I led a laborious, tranquil life with the command of the eighth Bersaglieri which held the line from Fagare to Molino della Sega. Every now and then there were slight surprise attacks at night and small bombardments. During the day there was a little isolated shooting upon the roads most frequented by our wagons, but otherwise there was nothing abnormal, almost no indication that we were at war. So for many weeks on many fronts this calm subsisted yet beneath its stillness what great griefs, what sufferings, what trepidations lay hid!

The willow-trees put forth their first buds; spring came on apace. A hawthorn bush about which the wire entanglements were twined, foamed, snow-tinted, under the 100 pale sky. A warm breeze, the lightest of March, breathed from the South, and at the first cascades of song from larks, singing as it seemed just beneath the low clouds, we felt faintly calling in our hearts the echoes of the distant springtimes, now—save in the moments of this brief episode of war—vanished from the memory of a child grown man. In the afternoon we heard the first rumblings of thunder, followed by large warm drops of rain which filled the air with the smell of fresh earth newly trenched and with the fragrance of primroses and violets sprouting among the first green leaves. Far off in the background where the irate mountain seemed to support a curved garland of clouds, I beheld, illumined by a slanting ray of light, the cypresses which surround the castle of Conegliano, near which my house stands. Everything proclaimed the unhinderable beauty of nature, the joy of youth, were it yet possible even to sense this beauty and this youth in the great 101 cataclysm which surrounded us. That view and those cypresses renewed within me the ardent desire to reach the other side. I pointed out to Bottecchia the steeple of his village church, which veiled itself far away among the distant vapor of clouds. And by this sign we became two bosom companions joined by a firm bond of love and friendship. We became two comrades, dedicated to the same cause, two comrades whom nothing can stay in the fulfillment of their chosen duty.

Very slowly, so it seemed to me, the days passed by, perhaps because I slept little at night. For then it was that many small details took shape, many new angles of sight were discovered, many definite ideas were formulated. In the morning my soldier and I met and communicated to each other the experiences and thoughts of the previous night.

One morning I received a letter from Colonel Smaniotto saying that His Excellency, 102 assistant-Chief of Staff of the Army, Lieut. General Badoglio was greatly interested in our undertaking and had given orders that the “Voisin” be dispatched as soon as possible to the front, and that it be equipped with a silencer reported marvelous. The Colonel further entrusted me with the task of choosing from among the officers of the eighth regiment of Bersaglieri some one who, were my venture a success, would be disposed to attempt the same thing in the region around Pordenone. After numerous considerations I turned my attention to Lieutenant De Carli (strangest of coincidences in names!) who seemed to me to possess the necessary qualities and who had left his mother in the invaded territory at Tiezzo di Pordenone.

We Italians are truly a great people! He did not hesitate a second before accepting my project. Without asking for any details he placed himself at my disposal and merely requested that he be permitted to 103 take with him his brother, a corporal serving in his company. After seeing such ardor and such frenzy not to leave a thing undone which might help drive the enemy from our lands, I became more and more convinced that it was merely a matter of time before we should achieve that victory for which we had been summoned.

With the two De Carli brothers and my soldier I returned to headquarters because there were still many points to be settled, especially what means of communication we should adopt when we had reached the other side. From numerous reports it seemed that the time set for the great Austrian offensive was not far distant, the offensive destined definitely to crush our army and enable the enemy to turn all his strength against France. We must be ready before that offensive.

As I did not wish to tell anyone of our plans, and since a large staff usually ends by knowing all, we decided to establish ourselves 104 in the prisoners’ concentration camp at Capella where there were a few officers who were used to silence and discretion. We were living in a small isolated house, outside the village, and this house had become the forge where weapons fatal to the enemy were being shaped. Methods of communication must now be studied. Signaling by night with lights had to be eliminated because the zone in which I decided to act was in a small hollow surrounded by hills and so dominated by them that any lights would be readily visible from them. More appropriate seemed the method of communicating by means of sheets placed on the ground according to schedule. Bottecchia told me that near the house in which his aunts live there was a small brook and in this brook the wash-women usually did their laundering. The wash was probably laid on the grass near the brook to dry. I did not see why the Austrians should suspect an innocuous sheet of conveying information to our command. 105 By taking as a point of reference a field which could be easily identified, why would it not be possible to lay the sheets on it in such a manner as to convey a special meaning to our command? Several aeroplanes were then sent to photograph the regions selected by us, and in the enlarged photographs the brook was plainly visible. One could see the house of my soldier’s aunts, the little bridge which passes over the Friga, and a small group of houses near a mill, marked on a map of one to twenty-five thousandth scale. Near this group of houses there was a large patch of ground which was very distinct in the photograph and which was but a slight distance from the river. I believed it would be suitable to indicate on it by means of sheets what we wished to convey to our command. There were but a few things which would have to be communicated. A sheet on the southwestern corner of the field would indicate, “offensive imminent from the side of Montello”; a 106 white sheet on the southeastern corner would signify “calm”; a sheet on the northwestern angle of the field would indicate, “enemy troops are moving towards the plain”; a sheet on the northeastern corner would mean, “enemy troops are moving towards the mountains”; a sheet placed in the center of the field would mean, “German reinforcements are arriving.” Our aeroplanes would come by day and photograph our signals. The only difficulty lay in the possible discovery of our plan by the enemy, and its use by the enemy to cheat our command. We must provide against such a possibility. We therefore decided that the signals be disposed at different hours every day. If the signals were not placed in the established hours, then they were to be disregarded. So, even if the enemy were to discover our system of signals, he could never wrest from us a confession of the hours in which the signals were to have been placed. But, although this means of communication 107 might be very useful during a battle, it is at bottom little more than a very crude, elementary method for transmitting information.

For communicating more detailed, interesting information, we decided to rely on carrier pigeons. It would not be easy for us, besides our clothing and money, to carry pigeons with us, and furthermore, it would be absolutely impossible to travel for twenty miles in enemy territory with birds which in case of capture would at once reveal to the enemy our intentions. We must find some system for delivering the birds on the territory established as our headquarters. After numerous experiments we adopted the following method: the birds were to be closed in little cages in which had been placed paper, pencil and small bags with their food; these birds were to be dropped at night, by means of parachutes, from our aeroplanes, but in order not to arouse the suspicion of the enemy that these birds had 108 been thrown down for special informers, there was to be placed in every cage a photograph demonstrating the method of holding the pigeon and of attaching the message to its leg, together with a printed bulletin addressed to the people of Veneto. This bulletin was to ask the good peasants for help in effecting their liberation, and for answers to the following questions—“What troops are quartered in your vicinity? Have you seen any cannon pass? When will the offensive begin?”—and many other similar questions; at the end, the bulletin was to announce that after the war, prizes were to be awarded to those who could prove that they sent messages by means of the pigeons.

That the enemy might not discover our abode, the pigeons were to be thrown down not only on our field, but casually throughout the invaded region. Since the enemy might make use of this means too, of deceiving us, and of communicating false reports as to its intentions, we therefore, 109 studied a code with which to express numbers, and a system of interpolating insignificant words after a given number of words, so that before a pigeon-message could be declared authentic, it must pass certain tests. Thus even if the enemy were to succeed in discovering part of our secret, he could never send messages so correct in every detail that they would not be recognized as frauds by our command. I further decided to number progressively all my pigeon-messages and to sign them with the coined word, “Genga,” or the phrase, “An Italian.”

On May 1st, while we were conferring together at Campo de Capella, we had a pleasant surprise. Suddenly, when we least expected it, we heard the noise of an aeroplane passing low over us. The noise of the motor sounded familiar, like the round, tranquil thump of the “Isotta,” and as I raised my head I saw a “Voisin” spiraling about a hundred yards above us, and an 110 arm stretched from the pilot’s seat waving gaily at us. At last, we realized that Gelmetti after so many hunts and searches had succeeded in finding a plane and had brought it from Camp Poggio Renatico to the front. This was a great step forward, because we would be able to begin many necessary trials with the apparatus. We must make the first trial for weight, and then several trials for landing at night without the use of searchlights, and with the use of the silencer. I therefore thought it would be better for us to transport our tents to the aviation camp at Marcon which is not far from the army and is suited for such experiments.

We were already furnished with our civilian clothes. Mine consisted of a coarse shirt of wool, a pair of wide trousers of striped velvet like those used by our mountaineers, a jacket and vest cut in peasant fashion, and a soft felt hat. I put my disguise on trial by crossing a field where there 111 were many soldiers who knew me in my regular outfit and without a beard. I noticed that many of them stared at me in surprise without recognizing this peasant who walked slowly, dragging his legs along heavily, as though he were worn out. Between my teeth I held a small earthen pipe, I am happy that I passed unrecognized. Even Gelmetti who was resting in the Hangar near his “Spad” was surprised and astonished to see suddenly standing before him this mountaineer whom he did not at once recognize.

I did not believe our departure was far distant. All the reports we had been able to gather recently told of gigantic preparations by the enemy for an early offensive against us. The Austrians for several months had been gradually increasing the number of their guns, and new arrivals from the eastern Roumanian front were continually reported.

The political reasons for this offensive 112 were the great discontent manifest in all the provinces of Austria because of the scarcity of food supplies, and the belief, which gradually undermined the morale of our enemies, that a decisive victory against the Allies was impossible. The most hostile forces then within the enemy lines were the factions which have furnished the best troops. The Hungarians had a deep hatred against Germany, whom they accuse of being the originator of all their troubles. A newspaper from Budapest mentioned that the drive must be finished before the great weight of America could make itself felt in the balance. Therefore, the supreme command of our adversaries was about to exert itself to the full in speeding the decisive drive on our front, in the hope that this drive would bring to it not only a victory of arms, but the conciliation of the hostile, troublesome factions which were ever becoming more formidable and threatening. Were the Austrians to succeed in crushing the Italian 113 army, they would throw all their strength against the southern end of the line in France, and then the Allied forces, enclosed in the iron circle of Germans on the north and Austrians on the south, would have to succumb. The officers of the Austrian staff were confident that they would find our army in the low spirits in which they found it at the battle of Caporetto. They knew not that after our magnificent resistance in November and December a new spirit of moral and material regeneration swept over our soldiers. Furthermore, our great military machine had effected a thorough reorganization. The treatment of the troops, the tactical method, the equipment, the distribution of supplies—all these branches had been reorganized by wise adaptions of such a kind as to inspire confidence among the soldiers in their officers and ensure the ultimate victory of our arms. But we were not to delude ourselves, nor lightly underrate the imminent danger which threatened us; 114 we had to realize that the formation of our front would not permit us to withdraw one inch. We were holding onto the last position in which our stand could be efficacious. If the Austrians were to succeed in driving us from this position a great retreat would be necessary, and even if this retreat were to succeed in saving the army from complete disaster, the new lines would have to be established far inland on the Mincio or the Po, and our failure to hold the first position would mean the sacrifice of Italy’s most beautiful and richest regions, and among them Venice would have to be ceded to the enemy.

Venice! At the mention of this name my Italian heart cannot but be set beating! It was absolutely inconceivable, it was absolutely inadmissible that the barbarian be permitted to trample with feet of iron the pavements of our squares and our churches. Better were it for us all to perish rather than permit the German Emperor to issue 115 from the Doge’s Palace a proclamation of challenge and victory! But the configuration of our front was terribly against us. Our curved front which formed a strong salient from the Astico to the sea gave the Austrians the strategic advantage of being able to launch two attacks simultaneously in two converging directions, from the mountain and from the Piave across the plains. If the attack were successful in one of the two directions, that fact sufficed to cause the downfall of the other sector. The victorious enemy troops having accomplished a “break-through” one side of the salient would at once execute a flanking movement in such a manner that the rest of the front would be compelled to surrender. The maneuver of Caporetto might be repeated to our disadvantage, and this time the defeat would be decisive because the Allies, barely capable of holding back the Germans in France, would not be able to send a single man to our assistance. 116 Therefore, our surveillance was becoming all the more anxious, our chiefs more strict in their reports to the generalissimo of the doings in the various sectors, and I—I should have the honor of taking part in so great a drama, I should have the honor of trying to frustrate the enemy designs.

The incidence of numerical strength was greatly to our disadvantage, for the Austrian army mustered about twenty divisions more than we had. We would therefore have to dispose of our troops with the greatest care. Our reserves would have to be concentrated in a central camp whence they could be readily sent to the section of the front where the enemy seemed most threatening. There would have to be no doubts, no hesitations on the part of our leaders; not a single man ought to be moved to no purpose. It was absolutely necessary for us to know the enemy’s plan of attack, that we might concentrate every soldier we could on whatever sector the supreme blow was to be 117 expected. To discover this plan and report it was my task; a task of danger, a task of honor, the supreme privilege of a man consecrated to his country, of a soldier sworn to the faith of the soldier.