With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement by Hugh Dalton
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page 17 of 248 (06%)
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preparation, Italy, still inferior in numbers and material, struck for
the last time and utterly destroyed the Austrian Army in the great battle which will be known to history as Vittorio Veneto. The Austrians lost twice as many prisoners and four times as many guns at Vittorio Veneto as they had taken at Caporetto. The war on the Italian Front was over, the Austrian Army was broken beyond recovery, the Austrian State was dissolving into its national elements, which only tradition, corruption and brute force had for so long held together. Italy, heroic and constant, had endured to the end, and with her last great gesture had both completed her own freedom, and given their freedom to those who had been the instruments of her enemies. PART II SOME EARLY IMPRESSIONS CHAPTER II FROM FOLKESTONE TO VENICE On the 6th July, 1917, I arrived at Folkestone armed with a War Office letter ordering my "passage to France for reinforcements for Siege Artillery Batteries in Italy." I had a millpond crossing in the afternoon, and that evening left Boulogne for Modane. |
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