It transpired later that, although years had been spent working on it and vast sums of money expended, it was so far from being completed when war was declared that its heavy armament had not yet arrived. It had been intended to make of it a stronghold which would be practically impregnable. Even now, it is a veritable modern Ehrenbreitstein, but with this difference: it is not built on a rock but excavated out of the summit of a lofty craig, which is quite inaccessible from the Italian side. Although only about four miles from Roveretto, its surrender did not help the Italians over much, in so far as the operations in that zone were immediately concerned, but its loss must have been a severe blow to Austrian pride. It was said that it had been the intention of the Austrians to blow it up rather than let the Italians reap the advantage of all the labour that they had wasted on it, and in this connection there was a story going round at the time that seemed circumstantial enough to be worth recounting. On the day of the occupation of the fortress an engineer officer, strolling about examining the construction of the place, happened to catch his foot in what he took to be a loose telephone wire, which had apparently been accidentally pulled in from outside. In disengaging it his attention was attracted by a peculiar object attached to the wire, when to his surprise he found that it was an electrical contrivance connected with a live fuse leading to a positive mine of dynamite in one of the lower galleries. A small splinter of rock had somehow got mixed up with the detonator, and thus, as though by a miracle, the fortress and the Italian troops in it had been saved from destruction. Almost needless to add, the wire led from the nearest Austrian position. We only made one excursion from Verona, but it was of extreme interest in view of what was taking place at the time in this sector of the Front. It was to Ala, a small Austrian town in the valley of the Adige, which had been captured a few weeks previously. There had been some sharp fighting in the streets, as many of the houses bore witness to, but its chief interest to us lay in the fact that it was in redeemed territory, and actually within the portals of Austrian Trentino. Like, however, most of the liberated towns I had visited, Ala was more Italian than Austrian. [Illustration: The whole region was positively alive with warlike energy (_see page 75_) _To face page 100_]