ce to the Villa Lebreton, and persuaded the porter's
wife to cook for us. All the Battery had discovered the polenta at the
porter's lodge and our men crowded the kitchen at all hours of the day.
We all appreciated good food after the short rations of the retreat.

Conversation was intensely depressing when not utterly trivial. I
remember walking round and round the vegetable garden at the back of the
Villa with an Italian friend of mine, trying both to face the facts and
to draw some comfort from them. It was an impossible task. My friend was
full of despair and bitterness. "The fruits of thirty months of war all
lost in two days," he said, "and much more lost besides! What will all
the mothers think, who have lost sons on San Michele and Monte Santo? It
is a common thing in Italy now for families to have lost four or five
sons. What will the mothers of Italy think of this? Would not any of
them be justified in shooting Cadorna? The Third Army should not have
been ordered to retire. They should have counter-attacked instead. But
now would it not be better to make peace at once? Is there no man who
will rise up and say, 'Stop, stop, stop this bloody business now, before
it gets any worse?' Some of our soldiers looked quite pleased to be
retreating. Poor children! They thought the war was over and they were
going home. There is a frightful danger that the leaders,--the generals
and the politicians at Rome,--will say 'fight on!' but the rank and file
will go on breaking. 'We are fighting for Trento and Trieste!' they used
to say, and now they say 'we are organising the defence of the Piave
line!' The Regular soldiers never want the war to end. And soon they
will be distributing medals for the retreat. Medals!"

I could find no words worth saying to him in reply. "What will they be
saying about us now in London and Paris?" he went on. "They will be
saying," I replied, "that help must be sent to you," but my answer I
know sounded flat and empty. "Yes," he said bitterly, "perhaps _now_ you
will send some of your generals and your troops to Italy. And so you
will put us under orders and under obligations to you, and we shall
become your slaves. Italians are used to being looked upon as the slaves
of other nations." "No," I said, "all that is over. Those of us who know
the facts, know what Italy has done and suffered for the Alliance in
this war. It will not be forgotten. Moments of supreme crisis such as
this test the value a