gate-houses still narrowed each entrance to the town; a
general air of pleasant tranquillity and of a well-being that was a
legacy from the more spacious days of centuries gone by. The nature of
the place was that of mellow old wine, very gracious, rich with
associations that brought a glow to the palate of memory, but for all
that something of which one wanted only little at a time. A glimpse of
Udine as she had been for centuries was delightful, to dwell there would
seem like being buried alive.

[Sidenote: Bustle and congestion when Udine becomes Army Headquarters.]

To this forgotten township of the old Venetian province had come
suddenly in the spring of 1913 all the bustle and congestion of the
headquarters of the whole Italian Army. For the next two and a half
years you could hardly find a room in Udine to sleep in; the people of
the place opened large modern restaurants and cafes for the officers and
soldiers who crowded its streets; big shops filled the gloom of the old
arcades with an incongruous expanse of plate-glass windows; the good
burgesses of Udine made money and waxed fat.

[Sidenote: A tactical dead-lock on the western front.]

It seemed, indeed, as if the steady shower of war prosperity that had
fallen upon them for two years might last until that indefinite, but to
most minds far-off, day when peace should come. For it was the general
opinion that in the West, at least, the war had reached a condition of
tactical dead-lock. Trench warfare had petrified movement, except in
laborious shifting of a few hundred yards at a time, hardly perceptible
on a small-scale map. The day of sweeping advances, of sudden
retirements, was over. At a reasonable distance behind that unbudging
wall of trenches you were as secure from personal displacement by the
war as if you were at the other end of Italy; indeed, no earlier than
the beginning of this month of October some people had arrived with
their families at Udine from other parts of the country to carry on
trades connected with the life of the army.

[Sidenote: General Cadorna praises the British batteries.]

I myself set foot in Udine for the first time on October 20. I was going
back to the Macedonian front, where for two years I had been the
official correspondent of the British Army, and I had asked the War
Office to authorize me to visit on the way the British batteries which
since April had been cooperating with the Italian Army on the Isonzo.
Genera