"It is a notable piece of military engineering, but it is not merely that. It will serve as an artery of commerce when it is no longer needed for the passage of guns and army service wagons. There is nothing temporary or makeshift about it. Rocks have been blasted to leave a passage for it and solid bridges of stone and steel thrown across rivers. "Because the Austrians started with the weather gauge in their favor, being on the upper side of the great ridges, it was necessary for the Italians to get their guns as high as they could. The means by which they accomplished this task was described to me. They would seem incredible if one had not ocular demonstration of the actual presence of the cannon among these inaccessible crags. "There are some of them on the ice ledges of the Ortler nearly 10,000 feet above sea level, in places which it is by way of an achievement for the amateur climber to reach with guides and ropes and porters, and nothing to take care of but his own skin. But here the Alpini and Frontier Guides had to bring up the heavy pieces, hauling them over the snow slopes and swinging them in midair across chasms and up knife-edged precipices, by ropes passed over timbers wedged somehow into the rocks. I was shown a photograph of a party of these pioneers working in these snowy solitudes last winter. They might have been a group of Scott's or Shackleton's men toiling in the Antarctic wilderness. "By means of a suspension railway made of wire rope with sliding baskets stretched across chasms of great depth, oil, meat, bread and wine are sent up, for the soldier must not only be fed, but must be fed with particular food to keep the blood circulating in his body in the cold air and chilling breezes of the snow-clad peaks. Kerosene stoves in great numbers have been sent aloft to make the life of the mountaineer soldiers more comfortable." On July 9, 1916, there was bitter fighting between the Brenta and the Adige. Strong Alpine forces repeatedly attacked the Austrian lines southeast of Cima Dieci, but were repulsed with heavy losses. Shells set fire to Pedescala and other places in the upper Astico Valley. An attempt by the Austrians to make attacks on Monte Seluggio was checked promptly. In the Adige Valley another intense artillery duel was staged on July 10, 1916. On the Pasubio front the Italians captured positions north of Monte Corno, but the Austrians succeeded in obtaining partial repossession of them by a violent counterattack. On the Asiago Plateau Alpine detachments successfully renewed the attack on the Austrian positions in the Monte Chiesa region. The next day, July 11, 1916, the Italians again made some progress in the Adige Valley, north of Serravalle and in the region of Malga Zugna, and reoccupied partially some of the positions lost on the northern slopes of Monte Pasubio on the previous day. Heavy artillery duels took place in the Asiago Basin and on the Sette Comuni Plateau.