was a most
difficult feat, which the Italians performed in the most brilliant way;
but even after they had passed these defiles success was not yet won.
Each Italian column was in its own grove, with no lateral communication.
The Austrians could mass themselves where they pleased. As a result the
Italian forces were compelled to halt.

In the Trentino campaign the Italians soon captured the passes, and
moved against Trente and Roverito. These towns were heavily fortified,
as were their surrounding heights. The campaign became a series of small
fights on mountain peaks and mountain ridges. Only small bodies of
troops could maneuver, and the raising of guns up steep precipices was
extremely difficult. The Italians slowly succeeded in gaining ground,
and established a chain of posts around the heights so that often one
would see guns and barbed wire intrenchments at a height of more than
ten thousand feet among the crevasses of the glaciers. The Alpini
performed wonderful feats of physical endurance, but the plains of
Lombardy were still safe.

CHAPTER XX

GLORIOUS GALLIPOLI

If ever the true mettle and temper of a people were tried and
exemplified in the crucible of battle, that battle was the naval and
land engagement embracing Gallipoli and the Dardanelles and the people
so tested, the British race. Separated in point of time but united in
its general plan, the engagements present a picture of heroism founded
upon strategic mistakes; of such perseverance and dogged determination
against overwhelming natural and artificial odds as even the pages of
supreme British bravery cannot parallel. The immortal charge of the
Light Brigade was of a piece with Gallipoli, but it was merely a battle
fragment and its glorious record was written in blood within the scope
of a comparatively few inspired minutes. In the mine-strewn Dardanelles
and upon the sun-baked, blood-drenched rocky slopes of Gallipoli, death
always partnered every sailor and soldier. As at Balaklava, virtually
everyone knew that some one had blundered, but the army and the navy as
one man fought to the bitter end to make the best of a bad bargain, to
tear triumph out of impossibilities.

France co-operated with the British in the naval engagement, but the
greater sacrifice, the supreme charnel house of the war, the British
race reserved for itself. There, the yeomanry of England, the unsung
county regiments whose sacrifices and achievements have been negl