A Visit to Three Fronts

One meets with such extreme kindness and consideration among the / Italians that there is a real danger lest one's personal feeling of / obligation should warp one's judgment or hamper one's expression. / Making every possible allowance for this, I come away from them, after / a very wide if superficial view of all that they are doing, with a deep / feeling of admiration and a conviction that no army in the world could / have made a braver attempt to advance under conditions of extraordinary / difficulty.

First a word as to the Italian soldier. He is a type by himself which / differs from the earnest solidarity of the new French army, and from / the businesslike alertness of the Briton, and yet has a very special / dash and fire of its own, covered over by a very pleasing and / unassuming manner. London has not yet forgotten Durando of Marathon / fame. He was just such another easy smiling youth as I now see / everywhere around me. Yet there came a day when a hundred thousand / Londoners hung upon his every movement -- when strong men gasped and / women wept at his invincible but unavailing spirit. When he had fallen / senseless in that historic race on the very threshold of his goal, so / high was the determination within him, that while he floundered on the / track like a broken-backed horse, with the senses gone out of him, his / legs still continued to drum upon the cinder path. Then when by pure / will power he staggered to his feet and drove his dazed body across the / line, it was an exhibition of pluck which put the little sunburned / baker straightway among London's heroes. Durando's spirit is alive / to-day, I see thousands of him all around me. A thousand such, led by a / few young gentlemen of the type who occasionally give us object lessons / in how to ride at Olympia, make no mean battalion. It has been a war / of most desperate ventures, but never once has there been a lack of / volunteers. The Tyrolese are good men -- too good to be fighting in so / rotten a cause. But from first to last the Alpini have had the / ascendency in the hill fighting, as the line regiments have against the / Kaiserlics upon the plain. Caesar told how the big Germans used to / laugh at his little men until they had been at handgrips with them. The / Austrians could tell the same tale. The spirit in the ranks is / something marvellous. There have been occasions when every officer has / fallen and yet the men have pushed on, have taken a position and then / waited for official directions.