Norwich bulletin., 1917-09-15
STORIES OF THE WAR.
SeIo-ViIIaae of Death.

Selo (the word is plaint Russian and has been adapted by the eXiled Slav
 population of these strange 'lands-it means simply village" as '"Tsarskoe Selo' means Tsar's Vlllage) oVerhamgs the steep sites of the Brestovizza Val ley. Two trench systems embraced and enveloped it. The first was the line known as the machine gun trench, because the horrid thing was baFbed like a wire entanglement with the sol i'd squat SchwarLzlose machine guns which Austrians use so prodigally. There was one approximately to every
 six yards Of trench, each with four
 men as crew. Except for these the trench was practically empty. We shall see the effect of our guntire when we Beyond that was the famous K | trench, named after the first letter o1 Castagnavizza. (The Austro-Huns spell this place with K.) This, again,
 was a bristle of machine guns, but il
 shows now as @ mere string of shell craterS.
 British guns have had part in reduc- ing this formidable line. The island gunners have been twice thanked by the Italian supreme comamnd for su- perb work. Their 15,000 shells on the
 first day Of bombardment have beer
 far improved on since.
 These Selo positions, once taken, re- vealed about twice as many Dolinas
 as shown on theStaff maps. Dolina is
 the local word for the curious crater
 like depresSions in the surface of the Carso, ranging from 20 yards in diam eter to 200, where the soft red earth
 outcrops and allows the pauper people of a miserable country to cultivate their scanty crops under the Austrians These Dolinas have been extraordi- narily developed; for instance, at Selo
 the enemy lad burrowed out enorm-
 ous labyrintfis and packed them tight
 with stores.
 whole page would not suffice to catalogue the Italian booty at Selo, when at length the tenacious Grena- diers, dropping with the fatigue of three days of battle bombed and bay oneted their way for the last time which represented the houses of the big village.
 1t was defended by enemy troops consisting of majority of Hungart- ans the remainder being Transylvani- ans and various brands of SIavs.
 Our Grenadiers have done a great and terrible work where they have passed. They slaughtered and deto- mated their way to the dozen or so of Dolinas whence came the incredible booty.
 First and most obvious here was the raw machinery of war. Every Dolina was a battery of great trench mortars. Most were machines of inches, but I have heard tell also of vast death squirts of 16 inches. I have not the vaguest notion how many were taken; the figure grows hourly; but l have seen over 80 myself emplaced on con- crete. whence they could not be re- moved.
 Slightly north of where I was came also news of an entire battery of field guns captured and already turned round and firing their own ammunition against the Austrians. The trench nor tars need not wait either, since there were whole dug-outs packed with am 
 One Dolina has the title in Austrian war geography of Garten Dolina, and there had been brigade headquarters luxurious dogs, those AuStrians. Any body would think they had ben set ting up an American bar 20 feet un- derground. They had a mess equipped with everything from Maraschino to They had even a cocktail shaker. There were also hundreds of tins of excellent biscuits. each about the size of penny, made of the whit est possible flour, also clothes and kit
 There are now Italian Grenadiers la boring in stifiing heat in thick Aus trian winter overcoats. and while they sweat at trench construction they have only to lift their eyes to see opposite them, across the Brestovizza Valley. the Hernada mountain with the shalls spouting Nike sudden geyers on It's greatest barrier on the road to Trieste.-Perceval Gibbons.