the Italians
remained in possession of the highest peak, but all the northern
summits and the top of the whole central ridge called the Cosmagnon
Alps remained to the enemy. It was from this ridge that they dominated
the Vallarsa, and their first-line trenches were on its edge. Fifteen
yards below them the Italians had burrowed in somehow and had hung on
until now.

"With the oncoming of winter, however, and the avalanches their
hanging on became altogether too problematic. For weeks the weather
prevented action through some meteorological phenomenon. When it is
fair below in the plain Pasubio is crowned with dense fogs, and vice
versa. Finally, the summits revealed themselves clear against the sky.
The careful preparation had passed unobserved of the enemy, and during
the night of the 8th inst., with increased intensity at dawn of the
9th inst., the artillery attacked on the whole line for several miles.

"Bombs were employed in great number, and are found to be even more
effective here than on the Carso, the friable rock breaking into
millions of fragments under the explosion.

"In the afternoon a demonstrative attack in the Vallarsa carried the
line ahead some 400 yards, and at half past 3 the principal attack
carried the trenches of the crest (Cosmagnon Alps), together with the
summit called Lora. The arduous mountaineering feat of arriving on the
mountain's overhanging brow was accomplished on rope ladders by
infantry Alpini and Bersaglieri.

"The line once brought over the crest, the battle raged furiously on
the mountain top. The Austrians had constructed magnificent caverns
and dugouts, and made them as impregnable as their long residence
permitted. Their resistance was specially keen around the fearful
natural fortifications called the Tooth, consisting of spires and
slender ledges and abounding in caverns. The Tooth still remains in
part to the Austrians. From the first day, the Alpini have scaled part
of it and still stick there.

"One of the spectacular sights of the day was an Alpini perched on his
spire of the Tooth, who kept the Austrian machine gunners from their
task, pelting them with rocks every time they set to work.

"The fighting all took place on the rolling surface of the Cosmagnon
Alps--closed in by the barrage fire on both sides under the dazzling
sky, but with the world below completely shut off by Monte Pasubio's
crown of clouds. Shrapnel and shell disappeared in the ocean of
clouds."