"Although the armistice between the Italians and the Austrians was signed in Trieste on the evening of November 3d, the advance continued into the afternoon of the 4th. "When the fighting ceased there had been an advance occupation of territory by the Italians of approximately 3,500 square miles. More than 450,000 prisoners and 5,000 guns and mortars had been taken. "On November 3d an Italian force landed in Trieste, which city was occupied without opposition. "It was essentially an Italian victory won by Italian troops. "The result was the destruction of the great army of Austria-Hungary, the armistice and surrender of Austria of November 3d and the hastening by weeks of the armistice of November 11th. "I have always felt that the British and French appropriated for themselves too much of this victory, won by the united efforts of a million men, mostly Italians. "An army or division engaged in one sector of a great battle is prone to take to itself more than its quota of the success from the united efforts of many divisions. A division may be so placed as to bear the brunt of an offensive and by a stubborn, bloody stand stop a disastrous defeat; but it takes many combined divisions fighting with equal valor and success under a great staff to put over a great offensive, such as was the battle of Vittorio Veneto; in result, at least, the greatest battle of the world. "After the battle the same noises and apparent confusion of the advance was repeated; of soldiers moving north by way of Tonale Pass to the front; now far in enemy country beyond the cities of Male, Cles and Bolzano to Innsbruck; of prisoners, Austrian, Hungarian and German, taken south to labor in the fields of the plain of Lombardy, or even to the Riviera to work in the quarries and upon the roads on the foothills of the Apennines, overlooking the blue Mediterranean. "Many feel that the final, fatal stroke to the Central Powers was given by Italy when driving the Austrian army north and east, she took more than 450,000 prisoners. More she might have had, but they were permitted to move on, a disheveled, discouraged host, witnesses to the Austrian and German people of a last, fatal defeat; they tramped northward self-stripped of all equipment as a half-drowned man might throw away his clothes, hoping to reach a distant shore. "After the battle, in which I took a prominent part, I followed behind these half-starved, half-naked soldiers, first a fleeing army, then a mighty horde of discouraged tramps, then corraled and organized and under guard. The road was pock-marked with shell holes, which were being filled by laboring soldiers, first with Austrian dead, then stones, then earth. The way was strewn with weapons and clothing and blankets and helmets and love tokens and overturned trucks and cannon and dead horses and dead men.