious elements, and
there are some sixty Austrian battalions of rifle clubmen.

"The Austrians shift regiments about in such apparently haphazard
fashion that it is hard to keep track of them. They may take half a
dozen battalions from different regiments and call it a mountain
group. In a week or two they will break it up and distribute the
battalions elsewhere. They usually follow up their infantry with
so-called mar