New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-06-05
Fighting Across an Inferno
By F. c. Fay

The scenes of war operations along the
Western front as they were before the Boone
got in his deadly work-from the mining dis
.rcts and sugar beet fields of Belgium ana
Northern France, the meadow lands along the
Aisne. the vineyards of chalky Champagne, the
rugged woods of the Argonnes, the peaks OF
the Vosges, the Alsatian plains, down toward
sunny Basle-are familiar to the minds eye
Of most of US, either from memory OF our
travels before the war carved lines of sorro"
into the face of France, which had grown old
without wrinkles, or from the plentiful de-
scriptions of war correspondents. But lew
are those VINO can picture for themselves the
Alpine skeleton of rock across which the guns
of Italy are now making their voices heard IN
the palaces of the Hapsburgs; for the karst
holds out scant lure to the casual tourist, and
dispatches from the Italian front have soberly
refrained from descriptive matter
A Desert of Stone
As at least superficial geographical knowl-
edge Of that puzzling part Of the Alps that
links the smilingy grandose garden of the
Trentino and Tyrol with the Balkan lands is
essential to the understanding Of the dliiI-
culties General Cadorna's men have to over
come in their battle for the liberation of for
eign-ruled Latins and Slavs, may I be per-
mitted to attempt brief sketch of it?
First of all, it should be understood that
the Carso plateau, which the Italian troops
have now accomplished the incredible feat OF
sealing, is only part of the Julian Alps, which,
in their turn, are but part of that uniquely
desolate range of peaks, plateaus, hollows and
cliTs-the tail end Of the Alps the Celtic
name of which, Karst, is a description IN
itself, meaning desert Of stone" And, in
deed, a desert in the most complete sense 1t
has been for many centuries since the Ro-
mans depleted it's forests to build their ships
Of the hardest wood they could find, and the
Venetians followed their example, cutting
down the last of the age-old timber with
never thought of planting new trees in the
shallow layer of terra rossa," the red soil
which nothing but forest growth could hold
rpon its foundation of porous, brittle lime
stone.
Since those bygone times the torrential
rains Of spring and autumn have joined
forces with the dreaded "bora" to sweep and
wash that soil from the chalky rock-bones Of
the Karst. Here and there a little of it has
settled in the hollows, high enough to escape
the devastation of the waters and yet shell
tered against the fury of the bora, that ter
rife tempest which pulverizes masonry, car
ries great rocks through space and snufs out
all human and animal life on its course. On
those patches of soil epared by the elements
mcagre pasture grows, enough to feed the
mountain goats that arc the only means OF
livelihood of the small Croatan population
Very little grain, and that of the poorest, will
grow there; no vegetables no flowers; and
the Enthusiastically shaped rocks are alone to
give shade.
GrottOs and Desolation
There is a sort of awful beauty in this des-
olation, but the peasants small blame to
them!-see nothing but the desolation. Even
at that they cling to it from generation to
generation with inexplicable obstinacy.
They are n slow moving, slow-wtted lot,
rough and gruT. incredibly poor and jealous
of the very rocks around them. One who
straycd among them from the world outside
this Dantcsque Inferno would plead in vain
for bowl of goats milk if he had not bread
or meat or fruit to give in exchange NO
wonder 50 few travellers have venturcd be-
yond the Adesbcrg Grottos, those wide sub
terranean halls and interminable galleries,
with their delicate colonnades of Joined sta
lacttes and stalagmites.
Such grottos honeycomb the entire Karst,
from the Isonzo through the Julian and
Dinaric Alps down to Ragusa, the stately rival
Of ancient Venice, near which the turbulent
Ombla, whose entire course is under ground,
energies into daylight only TO she'd itself into
the Adriatic.
It is the way Of streams and rivers in the
Karst to bore their passage through noun