The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-04-28
SAVING OF VENICE E FROM HUN SECOND ITALIAN RELIGION City a Storehouse of Price
 less Art Which Cannot Be Replaced NAVY DOES ITS PART IN ITS PROTECTION Miracles of Protective Construction Have Reduced Damage by the Huns to the Minimum

Venice, March 2o.-tspecial Correspon- barbarian's hand?
 This is the question that not only Italy but the whole world is asking, and the answer may not yet be given. For three years all the arts of war have been used to save the ancient city from destruc- ' tion, and all the same arts have been 'employed to crush it with the fate of |Louvain and Rheims The principal arts works of the treasure town have been |removed, possibly damaged in the re- moval, it's people and their minor treas ures have been scattered. bombs without number already have damaged in part ] the famous churches of the city known to all the world as the Bride of the Sea. Now that which is left of this unique .city has become a pawn in the larger ! plar of warfare which is being fought . out in the mountains around Monte Tomba and Monte Grappa above the plains of Padua.
 With the fate of Venice Trembling in the balance, Pope Benedict has risked the neutrality of the vatican by sending personal letters to the Emperors of Aus tria and Germany imploring them to spare the city, should it fall into their hands.
 But suppose Venice should be lost? What boots it?
 What is the money value of such a city?''I once asked Ugo Ojetti, that Flor entine soldier, novelist, and art critic, whose days and nights have for these three years past been spent in ceaseless efforts to preserve the dream capital
 If you took all the cities of the world and put them in one gigantic heap" he said, eff you took New York, London, Paris, Constantf-ope and the rest, and if you then piled on top of them all the gold and precious stones boarded up for 200o years, the whole would not, from an art point of view, kcual in value Venice. Those cities might be replaced, but Venice-never. To lose Venice would be like losing all the copies of Shakespeare, Milton-all the elassics."
 That's the way they talk in Italy. The saving of Venice is a religion with Them. There is no doubting that if ever he Germans or the Austrians get the khance they will pull down the palaces md churches and dump the whole into he sea This the Italians know. So Iince the month of May, 1915, when Italy kntered the war it has been the chief him of the Italians to protect from the destroying, jealous venom of the Hun he Queen of the Adriatic, this jeweled ity whose very name is fragility, whose monuments, planted in sand, and water, have for centuries kert their heads feared toward the brilliant skies because bs miracles of constructive care.
 The inside story of the defense of 7enice has until now remained one of hntold tales of the war. The part the italian navy has played for the past hree years and is now playing to pre- erve the city will probably stand out s the biggest achievement of that arm If Italy's fighting forces, when con idered in connection with the vast ervices her defending forces arrayed bout Venice have been able to render. 1very resource known to the navy is ow being employed to the end that he Austrians may not tumble down he city like a pack of cards, the Aus rians, who are now laying subtle lans to carry out their threat this pring when the snow no longer locks operations, when the fog of Finter has cleared and made Venice isible to bomb throwers of Austrian irp1anes.
 TTAL PROBLEMS OF DEFENSE
 Just how vital is considered this de- ense may be gathered from the fact hat Italy might never have declared var had not first formal promise cen given by the government that Tenice should be protected. Indeed, it Fas for this reason, so it has been lated authoritatively, that the Isonzo lver was made the first line of de- ense instead of the Tagliamento, rhich is nearer Venice. The old first ne of defense for Italy against Aus Tia was along the Tagliamento,
 hereas, with the army thrown along he Isonzo, the cannon of the enemy buld not reach Venice.
 One of the navy's first efforts in blending Venice was bringing up near be Isonzo river marine guns. To hese guns the navy added an inven-
 on of it's own later. It mounted 3o5
 i11imeter longrange guns on canal pats of light draft and placed them, pt only around Venice, hidden among ne reeds of her 25-miles of lagoons
 Tt also lowed them through the canal bnnecting with the Isonzo river and
 om secret places wrought havoc on he enemy, not only in the middle part
 the war, but particularly during the hirteenth battle of the Isonzo, cover
 g the retreat of the Italians in a
 tanner such as to make tardy the ad- Rnce of the Austrians.
 Venice herself has been saved from