[Illustration: GERMAN PRISONERS CAPTURED BY THE ITALIANS ON HILL 1050.] [Illustration: HILL 1050. HOURS OF REST. To face p. 262. ] Let us now return to the 35th Division. After the Armistice with Bulgaria began a veritable Odyssey for the Italian troops, a constant marching and counter-marching along roads deep in mud, without shelter for the night, across wild mountains, under torrents of rain, and later amid snowstorms; the soldiers, however, were cheered by the thought that they had won the war and that their homecoming was near. From Sop the division at once began to march in a north-easterly direction, as it appeared then that it was destined, as General Mombelli strongly desired, to take part in the operations in Serbia. On October 9th the headquarters were at Prilep, and a large part of the troops were encamped in the neighbourhood of that town. Squads of Bulgarian prisoners, guarded by Allied infantry and reinforced by Italian engineer companies, set to work to improve the impossible roads and to repair the Monastir-Prilep décauville. A few days later the whole force crossed the Babuna Pass, except the Sicilia Brigade, which, as we have seen, was to take part in the Constantinople expedition, and was sent to Monastir, and the newly-created Spezia Brigade, made up out of elements of the others, which remained at Prilep. General Mombelli’s wish that his troops should be sent to Serbia to co-operate with the Serbian Army was shared by the Prince Regent Alexander, who expressed himself very decidedly in that sense. Had the 35th Division been given that destination, and had been able to fight on Serbian soil by the side of Voivod Michich’s soldiers, the relations between the two peoples, which at that time were very good, would have become ever friendlier. The Italian soldiers, had they been left to garrison Serbia, Slavonia and the Banat, would certainly have made themselves popular with the inhabitants, as occurred in Bulgaria, still technically an enemy country, and our relations with the Serbian State would have been very different from what they actually became. This was then desired on both sides.