These trenches, occupying a position nearly impregnable because so
mountainous, were defended by every modern device. They were protected
with numerous machine guns, surrounded by wire entanglements through
which ran a strong electric current. These lines of trenches followed
without interruption from the banks of the Isonzo to the summit of the
mountains which dominate it; they formed a kind of formidable staircase
which had to be conquered step by step with enormous sacrifice.

During this same period General Cadorna, then head of the Italian army,
had been bringing that army up to date, working for high efficiency and
piling up munitions.

The Army of Italy was a formidable one. Every man in Italy is liable to
military service for a period of nineteen years from the age of twenty
to thirty-nine.

At the time of the war the approximate war strength of the army was as
follows: Officers, 41,692; active army with the colors, 289,910;
reserve, 638,979; mobile militia, 299,956; territorial militia,
1,889,659; total strength, 3,159,836. The above number of total men
available included upward of 1,200,000 fully trained soldiers, with
perhaps another 800,000 partially trained men, the remaining million
being completely untrained men. This army was splendidly armed, its
officers well educated, and the men brave and disciplined.

The Italian plan of campaign apparently consisted first, in neutralizing
the Trentino by capturing or covering the defenses and cutting the two
lines of communication with Austria proper, the railway which ran south
from Insbruck, and that which ran southwest from Vienna and joined the
former at Fransensfets; and second, in a movement in force on the