l Cadorna had given them high praise in a message to the British
Government after the fighting in which they had taken part in May, and I
thought it would be interesting to see British and Italian troops side
by side in the field for the first time.

[Sidenote: Visits to the Italian front yield important information.]

Visitors to the Italian front used to find most convenient arrangements
made to give them a rapid idea of conditions there. Lying almost
entirely among mountains, the line presented unusual opportunities for
survey from dominating heights, and there were many places where, at
leisure and in virtual safety, one could watch the Austrian
intrenchments from close range. Fast cars took you up to these
vantage-points, and a number of staff-officers, speaking perfect English
and knowing every detail of the front and its history, raised these
visits from the level of sight-seeing excursions to opportunities for
learning a great deal that was important and technical.

[Sidenote: The Austro-German offensive begins.]

The very last of these journeys, which had been made by visitors of
every country, took place on October 24, the day that the great
Austro-German offensive began, and I remember how, as we drove along in
the rain, all our talk was of the bad news of that morning--that the
enemy, reinforced by a huge number of divisions brought secretly from
the Russian front, and profiting by a night of rain and fog, had thrust
down into the valley of the Isonzo between Plezzo and Tolmino, carried,
apparently by surprise, two Italian lines across the ravine after a
short and very violent bombardment, and then, pushing on, had captured
Caporetto, thus cutting off the Italian troops on Monte Nero and the
other mountains beyond the Isonzo, and opening a most serious gap in the
very center of the Italian line.

[Sidenote: Gorizia has suffered from the war.]

[Sidenote: A shell interrupts the sight-seers.]

The day was one of evil omen. We went to Gorizia, that pretty Austrian
spa that was taken by the Italians last year, and has suffered from the
war as much as Udine, its neighbor across the old frontier, has
prospered. In the heart of the town its old castle towers up from an
isolated crag, and from the battlements you can look across the valley
to the Italian and Austrian lines on the slopes of San Marco opposite.
Scores of parties like our own had made this visit to Gorizia Castle,
and to-day the driving rain and