Bisbee daily review., 1916-07-11

selves on two-thirds of the Italian front, or over a line of 275 miles of
 mountain chains going from the
 Swiss frontier down to the banks of
 the Isonzo river from which can be
 seen the bitter" blue of the Adriatic.
 as the poet d'Annunzio described it.
 Along this line titanic struggles take
 place daily of which the outside world never hears. It took five days Tor the correspondent to slowly climb the Adamello crest and in this period the Italians succeeded in blowing off
 the top of another mountain called Coldi Lana, which suddenly burst into the air with it's defenders who were Jn their side trying to explode a mine which would blow to pieces the Italian troops.
 One of the curious facts connected with this mountain front is that mo- where have the song birds deserted it.
 ''If were to write home that every night l go t0 sleep listening to the boom of cannon I would be readily believed, but if I added that often lie awake for hours listening to the liquid trill of friendly nightingales in the nearby woods, my statement would be taken for a soldiers yarn" said an artillery officer late one night as he and the correspondent stopped on their way across a wooded little val ley to listen to a nightingale's song. That song is not an exception" he explained. q have crossed this valley about this time of night for weeks on my way to my quarters, and that bird is always singing, no matter how violent the artillery Loise."
 In the upper mountain districts the correspondent noted that the skylarks held to their usual haunts with the same tenacity as the nightinsales in the lower country, flying high in the air until they went out of sight above the sIowy peaks, apparently undis- turbed by the whizzing of the shells that went through the air hundreds of feet above the soldiers.
 This explanation was advanced by an officer of the Alpini who had been many years in the mountains These birds are used to the L0ises peculiar to the mountains, such as caused by the cracking of avalanches, the roll ing Of boulders from the peaks into the valleys. and as artillery fire here makes a noise not so very different from these others, the birds are not frightened away"
 From here the correspondent re- turned by devious footpaths, on the backs of the older soldiers of the re- serve. on sure-footed little dOnkeys, , on railway air lines that bridge the valleys. to the lower country where the fighting is better known, along the Isonzo river, where hills are hard ly more than a thousand feet in height. where they drop to five hun dred. three hundred feet, before the line slides off into the Adriatic.
 That the new effort of the Italians to advance will be unhandicapped by the difficulties of a year ago. when not only men by small arms and can non were lacking. may be appreciated by the fact that now the army is equipped with numerous heavy can non. new artillery, manufactured in Italy.
 The correspondent saw these guns at work towards Monte Kuk and Monte San Michele. the hitherto im- pregnable hills held by the Austrians and again and again taken by the Italian soldiers at tremendous sacri' fees, only @ be compelled to surren- der each time the crests Of the hills because of the lack of heavy artillery to silence the heavy Austrian cannon.