Only the most reliable and enthusiastic of soldiers could have been asked for so determined an effort and such sacrifices as the advance in this region was bound to entail under any conditions, but without wavering it was undertaken and eagerly at that. It was perhaps to a certain extent but a repetition of the tactics in the mountain warfare all along the Front, but it was so glorious that no excuse is necessary for again dilating upon it. Through a pathless wilderness of shrub or bare precipitous rocks the men made their way forward unhesitatingly, cutting a roadway as they advanced, dragging the heavy artillery with them and consolidating each yard behind them with barbed-wire entanglement and trench work in case the apparent weakness of the Austrian was but a ruse. But there was no ruse, and nothing arrested the delirious rush of the Italians at the commencement of hostilities along the left bank of the Isonzo. It was like an avalanche in its irresistibility, and the Austrians were completely non-plussed by such unusual military evolutions, with the result that three of their most important positions on the Front—Monte Nero, Tolmino and Plava—were already in the hands of the Italians before it was realised how important was the movement in this direction. The heroic feat of the capture of Monte Nero by the _Alpini_ in the month of June I have already described. In spite of every endeavour to re-take it, the Austrians had not made a yard of progress since then, except in a retrograde direction. The Italians had immediately fortified every position they had gained, and the chances of the enemy ever recapturing them were practically _nil_. Our road passed by the scene of many heroic exploits. As we motored through the frowning ravine along a winding road which skirted the swiftly-flowing Isonzo, between Tolmino and Caporetto the mighty limestone cliffs of Monte Nero gradually came into view, its towering bulk illumined by the rays of the afternoon sun. Unconsciously one’s thoughts reverted to the events of the early days of the war, and you endeavoured to picture to yourself what had taken place hereabouts, the onward rush of the Italian troops, undeterred by the most terrible obstacles nature opposed to them, fording or swimming the treacherous river by night and scaling the heights on the opposite bank, and all this in the face of the Austrian fire. You had an involuntary shudder as you gazed up at these gaunt rocks, where now an almost death-like silence reigned. You felt it must require the fanatic courage of a Dervish and to be cast in different mould to every-day mortals to have accomplished such exploits. The road we were following was particularly interesting, inasmuch as it was in the immediate rear of the fighting line the whole way, and we were therefore, right in the midst of every description of military traffic and movement all the time.