The Italians at the base and on the lines of communication maintained an excellent discipline, and were always noted for their good conduct and almost total absence of drunkenness. Nor did one ever see Italian officers take part in the outrageous orgies at the Tour Blanche or other night resorts. If one criticism can be made it is addressed to those who were responsible for selecting the officers to be sent to Macedonia; only the most educated, best mannered and most gentlemanly men should have been chosen for a force which was to be in such constant contact with other armies. Whereas the great majority did fulfil these requisites, the same cannot be said of all; if they never got drunk, there were some who were not _à la hauteur_ as regards character and conduct. The French made the same mistake, and indeed not a few of their officers were sent to Macedonia as a punishment. It was only the British who, as we have seen, made a point of sending out their best men, especially those on Staff appointments. If this insufficient consideration of character and manners is a general defect of our whole bureaucratic system, a special effort should have been made to overcome it in connexion with the Eastern expedition. The excellent organization of our base services was largely due to the merit of Major (now Colonel) Fenoglietto, director of the _Intendenza_, who in all the confusion of Macedonian conditions never lost his head or his temper, and succeeded in conciliating the most opposite tendencies and the most crotchetty characters. Organizing capacity such as his was particularly necessary, inasmuch as Salonica was our only base for supplying a force of over 50,000 men; even when the Santi Quaranta route was opened up and reinforcements and men going home on leave or returning began to travel that way, supplies, munitions, and material of all sorts continued to be landed at Salonica, and everything was concentrated at that base. There was not on the front in Italy a division or even an army corps whose first lines were so far from their base as were those of the 35th Division. The distance from Salonica to Hill 1050 was not less than 170 km., most of which had to be covered either by the Monastir railway, which also supplied seven French divisions, all the Serbian Army, and at different times sundry Greek and Russian units, or by the high road, which also was in part used to supply those same forces. The railway journey was not a pleasant experience; one spent the night in a sordid dilapidated coach, often enlivened by bugs, with broken windows and torn cushions. This _train de luxe_ conveyed us to Armenohor (the station for Florina), whence one continued the journey by lorry. It was more interesting to go the whole way by lorry or car, as well as quicker and more comfortable.