We left the Italian navy preparing to cope with the task of saving the remnant of the Serbian army and such of the civilian popula tion of Serbia as had been able to make their way to the coast and survive the ordeal. Old King Peter himself, racked with rheumatism and ahnost blind, had made his way in disguise along the same rough road on horseback accom panied by a few soldiers and officers. While the refugees were streaming into Medua and Du razzo, the Italians were preparing a great clear ing-base for their reception at Avlona, 60 miles farther south, erecting hospitals and weather proof huts. During December 1915 and January February 1916 the tragic finale of the first Balkan campaign was enacted on the Albanian Coast By the middle of January the Austrians had captured Cettinge and overrun Montenegro, and the defeated army of that little state was also in full retreat, decimated by hunger and disease. What was left of that army fought its way back to Podgoritza and Scutari, whither the government and the king and queen had already retired. The royal party was talcen on Italian warships within a few miles of the Austrian port of Cattaro, together with the Entente diplomatic representatives. Scutari fen to the Austrians on 23 Jan. 1916; Medua followed shortly after, and there began a great general movement toward Durazzo, still thronged with refugees by thousands. For weeks the process of feeding, medical relief and systematic embarkation had been going on, subject to hourly perils of aerial, naval and land bombardment. Those who were sufficiently restored were marshalled into long colurnns and sent to Valona by the road which had been con structed by Italian engineers. All those unable to travel on foot had to be shipped from Du razzo to Valona, whence large steamers con veyed them to Italy, Corfu and Biserta in Ttuus, where the French government had made preparations to receive them. Owing to Aus tnan pressure the position at Durazzo became tuatenable, and it svas decided to evacuate the town on 26 February. There were yet 6,000 persons besides 1,300 wounded and sick to be removed. The Italian garrison of 2,000 men (reduced from 5,000) retired southward fight ing rear actions and holding. the enemy. The Austrians were dropping shells (from the land) on to the harbor quay, to which bombardment Italian destroyers replied. In the morning of 25 February the cruiser Libia entered the harbor, joined in the bombardment of the encroaching Austrian lines and succeeded in silencing seveml batteries. The heavily-laden transports having safely reached tile sea, a party of marines was landed; other Italian cruisers arrived and an intermittent cannonade was kept up for that day and the ensuing night. On the 26th, the day of evacuation, rough weather prevaikd on the sea and hampered operations. Twelve stotuners and a hospital ship protected by de stroyers entered the harbor; two battleships and a destroyer flotilla waited outside to hold the sea in the event of Austrian naval opposition. Notwithstanding that the Austrian land bat teries concentrated their fire upon the only avail able gangway, the sick and wounded were carried on board the hospital ship under a hail of shells. Ali movements had to be carried out in full sight of the enetny. The Italian rear guard surrounding the town had retired be fore the ever-increasing pressure of the invest ing armies. The dock was still crowded with refugee Serbian soldiers; the Austrian fire in creased in fury and searched every foot of the harbor. At this critical stage 100 Italian sailors landed, crept on all fours along the beada toward a great dump of thousands of sacics of flour. With these they built a 'breastwork, constructing two effective trenches to enable the retiring troops to reach the gangway. They then returned to their ships. TWO Italian cruis ers now returned, opened a violent fire on the Austrians and drew their fire in return. Mean while, a swiftly-moving procession of stretchers bearing wounded Serbs, Montenegrins and Al banian refugees was passing under cover of the flour-sack trenches. By eight o'clock at night 10,000 individuals had been embarked; no one was left behind. General Ferrero was the last to leave the shore. There yet remained a great accumulation of stores, horses and mules tb be destroyed to prevent their falling into enemy hands. This was accomplished by a few shots form the cruiser Puglia and as the 12 crowded transports, the hospital ship and the convoy drew out into the darkness, guided by a fast destroyer flashing signals, the burning town of Durazzo appeared like a giant volcano hi eruption. Between 12 Dec. 1915 and 22 Feb. 1916 no fewer than 11,650 refugees, invalids and wounded persons were transported from the Albanian Coast to Brindisi. Marseilles, Lipari and Biserta; 130,840 Serbian soldiers werz landed in Corfu and 4,100 at Biserta, ne cessitating the employment of six large Italian liners, two French cruisers, one French and five Italian hospital ships, two Italian ambulance ships and 15 Italian, 15 French and four smaU Bntish steanaers. These vessels made 216 suer cessful voyages from San Giovanni di Medua, Durazzo and Foci della Vujussa to Valona; 87 trips from Valona to Corfu and others to Brin disi, Marseilles and Biserta. During Mare.h 1916 altogether 13,068 men and 10,153 horses belonging to the Serbian cavalry were trans. ported front Valona to Corfu, and during the whole period under review nearly 23,000 Aus trian prisoners of war were shipped from Va lona to Sardinia. Some 22,000 tons of food, fodder, hospital stores and medicines were landed at the three Albanian ports, while to safeguard the execution of this great under taking there were employed 170 cruisers, de stroyers, torpedo-boats and motor-boats, the majority being under the Italian flag. The
principal organizer and director of the work was Vice-A&niral Emanuele Cutinelli-Rendina of the Italian navy. Mr. Balfour paid a grate ful tribute to ithe enerp.? and ability displayed by the Italian fleet* in the transportation of the Serbian army frotn Albania (House of Com mons, 23 Feb. 1916) Italian, French and British warships pa trolled the Adriatic; a former German liner, taken by the Italians, was fitted up as a floating clubhouse where the young officers of the Entente submarines congregated in their few leisure hours.
Ov.ing to the extreme cautiousness of the Austrian fleet, the Italian navy was not permit ted to distinguish itself in any great sea fight. Yet its position and that of its Allies was one of continuous peril from submarines and float ing mines, calling for eternal vigilance. By day and night frail vessels went nosing through perilous channels between hostile islands into harbors bristling with well-placed batteries and not infrequently crowded with powerful battle ships too shy to seek the open sea. The Aus trians launched thousands of floating mines, and these had to be removed by minesweepers. But time did not pass without occasional en counters. On 5 Dec. 1915 an Austrian cruiser and some destroyers raided the port of San Gio vanni di Medua, sinking two small steamers and a few sailing vessels. On 28 December an Aus trian destroyer flotilla set out from Cattaro to bombard Durazzo. The land batteries were shelled and a couple of ships sunk when they were engaged by a combined squadron of Ital ian, French and British light vessels. Two Austrian destroyers were accounted for; the rest hurried back. During a later bombard ment Essad Pasha and 300 of his followers were taken off by an Italian warship. Twice during February, while the Serbian •transporta tion was at its height, Austro-German U-boats laid mines in the Durazzo roadstead; on 19 oc casions U-boats attacked the convoy's, but with out success. The small ambulance ship Mare chiaro was carrying 120 wounded Serbian sol diers when she struck a mine outside Durazzo. The vessel caught fire and, though its com mander and a large number of the crew per ished, everyone of the wounded was taken off in safety. The sole survivor of a mined Italian submarine, a sailor named Arturo Vietri, swam for 14 hours off Trieste before he was picked up by a friendly motor-boat in the dark. Italy suffered some early misfortunes at sea; she lest the battleships Benedetto Brin (29 Sept. 1915) and the Leonardo da Vinci (2 Aug. 1916) by internal explosions; the armored cruisers Amalfi and Giuseppe Garibaldi were torpedoed in July 1915; three torpedo-boats and two sub marines were also sunk by 5 Aug. 1916. After a nine months' mine-laying career in the Adri atic, the German UC-12 was trapped and sunk on 16 March 1916; the Italians subsequently raised the submarine and discovered 14 bodies on board; they were German sailors from Kiel, where the vessel was built. It had been transported in three pieces overland to Pola on the Adriatic, where she arrived in June 1915 and engaged in sowing mines against Italy long before that country declared war on Germany. Five other U-boats fell to Italian guns. The Austrian submarine U-12 (not to be confused with the German one just mentioned),.was tor pedoed and sunk by an Italian submarine on 11 Aug. 1915. Two days later the U-3, after being rammed by an Italian cruiser, was blown out of the water by a French torpedo-boat.
We left the Italian army at that stage in June 1916 when the back of the Austrian of fensive was broken. On 16 June the Italian counter-offensive began,. when two columns of Alpini drove the Austnans from a high peak above the Val Sugana. The Italians now began to climb again up that mountain staircase, down which the enemy had half descended. By the 25th they had begun to force the pace of the Austrian withdrawal, pounding them- positions between the Brenta and the Adige. They re covered Arsiero on the 27th and in two data the Austrians had lost more than half ground they had won in six weeks' fighting. As the Austrians retired they contracted their front, thus compensating for the loss of divi sions which had been hurried to checic the Rus sians on the borders of Galicia. Thus the Trentino offensive turned to failure for Aus tria, with a loss of harcUy less than 120,000 in casualties and prisoners. Yet though defeated on this front they made another attempt else where— to dislodge the Italians from the edge of the Carso Plateau. Here, on 29 June 1916, the Austrians employed poison gas for the first time on the Italian front, causing a frightful massacre and driving whole regiments, stag gering and dying as they. went, .out of their trenches. Had the Austrians followed up the gas attack with all their infantry they might have gained a great victory. Colonel Gandolfi with a handful of men in gas-masks saved the day. During. May Cadorna had swiftly and secretly carried men from the Isonzo to the Trentino front; he now took them back for a greater effort, for it was on the Isonzo that the real Italian counter-blow was to fall. The move came with dramatic swiftness and effect While the Austrians reckoned on Ca dorna to continue his pressure in the Trentino, that commander was laying his plans elsewhere. For the past six months the engineers had sup plied a network of roads, gun emplacements and warlike provision of every lcind in the Gori zia zone, where the actual task was entrusted to the•3d Army under the Duke of Aosta. It involved not only the capture of an immensely difficult bridgehead under Monte Sabotino, just north of the city, but the overcoming of de fenses literally hewn in the rocks.