South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1918-11-05

While we naturally think most
directly Of the money from our War
Bonds going 10 equip and protect the
lives Of our soldier boys. yet no small
share Of it goes to the soldiers OF our
gallant Allies IN England, France
and italy. And while il is spiendidly
used everywhere. nowhere along the
whole battlefront is il more skilful-
~ utilized, more economically ap-
piled or returns a heavier interest on
the investment than in sunny Italy.
The time which I spent on the
italian Front was one Of the most
gratifying. most inspiring imagin-
able. Everywhere was devotion to
duty, loyalty. intelligence, efficiency
utter absence Of red tape. The Ital-
ian army medical and sanitary ser
vice ranks well up with our own and
those Of our northern Allies and in
some respects surpasses them all. In
its victory over dust, camp wastes
and flies for instance and its superb
care OF the wounded. It's most IA m
Gus surgeons from the great cities
were brought right up 20 and only
protected hospitals were established
for Immediate operation upon the
most desperately wounded, in the
brain. the chest, the abdomen. by the
very best skill the country could fur
nish.
In one OF them, on the edge of the
Carso, presided over by the greatest
surgeon in Italy, a man of interna-
tional reputation, 1 was standing in
the courtyard, looking UP toward the
Austrian trenches along. the edges
OF the mountains above. Around the
hospital grounds was a poie-and-
brushwood fence about ten or twelve
feet high and as this interfered with
my view Of the Austrian lines
started 10 slip through a gap in il.
Instantly both the sentry and my Of
ficer-guide, called out TO me in alarm
Look out! Don't go throSSh there"
And 1 found that the field outside
was in plain view OF the Austrian
snipers and they took a shot at ev-
eryone who showed himself though
I'D 10 that time they had not fired
on the hospital itself, although their
aeroplanes bombed IL occasionally at
night
A more ideally beautiful theatre
Of war could hardly be imagined
than the broad green Venetian plain.
bounded on the left by the crescentic
rampant OF the Julian Alps eeping
down TO Trieste and the Gulf In
front. and by the violet blue waters
of the Adriatic on the right. The
plain was intersected every
three OF four miles by the shall
low valleys OF swift sparkling noun
tain streams. which in the summer
time sank into the earth before they
reached the sea, like the rivers of
Southern California, and dotted all
over with scores of little gray walled
villages and venerable towns, each
with it's tall white church tower,
half-spire, half watch-tower against
Moorish and Turkish pirates. Every
one of these little villages was
swarminE with troops and ringed
about with camps. And every one
had furnished from two 10 five or
six high-vaulted, white-walled rooms
for use as hospitals. The result was
some most picturesque and striking
contrasts.
In one village saw wounded
Arditi and bandaged Bersaglieri ~
ing in cots with their heads just un-
der the gilded frame of a magnifi-
cent painting valued at twenty
thousand dollars, with the rest of the
equipment on the walls TO match.
This was in the villa OF one OF the
Italian nobility, and 1t had other ad-
vantages as a hospital besides its
beautiful pictures and :nagnificent
furniture The wife of the nobleman
happened TO be an Austrian princess
and as a consequence, although all
the villages and camps round about
were scoursed time and again by the
Austrian fire. not single shell ever
fell upon this villa or in the little viii
lage clustered round the foot of the
hill on which II stood. German and
Austrian gunners may not intention
ally shell hospitals but they certain
~ can Intentionally miss them when
they want TO.
Another romantic Illustration OF