woven into the stuff of other men's lives."

_Funeral Speech of Pericles_.


"Dying here is not death; it is flying into the dawn."

MEREDITH, _Vittoria_.




PREFACE


So far as I know, no British soldier who served on the Italian Front has
yet published a book about his experiences. Ten British Batteries went
to Italy in the spring of 1917 and passed through memorable days. But
their story has not yet been told. Nor, except in the language of
official dispatches, has that of the British Divisions which went to
Italy six months later, some of which remained and took part in the
final and decisive phases of the war against Austria. Something more
should soon be written concerning the doings of the British troops in
Italy, for they deserve to stand out clearly in the history of the war.

This little book of mine is only an account, more or less in the form of
a Diary, of what one British soldier saw and felt, who served for
eighteen months on the Italian Front as a Subaltern officer in a Siege
Battery. But it was my luck to see a good deal during that time. Mine
had been the first British Battery to come into action and open fire on