Show Italy B Rival as I The Cockpit of f Europe 1 r I S L S F S d i y I Piazza Vittorio Emanuele at Udine Italy showing some come of tho beautiful buildings building tha that t have fallen into Von Mack Mack- onsen's ensen's hands and may be pillaged and destroyed by t the he German invaders At the left is the town hall hail built inin In Inin Inin in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries The statue b beneath the clock tower is tha that t of Victor Emmanuel I the first king of reunited Italy 1 COCKPIT Belgium nel lum has has' THE C I but one rival as a a. battlefield JL of ot the nations This misfortune misfortune tune belongs to to Friuli or the province of ot Udine In northern Italy where the Italian and Teutonic armies annles are now operating Friuli like Flanders Is a great frontier plain which has been soaked with human blood from the beginning of history Cividale burned by the Germans October 28 was founded by Julius Caesar as an outpost for Rome Home and with all the other towns of It has been put to the torch by successive sive sho hordes of barbarians ns and would- would be bo world conquerors as they swept through the Alpine passes Rome Marie Alaric the and-the ravaged the plain A. A D. D and his Huns hung followed Ip 11 What he did then has come down through the centuries as a a. synonym for tor War at its worst worst- worst but but ut It was doubtless doubtless doubtless doubt doubt- less childs' childs play compared to what the modern Hun does Theodoric the Ostro oth came next n and won one of the decisive battles of the world Barba Barbarosso rosso Napoleon have camped on this field of ot Mars Franks an and 1 Lombards Patriarchs Patriarchs Patriarchs Pa Pa- and Doges have ruled over Friuli and two or three times in every century the Isonzo and the Tagliamento Tag- Tag have run red In 1797 was divided by the fortunes of ot war between Venice and Austria and in 1866 the Venetian territory territory territory ter ter- ter- ter was handed over to Ital Italy l like Belgium has beautiful historic architectural monuments The Palazzo Comunale or town hall hail of ot Udine erected in 1457 is In the style of the tha famous ducal palace in Venice renice Built of or rose and white marble it Isone is isone isone one of ot the loveliest things in all 1111 Italy It will hardly escape the tragic fate tato of ot the art treasures of ot northern France and Flanders Udine is hut but ten miles from the wall of the tho Alps the Austrian frontier and four eighty-four miles by rail raU northeast of at Venice Until the present disaster It has been heen the base of ot Italian military operations It is Important strategically strategically I cally because it is hacked by the mountains and Is situated at the Junction junction junction Junc junc- I tion of ot t two tso o railways one leading to Trieste one to Venice Th This The rises with extraordinary extraordinary 1 rapidity in flood time Formerly It spread itself out over the plain but modern engineers have confined it between between between be be- tween mighty dikes The river brings down tons of sand and stones In its short swift run from the mountains to the sea and since it can no longer spread them in a thin la layer hier er over a a. large area arM it fills up its bed with de deep p deposits every year The Walls alls of its dikes have therefore to be raised at regular Intervals so 80 that now the town of ot Codroipo on the l left ft bank of the river lies some thirty feet teet below elow the stream In the season of ot the gr great at spring floods watchmen are stationed day and night upon the Tagliamento's dikes The where Italy must mist make maso Its defense used to cover a abed abed abed bed a mile wide In olden days clays it I checked many a host of or invading bari bar- bar i I banana Now its old bed is a stony i stretch of ot sand bordering the stone ston stonewalls I walls which h confine its waters watE |