Venice! At the mention of this name my Italian heart cannot but be set beating! It was absolutely inconceivable, it was absolutely inadmissible that the barbarian be permitted to trample with feet of iron the pavements of our squares and our churches. Better were it for us all to perish rather than permit the German Emperor to issue from the Doge’s Palace a proclamation of challenge and victory! But the configuration of our front was terribly against us. Our curved front which formed a strong salient from the Astico to the sea gave the Austrians the strategic advantage of being able to launch two attacks simultaneously in two converging directions, from the mountain and from the Piave across the plains. If the attack were successful in one of the two directions, that fact sufficed to cause the downfall of the other sector. The victorious enemy troops having accomplished a “break-through” one side of the salient would at once execute a flanking movement in such a manner that the rest of the front would be compelled to surrender. The maneuver of Caporetto might be repeated to our disadvantage, and this time the defeat would be decisive because the Allies, barely capable of holding back the Germans in France, would not be able to send a single man to our assistance. Therefore, our surveillance was becoming all the more anxious, our chiefs more strict in their reports to the generalissimo of the doings in the various sectors, and I—I should have the honor of taking part in so great a drama, I should have the honor of trying to frustrate the enemy designs. The incidence of numerical strength was greatly to our disadvantage, for the Austrian army mustered about twenty divisions more than we had. We would therefore have to dispose of our troops with the greatest care. Our reserves would have to be concentrated in a central camp whence they could be readily sent to the section of the front where the enemy seemed most threatening. There would have to be no doubts, no hesitations on the part of our leaders; not a single man ought to be moved to no purpose. It was absolutely necessary for us to know the enemy’s plan of attack, that we might concentrate every soldier we could on whatever sector the supreme blow was to be expected. To discover this plan and report it was my task; a task of danger, a task of honor, the supreme privilege of a man consecrated to his country, of a soldier sworn to the faith of the soldier. VI