Since I was well acquainted with the German language, I was assigned the special task of questioning the prisoners and of translating such documents and diaries as were often enough found upon them. The work was interesting and gave me a clear conception of the terrible and disastrous condition of our lands after the invasion of the enemy. While reading or listening to the account of some especially frightful deed, I often asked myself whether, if those of our soldiers who knew not how to lay down their lives for their country to keep the enemy from violating their lands, had known some of the facts I know, they would not have found strength 17 enough to resist. Ought not the Italian soldiers, who during the terrible days of October were compelled to abandon the villages which they had won, for which they had suffered and fought, know what became of those regions and their people, after their departure? Had not the inhabitants placed implicit faith in the ability of the soldiers to resist; looking upon them as protecting brothers? Yet later, these same soldiers were compelled to abandon to the enemy, one by one, these very towns and villages, whose terrorized inhabitants were then compelled to fly, so relinquishing the uttermost of their possessions to the mercy of the invader.
Among the many documents which passed through my hands were not lacking some of considerable importance. I see before me a letter, found in the pocket of a subaltern officer of the Fourth German Army, which he had not had time to dispatch. In part the letter read:
18 “Dear Friend:
“After a painful time, the good Lord God gave us wings and, from the icy and snowy caves, has transported us into a magnificent country. We were half-dead, but now we are beginning to resuscitate. This is a splendid country. There is everything one wants; food and drink enough for all to choke on, rice and coffee in abundance and enough red wine to bathe in.”
Another letter found on a German prisoner reads:
“We are living like princes, we have food and drink, and may it always continue thus! If only I could send some to my family in Berlin. But there is not room for much in our packs, and furthermore, one would have to carry it for days along mountainous roads a distance of about thirty-five or forty kilometers. 19 Right now we have before us a whole cheese, round and large as a cart wheel, and we don’t know what to do with it. No one is hungry, yet the cheese is good.”
Such acknowledgments filled me with rage. Those who yesterday were hungry are now full and they have filled themselves by stealing from our homes!
The many documents which passed through my hands demonstrated how extensive were the requisitions of the Germans who robbed the poor peasants of the things they needed most.
From the notebook of a Czech officer, a deserter, under date of November 15, 1917, I read:
“Everyone requisitions what he pleases. The plowers are busy all night cooking rice with tomatoes.
“At Villa Santina a supply of foodstuffs sufficient to last ten days for the entire division was found. Every company 20 formed a requisition patrol; the very privates go to the peasants and requisition cattle, pigs, horses, mules, cheese, wine, wheat, etc. In every patrol there is a soldier who knows Italian. The army, during its advance lives on the country and eats more than is necessary. The troops in the rear are always drunk.
“We found and requisitioned from the civilians bicycles, many motorcycles and automobiles.”
“October 29.—We pass through Colobrida, Prepotto, where we find wine. We stop at Villa Rubini. The men take advantage to find some Chianti, which is insuperable, and many get drunk.”
“October 31.—At Carpeneto I requisition a saddle horse and a mule, and during the stop we refresh ourselves with champagne. At night Captain Vellsang arrives in an automobile requisitioned for the command at Udine, where we took a quantity of things.”
21 “November 24.—Our attendants were continuously cooking corn-meal and chicken.”
These diaries speak mostly of the greed with which the enemy steals, destroys and consumes every valuable thing in the land. The voracity and greed of the Germans and Austrians are such that after continued debauches of wines and liquors, the provisions are soon exhausted. As an example of the voracity of these men, I shall quote the report of one of their meals from the calendar of an Austrian Lieutenant of the Second Battalion of the 47th Infantry:
“November 11.—We ate splendidly; in the morning—coffee and milk, half a pound of butter, a pound of bread. In the middle of the morning—half a pound of Gorgonzola cheese, half a pound of excellent preserved fruits, a tablet of chocolate. Luncheon—broth, roast veal with fresh peas and rice, a bottle of excellent 22 wine, and then coffee (without sugar). In the afternoon—a box of sardines, bread and butter with honey. Supper—roast pork with prunes, black coffee. And not on one day only, but continuously; especially after the requisitions. We seldom have less. At nine in the evening, we have a can of condensed milk, three boxes of sardines, a pound of preserved pears, and six candles apiece.”
From questions submitted to an Austrian prisoner, I learnt that the troops stationed between the Tagliamento and the Piave kept up their march with supplies taken from the factories and houses. The prisoners themselves admitted that their lot was hard because they could no longer get drunk, nor gorge themselves on the chicken, sausages and fruit which they had found so plentiful in every house and factory. From a conversation with an officer of the Third Regiment of Kaiserj?ger I 23 learnt, “The foodstuffs found and requisitioned have all been consumed and wasted. Whatever our soldiers cannot devour or preserve on the spot is shipped to Austria and Germany. The 94th Division while at Tolmezzo requisitioned all kinds of woven materials and the officers sent much of it, as their own private property, to Kotshach by means of auto-ambulances.
“Captain Opitz sent home two hundred pounds of coffee, which in Austria is worth about 500 Kronen. Captain Pflanzer collected precious oil paintings during the offensive. He found the most precious near Castellavazzo.
“A bicycle of the 7th company of the Third Battalion of trench diggers was stolen from a civilian by the Captain.
“The officers sent home sacks of rice and coffee. At Timau everything was taken from the civilians. The horses are fed with maize.”
24 From prisoners taken in Val Bella December 24, 1917, I learnt that there was a rumor current among the officers and men that the Italian cities had been thoroughly sacked and that the objects collected had been sent to Germany and Austria through the co-operation of the military forces. It is said that superior officers offered to buy for a few pence, whatever booty the soldiers could lay hands upon.
In another diary taken from a German officer of the 5th Division (which had penetrated to Udine), the following was found under date of November 6, 1917:
“After we had spent several days at Rovereto on the Tagliamento we withdrew to Udine. As the command gave me full police powers I had the authority to enter all the shops which were still furnished with considerable stocks. I spent my time making raids, and during one of these I found materials suitable 25 for military and civilian clothing. I filled three cases full of them and I had them sent through the military station at Neuhaus. I hope some day I shall find them at home. I have also secured some material for the Captain.”
Deserters from the enemy lines confirmed the reports that the Germans took away and sent to Germany all that could be removed—church bells, beds, household linens, entire doors and windows. Their pillaging was so complete that some houses have only the walls and roof left. Furthermore the Austro-Hungarian authorities organized special squads to visit every house and requisition foodstuffs, kitchen utensils, livestock and pack animals. At present the population is compelled to buy at a high price the supplies which were taken from them.
Proof of this organized thieving which was supported by the enemy authorities, 26 was obtained not merely from writings and conversations with scattered individuals but from reports in enemy newspapers. The Gazette of Veneto which was printed at Udine for the Austrian government published the following notice, “The Administration of the Austro-Hungarian Army has ordered the requisitioning of metals in the occupied regions, to meet the army’s demands for metals. Church bells, roofs of copper or lead, lightning rods and railings will be requisitioned.”
A communication received by our command during the first days of our retreat to the Piave said, “At Graz, and at Vienna, a trade in Italian products has been begun. Besides the small quantities of rice, oil, and lemons carried by soldiers on leave and bargained for at the stations by Jewish speculators, rice is beginning to arrive at Graz in important quantities. The authorities have been asked to pass measures to prevent speculation with this rice, and to reserve 27 it for the use of the sick and for children.” The children and the sick of the invaded territories were left without these necessary articles of food.
From scattered phrases found in documents, or overheard in conversations with soldiers and officer prisoners, I gathered a general notion of the carefree, corrupt life led by the troops in the invaded regions. A few notes from the diary of the Czech officer who had deserted follow:
“Lieutenant Skebek and an employee got drunk in a villa at Pelos with wine requisitioned at Auronzo and later devastated a villa. At Belluno the gendarmes were supposed to guard the wine cellars; but in a moment there gathered before the house a mob of soldiers with pails, basins, and other vessels.
“The artillery officers have organized nightly orgies in a villa near Feltre; there were more than enough women.
28 “Almost all the horses have diarrh?a because they have eaten too much.”
The same spectacle of gluttony and drunkenness at the expense of our people, is repeated in the diary of the Austrian lieutenant of the second battalion of the 47th infantry who has already been mentioned.
“December 2.—Visited the Command of the Regiment. Had breakfast with the commander of the battalion. We drank much excellent wine. At three in the afternoon, the officers of the command of the regiment left, hilarious from the wine. The officers of the 16th company and others withdrew singing, and they would have continued their orgy at my house had I not made all the wines and liquors disappear.”
An Italian soldier and an officer, prisoners 29 escaped from the hands of the Austrians, reported the following:
“The German officers in command lead a gay, carefree life. They do not mind being seen in public, driving in open carriages with women of bad repute, brought there from their own country. During the first days of the occupation, the enemy troops, exalted with victory, would parade the streets, shouting joyously. They would enter private houses by forcing doors and windows, and make for storerooms full of provisions, and for wine cellars, with bestial avidity.”
In sharp contrast to this life of gluttony and greed was the life led by the Italian prisoners, both those in the invaded regions and those transported back to German prison camps. The following extract is taken from a report of Lieutenant Massa Antonio, a physician who was sent back to Italy after a term in a prison camp:
30 “By a long and weary journey we were taken to Trento, then to Gardolo and finally to Sigmundsherberg, to a camp of Russian prisoners. The physicians were at once invited to take care of their own soldiers. Captain Luigi Ferrero, the head physician, entrusted me to take care of Group IV. I therefore found myself living side by side with our own soldiers, suffering their physical and mental tortures and hardships.
“There I saw a pitiable spectacle. Our own soldiers were left for whole days without a bit of food. Hungry and sad they would stand against the wire railings begging for food, for a morsel of bread. Daily, fifteen or twenty soldiers who had fallen from sheer exhaustion were brought into the hospital. Gradually the entire camp was cleared of grass by our hungry men who avidly plucked and chewed it in an attempt to allay their hunger.
31 “During the first days our soldiers were submitted to extremely strict discipline. The punishment posts were always occupied, and the prisons rapidly filling, for the Austrians believed in giving vent to their hatred against us by floggings and beatings.
“The enemy soldiers and petty officers became vile merchants who robbed our poor soldiers of whatever little money they had by selling them pieces of bread at exorbitant rates. Because of the bad quality of the food there were many cases of auto-intoxication. The soldiers welcomed a chance to go and work for they hoped for better treatment.
“Besides acting as journeying physician I was also entrusted with the inspection of the mess and of the discipline of our soldiers.
“I cannot express how painful, how agonizing a task that was. Daily, soldiers would come to me with tales of incredible 32 treatment, with their bodies livid from the cruel and fierce blows of the Austrians. Exhausted, worn-out, veritable bundles of human rags, they would tell me of the incredible labors expected of them; how, among the snow of the Carpathians, half-naked, without shirts, while the cold which was far below freezing point, stiffened their bodies, they were compelled to start out at three or four in the morning and walk until eight, after having had only a cup of tea; and how they were then forced to work until night. As payment for their superhuman labors, the poor wretches received a cheap substitute for coffee with one-quarter of a pound of bread.
“During a meal of the officers in Bucovina an Italian violinist was compelled to play the Italian national hymn, and while he was playing he was made the target for all sorts of table rubbish: left-over bits of food and the dregs of beverages. 33 Some of our soldiers were compelled to drag for fifty miles a car in which was the baggage of an Austrian officer. Did one of the tired prisoners attempt to stop a moment for rest, the officer leveled his revolver at him.
“With my very eyes, I saw Grenadier Dantin die some minutes after he had been badly beaten. A special report of his case was made to Captain Ferrero. I made another report against a wealthy Hungarian undertaker who said to our soldiers, ‘You did not die at the front, but you will die here.’
“In the marshes of the Danube our prisoners are placed in the hands of war contractors who treat them like veritable slaves. They try to get the maximum labor from them. Our prisoners were given to all those who asked for them, without any control from the government as to the way in which they were to be treated. They were sent to the squares 34 of the cities, and there exposed for public choice, just as though they were cattle.
“In the camp of Sigmundsherberg the sanitary service is completely in the hands of the Italians who do all they can to alleviate the ills and pains of the soldiers. There are absolutely no medicines, surgical tools and sterilizing apparata. The sick are fed with corn meal, sour cabbages, and dried codfish.
“There are very many sick, especially of tuberculosis, which assumes every form. Statistics show that this disease was found in thirty cases out of a hundred visited, and that it was continually increasing because of the scarcity of food.”
We learnt of the treatment of Italian prisoners taken during the Austrian invasion from escaped Italian prisoners and from reports from captured Austrians. The Czech officer, mentioned in the foregoing, 35 wrote in his diary: “While the Italian prisoners were passing through the city (of Feltre) the women along the streets wept.”
The following information I received from two automobilists, by name Ventura and Gandolfo, with whom I was able to speak:
“The life of the Italian prisoners is most terrible. They are treated with scorn, are scantily fed, and are compelled to work at nerve-racking tasks. The harshest kind of a life would be welcomed by them to-day as a liberation.”
The two automobilists on December 13 saw the fresh grave of two Italian infantrymen, taken prisoners. They both affirmed that the prisoners had died of hunger. The Italian soldiers had not been thought worthy of burial in sacred ground, despite the protestations made by a worthy priest, 36 therefore their graves were out upon a common field.
Finally, here is the story of two Italian prisoners who escaped from the enemy—Lieut. Mario Zannini of the Second Battalion, 245th Infantry, and Private Tortoriello Domenico of the Third Battalion, 21st Infantry.
“There are still many of our men wandering round the country. Some of them have not as yet been arrested and others are escaped prisoners. Their condition is most miserable. They have about one two-pound loaf of bread to divide among six. The under-nourishment weakens the organs and they can no longer work. Several have taken sick, and a few have died from exhaustion.
“Those who belong to the invaded regions try to escape to their own homes, where relatives and friends do all they can to protect them, though, often 37 enough, they fall again into the hands of the tyrants, who then make them pay for their flight with all sorts of torment, ill-treatment, and injury.”
What sort of an existence did the people of the invaded lands lead; those people who so long tranquilly waited in the hope that we would forever drive away from them the eternal menace of the enemy ready to pounce upon them?
The diary of the Czech officer says, “The civilians are living in a most critical condition. The passing troops have taken everything from them, edibles, horses, mules, wagons, kitchen utensils. Whatever remained, especially objects of copper, were seized by the gendarmes.”
The Germans do their requisitioning in the following manner: they order, at the point of a gun, the peasants to open their doors, and when they have thus frightened them, succeed in getting everything from 38 them. Enemy deserters who have come to our lines have confirmed the vexations to which the troops subject the people of the invaded lands. According to them, the cruelest and most savage are the Slovenes, the Bosnians and the Croatians, especially the Croatians who have indeed been known to enter a home, and at the point of a gun, take away the few provisions left to a family by the rationing committee. Often the Croatian officers themselves incite the troops to pillage and plunder. Wherever the Croatians pass they leave traces of their brutality not only on property but also on the people, both men and women, whom they treat with violence.
The same report was confirmed by a deserter from the second battalion, 23rd Regiment of chasseurs, who said:
“The people of the occupied lands are continually subjected to injuries. Almost all the food they have has been taken 39 from them. Wherever anything is left by the official requisitioning committees, the soldiers, especially the Slovenes, steal the rest. Near Sesto al Roghena several Slovenes fired fifteen shots at a civilian who refused to let them remove his goods. He was seriously wounded.
“With my own eyes I saw near the Tower of Mos, two drunken Hungarian soldiers beating an old man who would not let them steal his cow.”
The Croatian troops were ready to steal and plunder wherever they passed. A Hungarian volunteer, taken prisoner, assured us he had seen at Rivarotta (Palazzolo) a group of Croatians threatening a priest with a stick unless he immediately procured them some girls. At Portogruaro a woman threatened to wound with a stick a corporal who attempted to do her violence.
The following impressions are taken from the afore-mentioned automobilists. 40 Ventura and Gandolfi, who as prisoners were placed in the postal service by the Austrians, but who succeeded in escaping:
“We entered for the first time into Udine under the hands of the Austrians, on November 3, at about three in the afternoon. The city’s wounds were all still open and bleeding. There were still smouldering fires along the outskirts. Houses were thrown open, stores shattered; all that which made for a prosperous, wealthy trade, turned out onto the streets—furniture, linen, utensils, crockery, broken bottles, old papers and families keepsakes. Over the smiling, peaceful city, it seemed as if a destructive squall had swept. The automobile stopped at the hospital of the seminary. In one corner of the street three young Italian women were offering such little comfort as lay in their power with their 41 scanty food and their most welcome presence.
“The city was full of German and Austrian soldiers hunting from house to house and from store to store for booty. The officers took part without a shame in the pillaging.
“Doors to houses were thrown in and the inhabitants compelled, by threats, to help in the plunder of their own belongings. After a short time, there was not a single family which had not been robbed and plundered.
“In the country regions the soldiers rush with impunity from one farmhouse to another leaving everywhere the traces of their rapine. The military authorities encourage the soldiers to send home to their families packages of provisions, knowing well enough that such have not been bought, but have been seized by violence. Furthermore the authorities themselves leave behind them, in exchange 42 for horses and provisions requisitioned, receipts either with illegal signatures or irregularly compiled, or with ridiculous phrases, as for instance, ‘Fulle Kusse,’ or signed, ‘Cadorna will pay you.’
“Between San Fior and Monticella, near the inn of Gai, a detachment of German soldiers who wanted to occupy a house inhabited by about forty old persons, women and children, not only entered with violence, but in a spiteful, bestial mood, threw all the furniture from the windows.
“Near the headquarters of the 51st corps, a peasant family had succeeded in saving from theft a cow. One night, a group of soldiers entered by sheer force and took her away.”
Two other prisoners who succeeded in escaping after many adventures, Lieut. Zannini and Private Torotoriello, formerly mentioned, added the following details to 43 the account of the life of those in the invaded districts:
“The enemy troops, drunk, entered the houses and dwellings and broke and burnt the furniture which was thrown out of the windows.
“The young women, terrorized by the looks of the barbarians, barricaded themselves behind piles of furniture. Many deeds of violence were attempted and accomplished.”
Lieutenant Zannini told me how he took by the chest and hurled out of the door, at San Michele di Piave, a German soldier who in the presence of her mother tried to seduce a young girl, after having wounded with a knife an old man who had tried to defend her.
Private Torotoriello told me he saw one day, the body of a girl on the street near Polcenigo. She had thrown herself from 44 the window in an attempt to escape from two German officers. The same soldier at Stevenà di Caneva, was threatened with a revolver by two other German officers, because he would not forsake a young woman whose mother had entreated him to protect her. He later learnt of the violence done and the wrath of the entire population which openly revolted against the authorities. In the face of such violence, thievery, bestiality and rape, the Italian people reacted.
The population of Fouzaso composed largely of women and children lived apart in silence, maintaining a dignified, proud demeanor in front of the Austrians. There was a look of sadness on the face of every Italian. Every day the church was crowded with worshippers. One could often see, along the street, women, who when they stopped to talk to one another could not keep back the tears. The children sang a ditty with the refrain, “Mount Grappa you are my country.” The song is forbidden. 45 From the belfry the bells have been removed. That was a painful occurrence, for the bells were hurled from the belfry and broke into a thousand pieces right before the eyes of the people. Some of them, weeping, gathered a few of the broken bits of bronze and cherished them as though they were sacred relics. The fragments of the bells were at once loaded on automobiles and sent to Primolano. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the village were ever discussing an Italian counter-offensive to drive out the Austrians.
Such are the documents I gathered while I remained one month with the Intelligence Division of the Third Army.
Meanwhile my thoughts ran somewhat as follows:
“I have as yet no plan, as yet no definite program, but everything must be tried, everything must be risked against this vile enemy which devastates our 46 properties, steals all that which we hold most beautiful and sacred, violates our women, and commits every kind of abomination. Of what value is my life when compared with the good which our command might derive from having on the other side a trusted person, capable of sending to it daily detailed reports on the location of troops, on the condition of the enemy troops, on the plans of the enemy? My plans will take shape gradually, but meanwhile I am certain of one thing—I am going to try everything, I am going to dare the incredible, I am going to make real the fantastic. The enemy! He is destroying my houses; the paintings, the tapestries, the relics of our church at Vittorio have been taken from their frames and sent towards the far-off ways of Austria. If they are pillaging my house and destroying with it all which memory holds most sacred, then I want to assume the great risk and the great 47 honor of attempting to destroy their army.”
And so one morning I presented myself before Colonel Smaniotto and said in a steady voice, “Sir, I have as yet no definite plan, but I am disposed to accept in broad terms your proposition. At first the undertaking seemed inconceivable, but after what I have seen and heard about the way in which the invader is treating our lands and the inhabitants who have remained there, nothing is any longer inconceivable to me, nothing is unattemptable.”
The Colonel grasped my hand, smiled good-naturedly, and said, “That is why I placed you among the prisoners; that is why I gave you access to such important documents. I knew that your sturdy type of citizen and soldier could not remain insensible to the cry of pain which comes to us from every land across the Piave. And now let us get to work. We must plan and organize the undertaking.”