of their famous corps by still clinging to the
flat-brimmed, rakish hat with its huge bunch of drooping feathers;
engineers, laden like donkeys with intrenching, bridging, and mining
tools; motor-cycle despatch riders, leather-jacketed and
mud-bespattered, the light-horsemen of modern war; and, very
occasionally, for their hour for action has not yet come, detachments
of cavalry, usually armed with lances, their helmets and busbies
linen-covered to match the businesslike simplicity of their uniform.
About the Italian army there is not much of the pomp and circumstance
of war. It is as businesslike as a blued-steel revolver. In its total
absence of swagger and display it is characteristic of a nation whose
instincts are essentially democratic. Everything considered, the
Italian troops compare very favorably with any in Europe. The men are
for the most part shortish, very thick-set, and burned by the sun to
the color of a much-used saddle. I rather expected to see bearded,
unkempt fellows, but I found them clean-shaven and extraordinarily
neat. The Italian military authorities do not approve of the _poilu_.
Though the men are laden like pack-mules, they cover the ground at a
surprisingly smart pace, while special corps, such as the Bersaglieri
and the Alpini, are famous for the fashion in which they take even the
steepest acclivities at the double. I was told that, though the troops
recruited in the North possess the most stamina and endurance, the
Neapolitans and Sicilians have the most _elan_ and make the best
fighters, these sons of the South having again and again advanced to
the assault through storms of fire which the colder-blooded
Piedmontese refused to face.

It is claimed for the Italian uniform that it is at once the ugliest
and the least visible of any worn in Europe. "Its wearer doesn't even
make a shadow," a friend of mine remarked. The Italian military
authorities were among the first to make a scientific study of colors
for uniforms. They did not select, for example, the "horizon blue"
adopted by the French because, while this is less visible on the roads
and plains of a flat, open, sunlit region, it would prove fatally
distinct on the tree-clad mountain slopes where the Italians are
fighting. The color is officially described as gray-green, but the
best description of it is that given by a British officer: "Take some
mud from the Blue Nile, carefully rub into it two pounds of ship-rat's
hair, paint a roa