Chapter 16

The Italian battle for the conquest of the fortified lines on the Isonzo and the entrenched camps of Gorizia is one of the most important in the European conflict. The battle of the Isonzo is not to be regarded as a mere episode, but a prolonged siege over a front of more than a hundred miles of a natural fortress, consisting of a chain of precipitous mountains. Perhaps never before in a European war has the value of individual qualities been shown so conclusively as by the Italian troops in this war. The very steep cliffs, which are almost perpendicular, along the course of the river are almost impossible to scale. The mountain passes which open along the river are very few and also narrow. In addition the geological nature of that district, composed of strong walls of granite towers, which dominate the River Isonzo, is favorable to its defence.

To this natural defense have been added strong fortifications built by the Austrians during past years in anticipation of being used for the subjugation of Italians at some time or other. Finally, during the last nine months of Italy's neutrality the Austrians have employed the latest technical improvements in defensive warfare, and I have never seen their equal during my excursions to the front in France and Belgium, not even at Antwerp. This remark applies especially to Carso and Gorizia.

The artillery officers of the Italian Military Staff whom I met at the front have explained to me the nature of the Austrian defensive works. Upon the Carso and around Gorizia the Austrians have placed innumerable batteries of powerful guns mounted on rails and protected by armor plates. Numerous other artillery advantages are possessed by the Austrians in the form of medium and smaller guns, though the efficiency of their action is modified by the long distances separating the armies.

In view of these advantages possessed by the Austrians, the Italians have accomplished marvels and are worthy of great admiration. The infantry is much exposed while crossing large and deep rivers. With the exception of the two positions of Podgora and Sabotino, all the Austrian line on the Isonzo has been taken by the Italians.

To the conquest of Gorizia are directed the efforts of the Eastern Italian Army. The Italian infantry which crossed the Isonzo ran against a net of trenches which the Austrians had excavated and constructed in cement all along the edge of the hills which dominate the course of the river. These trenches, already occupying a position nearly impregnable because so mountainous, are defended by every modern protective device. They are armed with numerous machine-guns surrounded by wire entanglements, through which runs a strong electric current. These lines of trenches follow without interruption from the banks of the Isonzo to the summit of the mountains which dominate it. They form a kind of formidable staircase, which must be conquered step by step with enormous sacrifice. The Italian troops have accomplished this marvel.

The crossing of the Isonzo and the conquest of the first mountainous positions were accomplished by the Italians in four strategic places: At Caporetto, at Tolurino, at Plava, and at Sagrado. These four places, situated in the strong line of Austrian defense, are about twenty miles distant from one another. The chain of fortifications of which Gorizia is a center was broken in these four essential points. The immediate effect has been the disorganization of the defensive plans of the enemy. The crossing of the river was accomplished generally at night, and was conducted with a rapidity which took the enemy by surprise. Complete regiments crossed in the night upon light bridges constructed in a short time by the engineers, whose technical skill was equal to their audacity. These "bridge-heads," which were constructed with incredible courage, made possible an attack by the reinforcements which followed them. When these came in contact with the lower lines of the Austrian trenches they attacked the defenders in such a way that the latter were unable to impede seriously the more important work of the construction of strong bridges.

Two Devoted Nations

By MAURICE MAETERLINCK

The subjoined letter, dedicated by the Belgian writer to stricken Poland, was received on July 12, 1915, by the Polish Relief Committee of New York, of which Mme. Marcella Sembrich is President.

In the Name of Belgium I Bring the Homage of a Martyred Nation to the Nation Crucified:

Of all the people engaged in this frightful war, Poland and Belgium will have suffered most, and we must add (though all the horrors of war are most revolting) they will have suffered most innocently. They are two victims of their innocence and grandeur of soul.

In misfortune and in glory their fates are the same. One, in sacrificing herself wholly to a cult, to an unparalleled passion for honor, has by breaking the first blow of barbarous invasion probably saved Europe, just as the other, the older sister, in grief and heroism several centuries ago saved Europe many times.

They are now joined forever in the memory of men. Across the combats and the sorrows which they are now enduring their hands meet in the same sacrifice, in the same invincible hope. Today these countries are but ruins. Nothing remains of them. They appear to be dead. But we, who are their sons and who know them as we know our mother, we know, we feel in our hearts, that they were never more alive, never purer, never more beautiful.

After having offered to the world a great example of pride, of abnegation, of heroism, they are again giving to it a deeper lesson, a more valuable, a more efficacious one. They are proving that no misfortune counts, that nothing is lost while the soul does not abdicate. The powers of darkness will never prevail against the forces of light and love that are leading humanity towards the heights which victory is already making clear to us on the horizon.

Rumania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece

Comment About Continued Neutrality from the Balkan and Russian Capitals

An elaborate argument that Italy is about to co-operate with the Allies at the Dardanelles in order to influence Greece and the Balkan States generally to intervene against the Germanic Powers appeared in The Frankfurter Zeitung near the close of June. A dispatch from Bucharest on July 12 announced that Austria had made concessions to Rumania in the hope of averting intervention by that Power, accompanying the offer with an ultimatum setting a month for Rumania's reply. The German Social-Democratic paper Vorwaerts published on July 17 a statement that Rumania had definitely refused to permit German arms and ammunition to traverse her territory to Turkey. This shows a distinct turning away from the German propaganda in that kingdom, which on May 26 spoke through the editorial columns of Moldova, a daily of Bucharest, as follows:

We must tread in the path opened to us by the late King Carol and the great Rumanian statesmen. We must always be attached to the Central European Powers, from which we shall secure the fulfillment of our aspirations, on that day when we shall move against Russia.

From Lupte, a Nationalist daily of Bucharest, a definite declaration of the kingdom's policy was demanded on June 4:

The smaller a nation is the more dangerous to her existence are diplomatic intrigues. Mr. Bratiano's Government has for the past eight months been coquetting with Petrograd as well as with Berlin and Vienna. With which side are we in this war? The two belligerent groups are asking this and the same question is asked of Bulgaria and Greece. We must have a sound national policy, for in this most modern war there is no profit in the old Machiavellian tactics.

That a crisis is approaching in Balkan affairs is clearly indicated in an editorial warning headed "Beware, ye Balkan Peoples!" appearing on May 29 in Dnevnik, an independent Bulgarian daily of Sofia. It says:

The lust of Europe for territorial aggrandizement becomes every day more pronounced. From a struggle for self-defense this has become a war of conquest. Germany has appropriated Belgium, Russia fights for the Bosporus and Constantinople, Italy has almost taken Albania--with the approval of Austria, as we have discovered. The westernmost edge of the Balkan Peninsula has fallen; tomorrow the easternmost extremity will fall, together with Constantinople. Will the European Powers then spare us?... What the United States of America did for the preservation of their independence against foreign conquest we Balkan peoples must do unless we would see our doom sealed.

"The Dangers of a Neutral Policy" is the theme of Mir, the organ of the Bulgarian Nationalist Party of Sofia, which on May 29 said: "If Bulgaria remains neutral to the end of the war, she runs the risk of being condemned to live forever within the narrow limits she has today, hemmed in on every side. The duty of the Balkan States is to act in a war which will solve all pending political and national problems."

Serbia's jealousy of Italy, despite that nation's late adhesion to the Allies, was voiced on May 25 by Politika, a Nationalist daily of Belgrade, which accuses Italy of trying to profit at Serbia's expense. The Entente Powers must pay for Italian aid, this paper says; and Italy may be "satisfied with Savoy, Corsica, Malta, Tunis, Algiers, Asia Minor, or Egypt."

The Ottoman Empire being under martial law, comment by the Turkish papers regarding military and political events is restricted by the Government. But Enver Pasha, the all-powerful young Turk leader, and his colleague for the Interior, Talaat Bey, early in May gave an interview printed in the Vienna Neue Freie Presse. Enver Pasha predicts the collapse of the Allied campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula, where the French and British hold a small corner against overwhelming odds. "The bringing thither of provisions is extremely difficult," he says, and "even the drinking water for the troops must be brought from the ships." Both he and Talaat Bey report the morale of the Turkish troops to be excellent, "as many of the older officers have been replaced by energetic young men."

Greece is in suspense. The Kairoi, an independent daily of Athens, said on June 22 that, while Greece does not forget her debt to the three protective powers, France, England, and Russia, she must nevertheless weigh the promise of Germany to give full protection to Greek interests in the event of her continued neutrality. "Just how Germany keeps her promises," this paper says, is "shown by Cavalla, the Macedonian city allotted to Greece after the second Balkan war at the express instance of the Kaiser;" and it notes that the Entente Powers are now eager to cede this territory to Bulgaria. The Embros, an independent daily of Athens, prophesied on June 22:

We can afford to follow events with growing solicitude and remain neutral as long as we may. Whether or not we maintain this neutrality to the end our action can change neither the fortunes of Greece nor the position of other Powers. It is to be presumed that the power driving this giant conflict to the conclusion has more remote motives and that to all appearance, the war will end without any of the participants suffering a crushing defeat.

While Russian aspirations are generally considered to be in harmony with those of the Balkan kingdoms, the following extracts from Russian papers representing varying shades of Muscovite opinion show now an unfavorable or critical attitude. Thus the foremost organ of the Panslavist Party, the Russian weekly Slavianski Izvestija, April No. 8, disapproved the Bulgarian plea to give Thrace and Adrianople through Russian influence. Of the Macedonian question this paper said:

Bulgarians expect that Russia will get for them Macedonia Thrace, and Dobrudja, to reward their honest labors. Alas, they must learn that not every day, but every hour, Macedonia is receding from their grasp. For Russia the Macedonian question hardly exists. If Macedonia finds it hard to be under heroic and benevolent Serbia, what would become of her on the day when she should fall into the hands of Bulgaria? And should we Russians, in order to assure Macedonia such a future, grieve now our dear ally Serbia?

The semi-official Novoye Vremya of Petrograd commented on May 27, on the statement of the Bulgarian Premier Radoslavoff published in Vienna, that Bulgaria cannot engage to intervene without a formal treaty, a policy, it believes, that says but one thing, namely: "You Russians tricked us Bulgarians once; you shall not trick us again." This attitude of Bulgaria shows, the Novoye Vremya thinks, "how thick-headed and insensate its people are." The Birjevaja Viedomosti, a standpat Russian daily of Petrograd, on May 23 warned Serbia that, whereas the war began in her behalf and on her account rivers of blood are flowing, her complaints of the allotment of Dalmatia to Italy should not "assert principles which have nothing to do with actualities." The same newspaper says of the whole Balkan situation:

The German policy of von Buelow, having failed in Rome, is courting failure in Bucharest. In fact, all the German promises to Rumania seem to go no further than sharpening the Rumanian appetite for Russian Bessarabia, while holding out as a last bait the cession of a small parcel of Bukowina--supposing the Hungarians never consent to yielding Transylvania to Rumania.

On the other hand, Germany promises Bulgaria the Turkish province of Thrace and Serbian and Greek Macedonia; but these compensations have as much value as the cessions of Corsica and Nice and Tunis in the early days of the war.

But Germany cannot give to Bulgaria Serbian Macedonia so long as the Austrian armies are not masters of the whole of Serbia; she cannot give her Thrace because Turkey objects to such cession, and Turkey is her ally; and, finally, she cannot urge Greece too closely to cede Cavalla to Bulgaria, because such a pressure may bring a contrary result, i.e. make Greece to declare herself openly an ally of the Entente. Therefore both Bulgaria and Rumania must perforce side with the great European Alliance. Had Italy remained neutral matters would be different, but as it is now Bulgars and Rumanians, and the Balkan peoples in general, have to fight with us, unless they want the diplomacy of the Entente to disappoint utterly the ever-growing appetite of these small nationalities....

It will be noted that all the opinions quoted concerning the Balkans relate to the division of territory as the price of neutrality or intervention.

Dr. Conybeare's Recantation

By SIR WALTER RALEIGH

_To the Editor of the [London] Times:_

Sir,--During a recent visit to America I saw Dr. Conybeare's letter in a paper called the _Vital Issue_. All who know Dr. Conybeare know him to be honest and frank, and to be very deeply distressed by the sufferings and cruelties of the war. After my return, I wrote to him, pointing out that his letter is being widely circulated in America, and that the material points in his accusation of Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Asquith have been answered. I enclose Dr. Conybeare's reply, for which he desires the fullest publicity.

Yours faithfully,

WALTER RALEIGH.

The Hangings, Ferry Hinksey, near Oxford, July 1, 1915.

* * * * *

Banbury-road, Oxford, June 30.

Dear Sir Walter Raleigh,--During the past week I have been studying afresh the published records of the diplomatic transactions of last July, and on my return to Oxford I find your kind letter, and therefore take the liberty of addressing this to yourself. My new study has forced upon me the conviction that in my letter to a friend residing in America, which, against my wishes and injunctions, was published there, apart from the deplorable tone of my allusions to Sir E. Grey and Mr. Asquith, I was quite wrong in imputing the motives which I did, especially to the former. It does appear to me, as I read these dispatches over again, that Sir Edward throughout had in view the peace of Europe, and that I ought to have set down to the awful contingencies with which he was faced many passages which I was guilty of grossly misinterpreting. I was too ready to forget that in the years of the Balkan wars it was after all he alone who, by his patient and conciliatory treatment of the situation, held in check the antagonistic forces which last July he was ultimately unable to control. I was too ready to ascribe to want of good will on his part results which harsh necessity entailed on him; and I deeply regret that I mistook his aims and, in my endeavour to be fair to the enemy, was grossly unjust to him. I am only anxious to undo, if it be still possible, some of the harm which my hasty judgment and intemperate language has caused.

If you think it would do any good to print this, I beg you to send it to _The Times_ and _Morning Post_, whose remarks led me to go back once more to the documentary sources. Second thoughts are best, and if I had only kept my American letter till the morning for revision, I should first have struck out all the vituperation and all the imputation of motives, and have ended by never sending it at all.

I remain yours very sincerely,

FRED. C. CONYBEARE.

The Case of Muenter

Attack on Mr. Morgan's Life and the Setting of Fire-Bombs on Ships

That a group of bankers in New York City, headed by J.P. Morgan & Company, was negotiating with the British Treasury authorities for the flotation in the United States of $100,000,000 of the new British war loan was announced in the newspapers on July 3, 1915. Mr. Morgan's firm had handled contracts to furnish war munitions to the Allies, amounting to $500,000,000, and this had been widely published. On the morning of July 3 J.P. Morgan was attacked and wounded with a revolver at his country estate on East Island, near Glen Cove, Long Island, by Erich Muenter, alias Frank Holt. Holt was an Instructor in German at Cornell University; Muenter was a Harvard instructor for whom the police had been seeking since the spring of 1906 on a charge of murdering his wife. After his suicide in jail on July 6, Professor C.N. Gould, of the University of Chicago, and Professor Hugo Muensterberg, of Harvard, among others, identified Holt and Muenter as the same person.

Muenter's insane attack on Mr. Morgan, because he had failed to "use his influence to prevent the exportation of arms and ammunition," followed the wrecking of the United States Senate reception room in the Capitol at Washington on July 2 by the explosion of an infernal machine set by Muenter. On July 6 a trunk owned by Muenter containing twenty pounds of explosives was found in New York. During his stay in jail Muenter wrote to his wife that two ships were to sink at sea on July 7, if his calculations went right, naming the Philadelphia and the Saxonia. The ships were duly warned by wireless, but no bombs were found aboard them, nor were any confederates of Muenter discovered. On July 7 the steamship Minnehaha reported by wireless a "fire caused by explosion" under control.

Incendiary bombs had been discovered aboard four freight steamships sailing from New York for Havre in April and May. On July 12 Secretary of the Navy Daniels, acting on advices received from The New Orleans Picayune, directed the naval radio station at Arlington, Virginia, to flash a warning to all ships at sea to be on the lookout for bombs supposed to have been placed on board certain vessels, and warning particularly the steamers Howth Head and Baron Napier that information had come to the Navy Department that explosive bombs might have been placed on those two vessels. All ships were requested to try to communicate with the Howth Head and the Baron Napier. On July 11 a written threat to assassinate J.P. Morgan, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, the British Ambassador, and destroy by bombs British ships clearing from American ports, thus carrying out some of the plans of Erich Muenter, was reported in a letter signed "Pearce," who styled himself a partner and intimate associate of Muenter. This letter was received by The New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Two more "Pearce" letters were received on July 13 by an afternoon newspaper of New Orleans and by its Chief of Police, saying that Erich Muenter had taught the writer the use of explosives. On the same day the Samland of the Atlantic Transport Line and the Strathlay, chartered by the Fabre Line, survived attempts to destroy them by fire bombs, and on July 15 "Pearce" threatened in another letter to destroy the Rochambeau. A bomb thought to be intended for the Orduna in a car loaded with coal consigned to the Cunard Line was discovered at Morrisville, N.J., on July 18. The Washington Times, the Philadelphia Public-Ledger and the Brooklyn Eagle received on July 16, 19 and 20, respectively, letters from "Pearce" declaring that henceforth persons leaving America on British ships would do so at their peril, and harking back to the German Embassy's warning before the Lusitania was torpedoed. On July 26 an SOS call was received at the Fire Island station, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and by the coast guard ship Mohawk, but the distressed ship's appeal for help was broken off before her name or position could be given. "Pearce's" letter to The Brooklyn Eagle reads as follows:

"Sir: You people of Brooklyn have already had one experience with the work of our men, and so, perhaps, it will be unnecessary to say more than a few words of warning. The Kirkoswald affair is still fresh in your memory; therefore, we will not waste words discussing this matter. The purpose of this communication is to warn the American citizens living in your vicinity to keep clear of British vessels sailing from Brooklyn, New York, New Orleans, Savannah, Newport News, and Montreal. Our men are now operating from each of these ports, and Americans will do well to heed this warning ere it is too late.

"The Imperial German Government derives no satisfaction or profit from the killing of neutral Americans, and we are instructed to go to great lengths in order to give timely warnings to all Americans who contemplate voyages to Europe within the next two months. The explosive operations will supplement the submarine operations, which have proved inadequate to prevent the enemy from importing munitions from America.

"We earnestly advise Americans who find it imperative to travel to Europe to sail only on vessels flying the American flag. Such steamers as those of the American Line, for instance, will be perfectly immune from either submarine or explosive operation. The Imperial German Government will, if requested, offer no objection to the American Government pressing into service the interned German vessels if the American vessels are found to be unable to accommodate the traffic to Europe. By publishing this warning American lives may be spared.

"The circumstances under which this communication is written make it impossible for us to affix our proper signatures; therefore, we trust that you will accept for a signature our pen name.

"PEARCE."

Devotion to the Kaiser