The Waxahachie daily light. [volume] (Waxahachie, Tex.) 1894-current, 1916-01-03
ROLE PLAYED Br KING
VICTOR Of ITALY IN war
By ALICE ROBE.
United Press stan Correspondent.

will begin to appreciate the role
played by King Victor in the great
est tragedy OF history.
Act ii was veil under way before
Italy Joined the players and King
Victor with his tuft OF rooster
feathers appeared from the wings.
He had frequently been mentioned
In the lines, and no sooner had he
strobe upon the stage than he and
the veteran actor Franz Josef came
to blows.
Verona will fall before Gorizia.'
shouted the Austrian.
Gorilla first, retorted Victor
and the play went on
II was not until May of this year
that Italy declared war on Austria.
Immediately the Italian general
STAFF outlined the following land
| program:
l. An aggressive. systematic OPP
GRAFTON on the mountainous north
ern frontier, Trentino and the Car
mic Alps--long fortified by Austria.
designedly to make an Austrian in
vasion of Italy easy while standing
Iimpregnable against Italian invas-
| ion
2. An offensive on a large scale
against the valley of the Isonzo
which barred ltaly's way toward
the Julian Alps on the East and the
Istrian peninsula to the South.
The naval program was this De-
struction of Austrian commerce on
the Adriatic and adjacent waters
and the bottiing UP or destruction
of the Austrian fleet.
On land today italy faces the
New Year as the only one of the
Allied Powers whose main army is
firmly entrenched on the soil of an
enemy. On water the Duke of Abb
ruzzi's fleet is supreme. The Aus
trian main fleet, refuged in Pola
harbor, refused the Italian chat
lenge just as the German fleet de-
fes the British-in the KEEL canal.
Like Germany, Austria is unable to
give safe convoy to her own COM
merce.
With an army OF more than o.
ESQ 900 men in uniform; with res
serves of l,75o,000 men between IS
and SO yet to be called to the coll
ors; with abundant equipment. es-
pecially heavy artillery; backed by
a splendid industrial mobilization
capable of feeding munitions for
any emergency, Italy looks TO the
future with the utmost confidence.
This feeling was wildly reflected in
the recent utterances of Baron Son
nino, Minister for Foreign Affairs.
in the chamber, in which he an
nounced not only Italy's agreement
with the Allies not to conclude a
separate peace, but her purpose TO
extend the campaign across the
Adriatic in support OF stricken Ser
bia.
In answer to the latter pledge,
SO, 900 Italian troops have already
landed in Albania where pointers
are busy at bodybuilding and 9TH
err means of transport through the
painless mountains. Food and
clothing by the shipload are being
sent by the Italians for the Serbian
refugees.
Seven months of fighting along
the lines of the general STATS plan
Iof campaign have produced far
greater results than the daily COM
munique have indicated. On the
Isonzo front the offensive has
reached the stage where an Italian
occupation of the entire Istrian PEN
insula, as we'll as effective thrusts
northward and eastward, is believ-
cd 10 be possible early in 1915.
The Northern campaign. in the
Trentino and Carnic regions has
closed with the object attained.
After months of the severest and
most difficult mountain warfare.
heroic struggles on precipitous
grounds. the Alpine troops. Bersag-
lieri and infantry with heavy artii-
lery. sometimes drawn up the
mountain sides with ropes. have
battered fort after fort into dust.
stormed and captured hitherto i'm
pregnable Austrian defences. aud
consolidated the conquered crags
and valleys against successful
counter-offensive. The fioodgates OF
invasion for which Austria had been
preparing since 1856 and which she
has boosted would give her the city
of Verona before Italy could reach
Gorilla. are now closed against her