The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-09-05
Special Correspondence to TIE srN

ROME. Aug. ls.-One Of the many
wonderful effects Of the war on the
Italian mind is that the whole nation.
from the Alps to Sicily, has turned to
letter writing. Everybody In writing to
the soldiers at the front since Gen. Ca
dorna said that a letter In almost as
necessary as food to the men fighting
for their country. And the soldiers, too,
write as often as they can. 80 that every
newspaper in italy has a couple OF
columns Of letters from the front daily.
Most of the letters sent by the SOL
diers to their families are never pub
lished. however. They are too badly
written to appear in print. The pro-
portion OF illiterates In italy Is high.
Many soldiers, especially those from
the country. are self-taught. and what
they write is understood only by their
families, who read their letters more
with the heart than with the eyes"
OF curse in every regiment the chap
lain. the officers and the better educated
men are always willing to write letters
" NV llilNti aN'ss "ilu ~ OANNhh WY
do. but the families prefer to see the
hand" however shaky, of their dear
one.
The typical letter of n soldier-peasant
from the front is more or less az fol-
lows:
Peasants Typical Letter.
.N,. ..o,.. I 10, u,atI and ua 70 md
hope the same OF you. DO not send me
money. as I do not need 1t. Besides l
cannot spend 1t and we have all we
want. including coffee In the morning.
Long live Italy and down with Austria
The Austrians are running away from
US and our victory is certain. saw
the King, who gave me some cigars and
shook hands with me. Wal is not as
bad as | expected. Give my love to
everybody and believe me. SC"
Generally "A long list of names follows.
with recommendations that the writer
should be remembered to each. and spe-
cial stress is laid on the address to be
used by the family in sending letters
to the front.
"Be sure to write only my name. rank.
the number Of my regiment. that OF my
company and OF the division or brigade,
and add just Zone of war and nothing
else" every soldier writes home.
The so-called public writer's in
Naples and all other southern cities and
towns. generally old broken down men,
who sit at tables in street corners and
exc out a livelihood by writing letters
for a cent or two for those who can
not write, are now working from morn
ing to night. Their clients in times OF
peace-honest workers of the soil, SER
want girls and poor people generally.
with sons husbands and other relatives
serving their time in the army-used to
be satisfied with a few words of greet
ing and news Of the family, so the let
tiers were short and the letter writers
were never overworked. Since Italy
vent to wal and every man whether
lighting or at home Is filled with patri-
otto fervor. short letters are not enough.
az sentiments must he voiced and all are
working with sword and pen for the
country.
Flight for the glory OF Italy and
your King writes an old peasant to his
son. "and remember that you grand
father received thirty strokes of the
stick from the Austrians."
soldiers write EIoquentIy.
Letter writing is not a lost art among
the Italians and even unlettered men in
the ranks often describe more graphi-
cally thar war correspondents the en-
gagements In which they have taken
part, \ young soldier. for instance,
writes as follows TO his family
The bad weather has passed and to
the great relief OF everybody we are
again advancing. The enemy lost their
ally, the rain. which kept us back, and
now slowly but surely we are gaining
ground. This Is not trench warfare hut
a succession Of assaults against small
fortresses. as each trench is practically
IA fort built Of REINFORCED concrete and
armor plate. II is hard, obstinate and
patient fighting and our artillery helps
us a great deal. So much so, in fact,
that So far all our successes are due TO
the artillery. We advance slowly be-
cause we never cross a river or n valley
until we command the hills overlooking
il. and you can easily understand in a
mountainous country what II means
when YOU nave to climb to the top OF "A
hill where the enemy with machine guns
is calmly waiting for you.
The other day our brigade was or
lorcd to take n certain line OF trenches,
strongly fortified with barhed wire en-
t~anglements and barricades Of reen-
forced concrete. 1t was considered "A
hopeless task The entanglements were
go strongly put up that even after a long
artillery bombardment they still resisted.
1t was then realized that Smelling the
entanglcments at long range was prac-
tically useless, and two batteries were
accordingly ordered to advance within a
mile of trenches and open fire at short
range The Captain in command, to start
with. was wounded and thrown off his
horse.
THE Lieutenant who replaced him was
killed, and SO many officers and men fell
that the two batteries ran the risk Of
being captured. still the few gunncrs
left alive continued to fire. and gradu-
ally advanced so near the acknowledgements
that finally they were blown to pieces.
one of our guns was disabled by an
Austrian shell which exploded right on
1t, hut five minutes later we were in pos
session Of the encmy's trench"
wounded Captains HerOIsm.
These letters, written spontaneously.
give one a clear idea of the hcroism OF
both officers and men which is a char
actcristlc feature of the present war and
is taken quite as a matter of course. \
soldier writes as follows about his Can
tain:
w had advanced very cautiously up
the slopes of "A mountain, and we knew
that the Austrians were strongly in
trenched on the other side, when We