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Show VICTORY OF HALT DECISIVE BLOW DEFEAT OF AUSTRIAN . CRUSHING THAT THEY a STOPPED FOR WEEKS Germany's Whole Plan of Off, the West Front Likely to Smashed to Pieces as Resul, of Rout of Austrians. London. The view i mu cles Tuesday night was that tin. ,i f of the Austrians is so crusl,i,. ,''" will be impossible for the em', ! " repeat his offensive mi a serims ' '" for several weeks. One of tlio t-n?"1' for the. Austrian disaster is S' have been faulty judgment in their reserves, by which they fii' 7 be brought up at the critie'd m ' to meet the clever strategy uf i'1 ians. So strongly is the Piave lille ,,. bold by the Italians, sy ', critics, that it will be Impossible the disorganized enemy armies to lake it, and there is not the sIhZ fear that they again will try to tT the river. It is said they staked evm thing on this offensive and threw n their forces into it. Tlurtv-seven divi sions have been identified as boine in the battle. 1 ln Germany's entire offensive promt,,, may have been upset, in the opinion of some officers at Washington, by u,e crushing defeat of the Austrians "along the Piave river. Official reports reaching Vusliii,B. ton bear out the picture of the Austrian disaster given in press accounts from Italy, although the full extent of the Italian success is not yet apparent. It is regarded as certain, however, that the central powers have been dealt a blow that will further shake the mo. rale of their people nnd probably will compel the German high command to make a complete readjustment of its plans in France. Secretary Baker showed the significance signif-icance attached here to the defeat o( the Austrians when he dis itched a congratulatory telegram to the American Ameri-can ambassador at Rome for transmission transmis-sion to the Italian minister of war. The defeat of the Austrian armies on the western bank of the Piave river is complete. Admission is made by the Austrian war office that the troops of Emperor Charles have been forced to evacuate the Montello plateau, plat-eau, over which they had hoped to press their way and gain the Venetian plains and "some sectors" of the positions posi-tions they attained last week on the bank of the river between the plateau and, tlie point where the stream empties into the Adriatic. Bad weather and the rising of the Piave unde the heavy rainfalls are assigned as the reasons for the withdrawal with-drawal of the Austrians. But the Rome war office asserts it was the impetus of the attack of the Italians that brought about the failure of an operation which was started with the intention of crushing the armies of General Diaz and forcing the Italians, like the Russians, to accept a Teutonic allied peace. All along the river the Italians have pressed back the invaders of their territory ter-ritory until only small units remain on the western bank, and across the stream King Victor Emmanuel's men are keeping well on the heels of the retreating enemy, who is fleeing in disorder. dis-order. The losses to the enemy are described de-scribed as enormous, both in im killed, wounded or made prisoner. An official statement from Rome to the Italian embassy in Washington asserts that the Austrians have lost 45,000 men in prisoners alone. |