The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1918-02-19
Venice Refugees Faced Terrible
Conditions During Great DnDe

range guns The modern line of
struggle reached up the Piave river
| valley from the coast to the noun
| tains, and IL the line broke in the
| upper reaches ii must fall back to the
next river valley, and Venice be left
behind like so much farm land.
Port Very Important.
On the other hand, from the stand
point Of the sea campaign, the port
of Venice is Of great importance on
the Adriatic. Without it, the Ital-
ians would have no adequate naval
base in its upper waters. The ques-
| tton, therefore might become one Of
whether, as naval base, 1t could be
held even il the line broke. and
whether, as such. its Importance war
ranted holding it even If that meant
the ruin OF the city. In other words,
Venice as a city and art treasure
would neither be wilfully hazarded
by the Italians nor wilfuIly demol-
ished by the Austrians, a Judgment
which, clearly, any days develop
ments might overthrow, but which
those of November and December
seemed to sustain, her Campanile,
domes and roofs standing unscathed
while the fighting went on from the
coast to the mountains, and such
military centers as Padua were
bombed
"A Watch That Has Stopped.
But our concern was with civilian
needs rather than with military
operations, and, as will appear, the
further evacuation OF Venice was be-
ing considered quite Independent of
the latter. The considerations We're
communicated, fuel, work to do. |
The town was like a watch which
has stopped. Not the frailness of
the ancient architecture, but the |
helplessness Of the modern city, once |
it's artificial life is thrown out Of |
gear was what was 10 bear in upon |
us at every hand. Unlike your |
chemist, it is not given to economist |
or sociologist to isolate his subject |
matter and experiment on a large |
scale. He cannot put a community |
in test tube and watch what hap |
pens while he does this or that. He
must wait upon events. And a stu /
dent Of civics would have had here,
had he the time or heart to explore
1t, the phenomena Of an urban CEN
ter, torn loose from those under
pinnings Of sustenance and exchange
of services which support the indus
trial city in the nation, the industrial
state in the world of raw material. |
The piles had been ripped out from
beneath the livelihood Of Venice, lay
ing bare how every part Of the COM
is rooted in the whole,
and how, in casting for the future,
war is quicksand in a world Of
economy
There was another, a more i'm
and practical reason, which
set off Venice among the cities Of
our tour It offered the American
Red Cross the opportunity to help
engineer an organized evacuation
the very reverse Of what had hap
pened in the pell-mell retreat from
the Italian war zone. And the re-
verse of the French and Belgian ex-
perience also. for it offered oppor-
tunity to get in at the start, and to
help move the people by natural,
wOrk-a-day groups, kept intact from
the threatened city to their place Of
refuge.
An Energetic Consul.
This opportunity had been seized
for the American Red Cross by the I
American consul, B. Harvey Carroll, !
4 Texas newspaper editor of imagt- /
nation and redoubta.ble energy. [
Early in November the Red Cross
headquarters in Rome had dispatched
him SIS, GOO lire, and he had drawn on
Il to help refugees reaching Venice Z
from the invaded districts to the {
north; to keep going, under the Am |
srican flag, a posto di conforto at 7
Mestre, junction point on the main
and, which had reached the last day I
IF it's resources and through which ]
and exhausted and wounded !
soldiers were passing in a stream; to {