Arizona republican., 1918-08-19

This was rather badly handled by the Italian military authorities Ca dorna really had no appeal to the imagination of the Italians. It needs man with drama to lead them. It needs a man who has sat before St. Peters in Rome on a white horse and said. Soldiers of Italy, I offer you death.' That is what will lead Ital ians-drama. They need it as much as we need humor.
 Cadorna answered the assertions by cutting off leave That makes a man very sore. Any man who leads soldiers after the first week sees that danger makes little difference to them, but food and leave-these are the two things. Cut off food and leave and you have trouble with your army. When the time came for leave these men were sent back to dig and make roads at the rear, so the morale Of the army was little affected.
 Two weeks before this thing oc- cured l came back to the Italian army. which I had not seen at that time for nearly year, although l had known it quite well formerly. I talked to the officers and to the men-men whom 1 had known. With Italians in the army you can always get up con versation. because they have 250,000 men among them who have lived in the United States and speak English, and they are crazy to talk English with someone from America. Wherever l went they all said the same thing, The war is going to be over in December. Officers tried to make engagements with me in January, because, they said T am going to Paris for little time as soon as the war is over. And they continually asked me if 1 thought there was going to be any trouble after the war. in January, getting passes back to America. When l would go further into this question, they could not tell me why. but they almost always an swered, Why" they would say "the peace conference is on in Switzerland. Just as soon as the conference was finished they were going to announce it. That was the universal opinion of the Italian army. It was so strong that that the very officers of the British batteries were affected by it.
 Now, just few words about tht military situation. Off here to the right is the head of the Adriatic sea The Italian line began at the Adriauc The line was 90 or 40 miles off this desert to an oasis where there was g town and this town was held by the Third army from GoritZia, going right straight up one of the foothills of tht Alps. They were a great deal more than foothills. Along near the points where the trouble occurred they were probably higher than anything we hav' in the Alleghenies, and much nor precipitous. The Second army of ltal! was stationed there The Second army was the great corps of the Italian army It had performed one of the brillian operations of the war in August Among the posts the Second Italian army held in that territory is the pos of Polomena Polomena is one of thu natural gateways into Italy.
 It began to be known a few day. after I was there that there was goin! 10 be an attack, and the German unit had been sighted among the Austrian opposing us. It was looked upon witt considerable calm. There had been 1 great battles. and this was considere' another battle probably an attempt t take back fort in order to relieve tn situation at San Gabriel. It was ex pected that we were going to reliev the situation at San Gabriel. It wa expected that we were going to hay n severe attack, but it was looked for ward to by the staff with consider able confidence and when that attac began 1t developed with severe pre- liminary bombardment that occurs 8 those times The attention of tn Italian army was concentrated O Tulon. Tulon was a natural place { come over and the enemy shove