| OCR Text |
Show ON THE ITALIAN I FRONT One of the best informed authors on t&2 war is Frank H. SimondB. Speculating Specu-lating on what might happen on the Italian front, while the Italians were retreating to the Piave line, he said: if the allies get their guns up first, then they will be in a position to conduct con-duct a counter-offensive from the Plave, granted that the Italian armies have not been broken. They will have tho advantage of artillery and the conditions con-ditions will in some degree reproduce the situation of the Marne, when the Germans, having outrun their heavy guns and munitions, were suddenly attacked at-tacked by French armies with great supplies of munitions and more field guns, which were in addition of a vastly vast-ly superior type. Since French and British armies have accompanied their guns, the allies al-lies would also have superiority in the quality of troops, in the case of a counter-offensive, for the French and British troops are incontestable' bettor than the Austrians, who compose the mass of the Auslro-German armies You have then the plain possibility It Is no more that the Italians will hold the line of the Piave and that behind them an Anglo-French offensive, offen-sive, provided with superior artillery and a greater supply of munitions, will gather and then strike forward before the Austrians and Germans can bring up their own heavy artillory or destroy de-stroy the Italian armies either by frontal fron-tal attack on the Plave or by a turning turn-ing movement from the Trentino. On the other hand, suppose that the Italians, under pressure, go back to the Adige. They are now in the position posi-tion of the French in the last days of August, 19H, when Joffro fought his successful delaying battles at Guise and along the Meuse. But Joffre's flank was still in danger and his new concentrations were not completed, so he went back behind the Marne We see that the Italian flank, now threatened threat-ened on the Asiago plateau, would be safe once the Adige were passed; we see also that a retirement of twenty or thirty miles more, that is, behind the Adige, would again hold up the advance ad-vance of Austro-German heavy artillery, artil-lery, since communications would again be destroyed. If the Austrians and Germans, having hav-ing restored their rearward communications communi-cations before the allied reinforcements reinforce-ments can come into action, dig in, we may see the Italian campaign change from a war of movement to a positional or trench war on the present pres-ent lines. If the Italian armies retire in good order and in advance of any decisive defeat to the Adige. there will be a good chance of a counter-offensive, in which the new armies and ar-' tillery of the French and British will play an interesting part. The most encouraging paragraph in Simonds comments is the statement of the superiority of the allied troops as compared with the Austrians. Today's dispatches though report constantly increasing arrivals of Ger-, man troops from both the Russian and i French forts. |
