illumination. Millions of pounds' worth of material, all the fruits of
two and a half years of labor, were burned and blasted out of existence
in a few hours.

[Sidenote: The necessity for speed.]

[Sidenote: Valuable stores abandoned for lack of lorries.]

The difficulty that complicated the Italian evacuation of their war-zone
was the fact that every hour the need for speed became more urgent, if
utter disaster was to be averted. A unit would be given twelve hours to
get to the point on the railway where it was to entrain and then an hour
later its time-limit would be reduced to two hours. A headquarters might
be told that a sufficient supply of motor-lorries would be available to
evacuate all its material and that it had better begin getting rid of
chairs and tables and its superfluous stuff at once, but no sooner had
these less important stores gone than word would come that no more
transport was available and that all the immensely valuable stores and
reserves of ammunition that still remained, must be abandoned, as no
lorries could be found for them.

[Sidenote: Difficulties in a sudden retreat.]

[Sidenote: Every officer tries to save his supplies.]

Moving a great army is an affair of time-tables. There is room for only
a certain amount of men and material on the roads and railways at one
time, and every man and every wagon above that maximum becomes a factor
of confusion and retards the movement of the whole mass to a dangerous
degree. The sudden retreat of an army is often reduced to chaos, first,