The Italians’ conduct of their Alpine campaign must remain a supreme classic of mountain warfare--something which has never been approached in the past and may never be equalled in the future. According to the most approved pre-war strategy, the proper way to defend mountain lines was by implanting guns on the heights commanding the main passes and thus rendering it impossible for an enemy to traverse them. The fact that these commanding positions were in turn dominated by still higher ones, and these latter by others, until the loftiest summits of the Alps were reached, was responsible for the struggle for the “sky-line” positions which the Austro-Italian war quickly resolved itself into. This kind of war would have been a sheer impossibility two decades ago, from the simple fact that no practicable means of transport existed capable of carrying men, munitions, guns and food up to continuous lines of positions from ten thousand to thirteen thousand feet above sea-level. The one thing that made the feat possible was the development of the aerial tramway, or the _teleferica_, as the Italians call it, which gave transport facilities to points where the foot of man had scarcely trod before. Regular communication with the highest mountain-top positions would have been absolutely out of the question without this ingenious device. As I have said, the “basket-on-a-string” description fits the _teleferica_ exactly, for the principle is precisely similar to that of the contrivance by which packages are shunted around in the large stores and factories. The only points which differentiate it in the least from the overhead ore-tramways is the fact that--in its latest and highest development--it is lighter and more dependable. For the ore-tramway--always built in a more or less protected position--had only the steady grind of the day’s work to withstand; the _teleferica_ has not only the daily wear and tear racking it to pieces, but is also in more or less perennial peril of destruction by flood, wind, and avalanches, to say nothing of the fire of the enemy’s artillery or of bombs from his aeroplanes. That the Italians have evolved a contrivance more or less proof against the ravages of these destructive agents is, perhaps, the best evidence of their genius for military engineering. Nothing more perfect in its way than the _teleferica_ has been produced by any of the belligerents.