SENSITIVENESS WITH RESPECT TO THEIR ARMY Of course one should not generalize regarding nations, except in vague or very guarded terms; but possibly it would not be unjust to say that the Italians, apart from those of northern provinces and of Sardinia, have too much imagination to make first-class soldiers. And they are too sensitive, as you could see in an Italian military hospital. Their task was also not a trifling one--to stand for all those months in territory so forbidding. And there would have been more sympathy with the Italians in the autumn of 1918 if they had not had such very crushing triumphs when the War was practically over. What was the condition of the Austrian army? About October 15, in one section of the front--35 kilometres separating the extreme points from one another--the following incidents occurred: the Army Command at St. Vitto issued an order to the officers invariably to carry a revolver, since the men were now attacking them; a Magyar regiment revolted and marched away, under the command of a Second-Lieutenant whom they had elected; at Stino di Livenza, while the officers were having their evening meal, two hand grenades were thrown into the mess by soldiers; at Codroipo a regiment revolted, attacked the officers' mess, and wounded several of the people there, including the general in command. Such was the Austrian army in those days; and it was only human if comparisons were made--not making any allowances for Italy's economic difficulties, her coal, her social and her religious difficulties--but merely bald comparisons were made between these wholesale victories against the Austrians as they were in the autumn of 1918 and the scantier successes of the previous years. In September 1916 when the eighth or ninth Italian offensive had pierced the Austrian front and the Italians reached a place called Provachina, Marshal Boroević had only one reserve division. The heavy artillery was withdrawn, the light artillery was packed up, the company commanders having orders to retire in the night. Only a few rapid-fire batteries were left with a view to deceiving the enemy. But as the Italians appeared to the Austrians to have no heart to come on--there may have been other reasons--the artillery was unpacked and the Austrians returned to their old front. In May 1917, between Monte Gabriele and Doberdo, Boroević had no reserve battalion; his troops, in full marching kit, had to defend the whole front: they were able to do so by proceeding now to this sector and now to that. No army is immune from serious mistakes--"We won in 1871," said Bismarck, "although we made very many mistakes, because the French made even more"--but the Yugoslavs in the Austrian army could not forget such incidents as that connected with the name of Professor Pivko. This gentleman, who is now living at Maribor, was made the subject of a book, _Der Verrath bei Carzano_ ("The Treachery near Carzano"), which was published by the Austrian General Staff.