The duties assigned to the latter were: 1st, to carry out, during the Franco-Serbian offensive, an intensive demonstrative action, to prevent the enemy in front of it from withdrawing troops to reinforce the centre (a duty similar to that of the British); 2nd, the Franco-Serbian attack having been launched, the I.E.F. was to continue to act demonstratively and to resist any counter-attack which might be attempted by the enemy, in fact, to provoke such counter-attacks so as to make the enemy believe that we ourselves intended to attack immediately, and to make of our sector the pivot of an enveloping movement on the part of the Serbs; 3rd, as soon as this movement had produced its effect on the right flank of the 302nd German Division (the one opposite to us) and on the lines of communication in the Cerna loop, to attack and pursue the enemy in the direction of Prilep, their chief centre of supplies west of the Vardar and headquarters of the XI German Army. The first and second of these tasks were carried out in the period from the 14th to the 21st of September, and the Italian troops nailed down the enemy on its front by means of bombardments and repeated local attacks of so fierce a character as not only to prevent them from sending any help against the Franco-Serbs, but to make them believe that the attack in the centre was to be followed immediately by one on our area. In order to forestall this supposed intention, they attacked vigorously, so much so, that the object desired by the Commander in-Chief was more than achieved, but at the cost of heavy losses on our side. Our defences were seriously wrecked by the German and Bulgarian artillery, but the Italian infantry resisted admirably under this terrific fire, and the enemy attacks were all repulsed. On September 22nd the threat of an enveloping movement in the direction of the Cerna (east) began to be perceived by the enemy, and General Mombelli ordered the attack. At 17.30 hours our infantry sprang out of the trenches, where they had been held down for two years, unable to advance a step; an hour later they were beyond the enemy’s first lines, and the whole mighty defensive system collapsed. The terrible Hill 1050, which had been so powerfully fortified, which we had studied with such minute care and attention as though it were a zone of great archæological interest, and whose crest we had never been able to hold, was finally in our hands. Those cruel eyes of the enemy’s observation posts on the topmost ridge, whose pitiless glance had inflicted death or wounds to so many gallant soldiers, were now closed for ever.