CHAPTER II. "Y" Service.

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One evening in the spring of 1918 John Calhoun Saylor, ex-Congressman, sat before the open fire in the old Clay residence, reading the Courier-Journal.

"Just as I expected, thirty-five, that gets me. I was born in 1885." Then he read to his wife that the draft age would be raised to thirty-five.

"But, John, you are married."

"Yes, thoroughly—but that makes no difference in my case. We have no children; you and I have some little property, enough of an income to live on; there's no one dependent upon me; I'm as strong as a mule, feet, eyes, ears and teeth all right; no chance for rejection; they'll get me sure. I guess it would have been better if I had gone to an officer's training camp. My friends know I am no coward; I have been shot at before, but I do not want some spindley, little dry-goods clerk of a lieutenant telling me where to get off at; and I don't fancy living in Washington as a dollar-a-year man. I rebel against restraint and routine."

"John, though I would miss you greatly, as you know a few months' foreign service would help you politically. All the boys and younger men in the eastern end of the State are in Europe, or preparing for foreign service. It would be a mistake to wait and be drafted. When the women begin voting, as they will in a year or two, they will vote for the ex-soldier."

"Foreign service is all right, if the war don't last too long. It is the training camp I want to dodge. Well, this might help out—'The International Y. M. C. A. desires several hundred men for immediate service abroad. Kentucky is expected to furnish thirty of this number. They must be over the present draft age and contract to serve one year or for duration of the war. Applicants please write or call upon Mr. Theobald Burton, Y. M. C. A. Building, Louisville, Ky.'

"Suppose we go to Louisville tomorrow? Then I will call upon Mr. Burton and learn what would be expected of me."

Mr. and Mrs. Saylor went to Louisville and to see Mr. Burton. John Calhoun made out an application for service, which was held up until he furnished a physician's health certificate and the declarations of three reputable citizens, including the pastor of the church he attended, as to his moral fitness for the work. Then his application was forwarded for approval to the general offices.

Then he made application for a passport for service in Italy and France, which was forwarded by the Clerk of the United States District Court to Washington. He was then vaccinated and given the typhoid serum treatment—precautions required under army regulations.

Feeling assured that the Y. M. C. A. could not do without his services, he returned home and made preparation for a year's absence.

He so managed that the local papers gave him quite a boost. They told how he had gone to Louisville, where he had made repeated efforts to enlist in both the army and the navy, but had been rejected. He then made application to enter the International Y. M. C. A. for foreign service and had been accepted. "This Mr. Saylor had done at great personal inconvenience and considerable business sacrifice, feeling that it was his duty to serve his country. He expects to sail for Europe before the end of the month."

On the morning of the 2d of June he received a telegram from the International Y to report in New York, prepared to sail immediately upon arrival. He left home that afternoon and on the night of the 3d reported at the Hotel St. Andrews, where he was assigned quarters, sharing his room with another Y man. There he remained, his expenses paid by the Y, until he sailed three months later.

The morning after arrival, reporting at the main office, 347 Madison Avenue, he was told that his passport had not been received and it was impossible to tell when it might be.

Speaking a little Italian, which Luigi Poggi had taught him when a boy, he was directed to prepare for Y service with the Italian army and sent to take the training course at the university.

There he was taught to march and to sing "The Yanks are Coming" and other choice vocal selections; was lectured on patriotism and cautioned against intemperance, lewd and lascivious conduct and the great temptations held out to innocent and inexperienced Y secretaries in the great foreign cities. He was given lessons in Italian and at the end of three months could speak that language more fluently than his professor.

On the 26th of August his passport arrived and he was notified to be prepared to sail on September 1st. From that time until he left New York he stood in line before different clerks and officials, receiving instructions, signing papers and procuring his outfit. He was furnished everything except his underclothing, including a fund for incidental expenses over actual transportation.Standing in line with more than a hundred others, he was surprised to see, only a short way behind him, his brother-in-law, John Cornwall.


Cornwall, in January, 1918, had made application to enter the Officers Training Camp at Port Benjamin Harrison, but had been rejected because he was past forty-five. He had then tried to enlist as a private, but had been rejected for the same reason. He had tendered his services to the Judge Advocate General's department, but had heard nothing from his application. As a last opportunity he offered his services to the International Y and had been accepted.

He arrived in New York on the night of August 27th and learned that his passport had been received, and he and three hundred and sixteen other Y men were to sail on September 1st.

In the early morning of that date they boarded a train for Montreal, where they arrived past midnight and were marched aboard the Burmah, a British transport of seven thousand tons burden. At two a. m. they were given a meal of tea, bread, condensed milk, boiled potatoes and a most horrible sausage and told to turn in. As their bunks were hold hamocks, quite a few turned out.

About daylight the thousand-mile journey down the St. Lawrence began. When they reached the ocean they joined a convoy of a dozen ships, screened in a cold mist and rocked by a choppy sea. Then began the ocean voyage of twelve days, through fog and rain and over a rough, gray sea. At night it was early to bed, because lights were not allowed.

The fare shows the ship's registry, and for breakfast, dinner and supper was the same—tea, oatmeal, mutton, marmalade, condensed milk, cheese, oleomargarin, bread and boiled potatoes. The ship was redolent with mutton. Those whose stomachs were upset by a first voyage, more than sixty per cent, declared they could never again look a sheep in the face and live through it. Several gave their sheep skin coats away, believing they added to the prevailing odor.

Every day of the voyage they marched in the morning and held a song service in the afternoon, followed by an address by some diplomatic preacher or professor, who, being on a British transport, considered it an opportune time to tell the captain and crew what the Yanks intended doing and why the soldiers of all the other allied nations had failed in the war.

When they were off the Irish coast a half-dozen British destroyers steamed out of the fog and met them and, like greyhounds at full speed, chased one another in great circles around the more slowly moving convoy.

At Liverpool they marched ashore singing, "The Yanks are Coming" and never marched again. Then they traveled by train to London and a day or two later to Southampton, then by channel steamer to Havre, then by train to Paris, where most of the men were assigned to service in France.

Those going to Italy, some thirty-five, including Saylor and Cornwall, several days later traveled by train through Southwestern France to Modane, then by way of Turin to Bologna.

There they made settlement of their incidental expense accounts, which did not include transportation charges; and though they traveled together and stopped at the same hotels, Saylor rendered an account for two hundred and twenty-five dollars and Cornwall one for eighty-three dollars.

In Bologna they were lectured and cautioned, particularly against having anything to say about the Protestant religion in a Catholic country, or making themselves conspicuous by attending Protestant churches and gatherings. Then they were indiscriminately scattered from the Austrian boundary to Syracuse.

John Calhoun was given a high-powered car and stationed at Cento, a place within convenient distance of Florence, Venice, Verona, Brescia and Milan. He always left Cento on Saturday a. m. and returned Monday p. m. He saw these and more distant cities. The cafes on the shores of lakes Garda, Iseo, Como and Maggiore knew the resonant sound of his Klaxon horn.

But his weekly reports of work done, sent into Bologna, showed magnificent accomplishments. There were but seven thousand soldiers in his district, and only four huts or places of entertainment for the soldiers. At night some thirty or forty soldiers gathered in each place, their wants attended to by a sergeant of the Italian army, who called at his rooms when supplies were needed; yet this report recited that an average of three thousand visited the four places each night of the week, making a weekly attendance of more than twenty thousand. He made out his weekly report Friday night, with directions to his orderly to mail it to Bologna on Monday morning. The report came in promptly, though John Calhoun might be in Venice or Verona.

How he did enjoy these week-end outings. It was a break in the monotony of sitting quietly at ease in quarters furnished by the Italian Government, when the only recreation was lunch and dinner at the officers' mess, where he drank his share of the red and white wines and learned to eat macaroni seasoned with grated cheese and red tomato sauce, wrapping it around his fork and picking it up in great mouthfuls.He was wonderfully kind to Colonel Rocca, the commanding officer, keeping him supplied with cigarettes and tobacco from the supply furnished for distribution among the privates. When the colonel expressed a desire to accompany him on one of his week-end outings or even to be carried to some neighboring city (the army only allowing a horse and cart for his personal service), the Y Fiat was always at his service. This courtesy resulted in John Calhoun being awarded the Croce di Guerra, for distinguished service at the front, though Cento was seventy-five miles from the front line and he never so much as heard the roar of a distant gun. He did visit the battlefields, the whole front line from the Adriatic Sea, along the Piave, Mt. Grappa and the Trentino, westward to Tonale Pass and northward to Innsbruck, but it was after the armistice. He made a choice collection of war relics and photographs, which he subsequently used in his lecture: "Personal Experiences at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, or How I Won the War Cross."

He had spent his boyhood on the trails of Pine Mountain, often riding to mill straddle of a mule. When the family moved to Madison County he drove a speedy trotter to a side-bar buggy over the turnpike, then in his own Pierce-Arrow over excellent roads, then in Italy a Y Fiat. He was educated by gradation to speedy locomotion and was a most competent judge of good roads.

He knew what he was talking about when he said that there were no other roads in the world like the old Roman roads of the plain and no other highways exhibited such engineering skill and perfection as those of the mountains, north from Brescia along Lake Iseo to Tonale Pass, with its tunnels, curves and gradual ascents.How he did enjoy riding over the old Roman road from Bologna to Milan with Colonel Rocca, telling him about what he had done and had seen! One of his lectures, descriptive of this road, was reported, and I quote a portion of it:

"There is no place more attractive in the ripe days of spring than the Lombardy plain. The old Roman road as direct as the truth and a straight, though broad, way intersects it as though a great master road builder with the power of a czar had laid down a hundred-mile rule and, drawing a single line at an angle of twenty degrees north of west, declared the survey complete and the route fixed.

"The road is built above and overlooks the plain. No pains in the original construction of twenty-odd centuries ago, nor since in its remodification or repair, has been spared towards making it an eternal highway down which as a vast speedway a half-dozen cars might race abreast.

"The Po and its tributaries are spanned by great arched bridges of stone, seemingly cut and placed by Titans of past ages who spent their full days and plenteous strength and skill in placing stone on stone.

"The whole plan seems laid off with a rule. The distant cloud-capped Alps to the north, the Apennines of verdant foothills and snow-clad peaks nearer to the south seem pressing down to meet and clash as two vast armies contending for the plain—as so many times have the men of the north with the men of the south until the Master of All, drawing a line with His sceptre, said: 'Thus far only.' Then He made the river which surges forward in a straight flight from Valenza to the sea and swarthy barefooted peasants of the plain flanked it with parallel dikes."On either side of the whole way are long rows of mulberry trees for silk culture, and vineyards for red wine, and between the grass grows rank and green.

"But three times yearly the geni of the garden comes forth, on moist, moony nights, and changes the rugs of green in the aisles of the vineyards and the groves and the carpets of the fields.

"When the time of the singing of the birds is come and the locust and the cherry bloom, then he spreads the rugs and carpets of promise and of gold, embossed with yellow tulips and bordered with royal purple, Parma violets.

"When nature is voluptuously mature the geni spreads his rugs and carpets of poppies. It is the season to wound and to garner; the red of the fields is as the wounds of the slain.

"The geni grows old, his beard and hair are white as lamb's wool. White oxen drew great tanks on wheels into the vineyards. The grapes are gathered and trampled into wine. The trees and vines look sad. The rugs are faded and worn. It is the season of death; the sleep before the resurrection. So for the last time the geni comes forth and spreads his rugs and carpets of white—the last flowers of the year.

"You will pass several ancient churches along the way. When the interior walls are scraped it is not uncommon to find frescoes by some forgotten master, generally in the nude. The father of the church, being something of an artist himself, mixes a pot of paint and dresses the exhumed Saint Anthony in yellow pants, his conception of how that saint should appear in public.

"This reminds me of the stars painted on the dome of the 'Star Chamber' of Westminster Abbey. The Jewish money lenders of ancient London were permitted to deposit the bonds of their Christian debtors in a chamber of the abbey. The Hebrew word for 'bond' being 'star,' the chamber was so named. The reason for the name in time became obscure. A subsequent custodian, having his own conception, had stars painted on the dome and walls of the chamber.

"On this trip I was told by an Italian antiquarian how the names 'White' (Bianca), 'Green' (Verdi) and 'Black' (Nero) first were given people.

"In ancient Rome when a foundling was left upon a doorstep and parentage could not be traced, he was given the name of some color. Some of the most illustrious and ancient Italian families of today bear these names."


The first of April, 1919, John Calhoun Saylor was transferred from Cento to the general offices of the Y. M. C. A. in the Hotel Regina, Bologna. This hotel had been requisitioned by the Italian government from its owners and turned over to the Y at a nominal rental.

John Calhoun, by his flatteries, ingratiated himself into most satisfactory relations with Professor Black, general secretary of the Y. M. C. A. in Italy and, speaking Italian almost as fluently as the professor, who spoke it like an educated native, was frequently called upon to transact business with the Italians.

There was great excitement in Italy and many unfriendly demonstrations against Americans when President Wilson's attitude on the Fiume question became generally known.

Bologna, politically, has always been one of the most demonstrative and volatile of Italian cities. On the 25th of April, 1919, a great demonstration was made by the populace in favor of the annexation of Fiume, and word was sent by the police authorities to Professor Black that a great crowd was preparing for a demonstration in front of the hotel, in protest against President Wilson's attitude. Professor Black, having important business in a distant city, left about the time the crowd began gathering in front of the Hotel Regina; and John Calhoun, in his absence, spoke for him to the assembled multitude on behalf of the Y, explaining its position on the Fiume question.

Demonstration against Y. M. C. A., Hotel Regina, Bologna, April 25, 1919.

As he stood facing the ten thousand excited Italians, there was no tremor of voice or limb. It was just the chance he was looking for; he was in his element; he was having the best time he had had since leaving America. In the uniform of an officer of the American army he spoke in criticism of the Commander in Chief of that army, the President of the United States.

The Bologna paper, Il Resto del Carlino, reported the proceeding as follows:

"* * * E' un momento d'incertezza, Qualcuno impreca a Wilson e fischia. Altri protestano giustamente affermandi che non se deve confondere Wilson coi populo d'America.

"E giustamente Ci resulta infatti che i rappresentanti a Bologna della Y. M. C. A. hanno a pertamente disapprovato il contegno di Wilson.

"I benemeriti dirigenti la sede Centrale di Bologna hanno publicamente cio dichiarato e itri, nei vestibolo dell' Hotel Regina il ritratto del Presidente e stato sostituito della prima pagina del Resto del Carlino nella qualle erano sottolineate le frasi salienti del Messaggio di Orlando e cancellati i punti del Messaggio di Wilson nei quali il Presidente si arroga di parlare in nome del populo degli Stati Uniti."Ma questo e ignorato dalla folla la quale continua a protestare.

"Alle finestre si affacciano vari ufficiali e sventolano bandiere italiane; poi il maggiore Saylor accenna a parlare.

"Si fa un gran silenzio.

"Il giovane ufficiale della Fratellanza americana grida:

"Nessun Wilson potra togliere all'Italia il diritto al conseguimento del sou diritto al diritto che i tricolore italiano sventoli per sempre sulla Torre di Fiume. Io e i miei colleghi sentiama per Fiume lo stesso sentimento che provate voi, o cittadini di Bologna e d'Italia. Togliervi Fiume e una delle piu grandi barbarie del secolo. Non disperate; lasciate che Wilson rinsavisca! Fiume sara italiana!

"E' fra un delirio di acclamazioni conclude gridando.

"Viva Italia! Viva Fiume! Viva Orlando! Viva Sonnino! Viva l'America!

"Viva l'America risponde la folla in una esplosione di riconoscente entusiasmo.

"Altri discorsi

"Intanto la prima parte del corteo ritorna da piazza VIII Agos to e i dimostranti, aumentati ancora di numero ripetono le acclamazioni dinanzi alla sede della Fratellanza Americana.

"Piazza Garibaldi e gremita. Intorno al monumento dell'eroe si dispongono le bandiere e le rappresentanze e vengone pronunciati altri discorsi.

"Parla per primo un vecchio garabaldino il quale afforma che se continueranno le opposizione per Fiume andremo laggiu non col grigioverde ma con la camicia rossa e conclude mandando un caldo saluto al populo americano mentre impreca al tradimento di Wilson; poi segue Pietro Nenni che invita i cittadini americani graditi e amati ospiti di Bologna a far conoscere ei loro connazionali il vero sentimento del populo d'Italia la sua fermezza nei pretendere cio che gli spetta di diritto. In attesa che quella giustizia che ci nega Wilson—conclude—ci venga dal popolo della libera America, noi gridiamo; Guai a chitocco i tre colori della bandiera italiana. * * *

"Parla di nuovo, per ultimo, il maggiore Saylor, il quale ripete il sentimento suo e dei suoi colleghi concorde con quello dei populo italiano. Wilson-esclama-ha lasciato il cervello in America; se non avvera in lui un rinsavimento dovra presto fare un triste ritorno pensando agli effetti disastrosi della sua megalomania!

"Nuivi applausi scroscianti poi il corteo si ricompont e si avviva per via del Mille gli uffici del Giornale del Mattino.

"Parla, applaudito, il college Lucchesi. Indi la folla si reca in via Galliera soffermandosi dinanzi al palazzo ove e la sede del Corpo d'Armata."

The mob was appeased; peace was declared; the day was saved, and several of the Y-men fell on John Calhoun's neck and wept tears of gratitude because he had saved their lives.

There were quite a few Y secretaries scattered over Italy who vehemently disclaimed that John Calhoun spoke for them or their sentiments. Among this number was his brother-in-law, John Cornwall, and two truculent and undiplomatic secretaries who had charge of the work with the Twenty-seventh Army Corps at Carpi.

They sent a communication to General Antonio Di Giorgi in command of that corps; mailed a copy of this letter and one written Professor Black to the American Ambassador at Rome; and, so their position might be understood, addressed a communication to the paper Il Resto Del Carlino, published at Bologna, which was commented upon by that paper as follows:

"Il signor John Smith direttore regionale della Y. M. C. A. ci scrive da Carpi che, pur avendo le maggior simpatie per l'Italia e per il suo glorioso esercito, non puo associarsi alle critiche fatte da alcuni membri della Y. M. C. A. di Bologna contro l'opera di Wilson.

"Come cittadino degli Stati Uniti indossante la divisa dell'esercito di cui il presidente Wilson e il capo-scrive il Signor Smith—non faccio in Italia o altrove la critica della sue espressioni; se egli parla a nome della Nazione, io devo essere solidale con lui.

"Alla protesta del signor Smith si assicia il senor E. R. Clarke, insegnante di educazione fisica presso la missione americana Y. M. C. A.

"Diamo atto volentiere ai due egregi gentiluomi delle loro dichiarazioni, inspirate a uno scrupolo patriottico che altamente apprezziamo.

"Non vorremmo pero con questo togliere valore all'atteggiamento generosi di quei membri della benemerita associazione che nei giorni scorsi si associana spontaneamente alla protesta del popolo italiano contro la politica di Wilson, stimando che ogni libero cittadino possa, in ogni circostanza, apportamente esprimere un giudizio sullopera del proprio Governo senza rendersi colpevole d'indisciplina ne dar luogo a malevoli interpretazioni."

The letter written to General Di Giorgi was as follows:

"Carpi, Italy, April 26, 1919.

"His Excellency,
General Antonio Di Giorgi:

"I have been in the Y. M. C. A. service in Italy since September 28, 1918. I am fond of the people of Italy and at all times have been justly and fairly treated by them; and the officers and soldiers constituting her great army have been especially kind to me.

"I have just had read to me from the journal Il Resto del Carlino La Patria, addresses said to have been made by certain representatives of the Y. M. C. A. at Bologna. If they are correctly quoted, they do not express my views.

"As a citizen of the United States, with President Wilson the head of the nation, I do not in Italy or elsewhere criticize his expressions. If he speaks for the nation, I am controlled by and concur in those statements.

"Most respectfully and with sincere regret, I am,

"John Smith.

"N. B.—I concur in the sentiment expressed by Mr. Smith.

"Edw. R. Clarke."

On April 26th in an interview, after the delivery of his letter, Mr. Smith asked General Di Giorgi: "What would be the punishment of a soldier who criticized his king as John Calhoun had President Wilson."

"Mr. Smith, you must excuse me from answering; I am not a politician, but a soldier." (The general is considered one of the most astute politicians in Italy.)

A major who was present said: "We would turn his face to the wall and shoot him in the back."

On April 28th Professor Black sailed for America on a three-months' vacation, a very inopportune time, as the Y work was in a chaotic state and his more than two hundred subalternate secretaries exposed to personal danger.

General Treat, Commander of the American forces in Italy, after an investigation, ordered Saylor stripped of his uniform, and he was sent home. Before he left Italy he was made a Cavaliere. His friends among the Italian officers, who had repeatedly enjoyed the hospitality of his Fiat, dubbed him "Sir Knight of the Highway."

He returned by way of France and attended the first convention of the American Legion in Paris. He returned on an American transport with several thousand soldiers. As he looked at these boys he thought of the vast horde returning and how in less than ten years they would rule the nation, and the idea of pushing prominently into the organization of the Legion took deeper root in his brain.

Aboard the transport he did not recount his adventures on the battlefields of Italy. He was fearful some officer having knowledge that his uniform had been taken from him, or having private instructions from General Treat, might question the value of his services in the determination of the World War. But when he reached Kentucky it would be a different proposition; he would be a rooster on his own dunghill.

He remained a few days in New York and so managed as to make himself conspicuous as one of the founders of the Legion.

When he reached home he was a zealous advocate against the League of Nations, and declared himself a political maverick until that issue was settled.

It seemed to have been settled when he arrived at the conclusion that Morrow, the Republican candidate, would be elected Governor.

Then he found time to discontinue his series of lectures on "Italy in the War" and stumped the Eighth District for Morrow—all the while having his eye on John Calhoun's tomorrow.One of his most interesting lectures was "Personal Experiences at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto," an extract from which follows:

"* * * I have heard and seen enough to know that it is to be the final great effort and to commence on October 24th, commemorative of the anniversary, and to wipe out the stain, of the Italian defeat at Caparetto.

"For more than a month I have heard the monotonous, familiar, easily distinguished, never-to-be-forgotten sound of preparation—of the tramp of the feet of thousands of men and mules; of the rumble of the wheels of countless moving vans, guns and wagons going back and forth in apparent utter confusion from Tonale and Aprica passes down the valley from Edelo to new assignments, necessary in the organization of the attacking army of nearly a million men.

"The front line extends from Stelvio Pass in the Ortler Alps along the then Italian-Austrian boundary to Tonale Pass to Lake Garda, thence a little south of Altissimo, Asiago, to Mt. Grappa, Corduna and along the Piave to the sea.

"The initial plan of battle decided upon is to separate the Austrian forces in the Trentino from those on the Piave by a breach at the junction of the Fifth and Sixth Austrian armies.

"In conformity with this plan the action was instituted as scheduled by attacks by the Fourth army in the Grappa area, by the Tenth army on the Piave south of Vittorio, supplemented by attacks instituted by the Eighth and Twelfth armies and diversion raids by the Sixth army. The primary offensive covered the whole front from Asiago on the west to a point east on the Piave, a little east of south of Vittorio."Opposite the Tenth Austrian army were the Seventh and First Italian armies; opposite the Eleventh Austrian army was the Sixth and part of the Fourth Italian army. The Fourth and Twelfth Italian armies faced the Belluno Group, and the Eighth, Tenth and Third Italian armies were confronted by the Sixth and Fifth Austrian armies.

"The Austrian force consisted of sixty-three divisions; thirty-nine on the front line, thirteen in the second and eleven in reserve. A total of 1,070,000 men and 7,500 guns and mortars.

"The Italians had opposing this force fifty-one Italian, three British, two French, one Czecho-Slovak divisions and the 332d American infantry regiment—a total of 912,000 men and 8,900 guns and mortars.

"The forty-eighth British and the forty-second French divisions were with the Sixth army. General Earl of Cavan, commanding the British forces in Italy, was given the command of the Tenth army, which included the seventh and twenty-third British divisions, the twenty-third, thirty-third, thirty-seventh and fifty-sixth Italian divisions, the Como brigade and the 332d American regiment, all of whom rendered very distinguished service.

"By October 29th it was apparent, by reasons of breaches made in the Austrian lines and advances effected, that a great victory by an aggressive policy was assured.

"Beginning the night of the 30th, the enemy commenced retiring under the protection of rear guard actions. On the 31st the enemy's forces had collapsed on the Grappa front. The Eighth army had driven the enemy back into the Belluno valley and the way was open for advances to the Cadore, the Agordino and the Val Cismon. Opportunity was presented for a complete destruction of the Austrian forces in the Trentino. Whereupon the whole Italian army by general orders issued on November 1st was directed to press down upon the Austrian army as a great, solid wave of men from the Ortler Alps to the sea.

"The order was followed by the recapture of the Asiago Plateau, the occupation of Trent on November 2d, the advance of the Tenth army to Livenza, of the Eighth army to Belluno and of the Seventh and First armies to Riva.

"Although the armistice between the Italians and the Austrians was signed in Trieste on the evening of November 3d, the advance continued into the afternoon of the 4th.

"When the fighting ceased there had been an advance occupation of territory by the Italians of approximately 3,500 square miles. More than 450,000 prisoners and 5,000 guns and mortars had been taken.

"On November 3d an Italian force landed in Trieste, which city was occupied without opposition.

"It was essentially an Italian victory won by Italian troops.

"The result was the destruction of the great army of Austria-Hungary, the armistice and surrender of Austria of November 3d and the hastening by weeks of the armistice of November 11th.

"I have always felt that the British and French appropriated for themselves too much of this victory, won by the united efforts of a million men, mostly Italians.

"An army or division engaged in one sector of a great battle is prone to take to itself more than its quota of the success from the united efforts of many divisions. A division may be so placed as to bear the brunt of an offensive and by a stubborn, bloody stand stop a disastrous defeat; but it takes many combined divisions fighting with equal valor and success under a great staff to put over a great offensive, such as was the battle of Vittorio Veneto; in result, at least, the greatest battle of the world.

"After the battle the same noises and apparent confusion of the advance was repeated; of soldiers moving north by way of Tonale Pass to the front; now far in enemy country beyond the cities of Male, Cles and Bolzano to Innsbruck; of prisoners, Austrian, Hungarian and German, taken south to labor in the fields of the plain of Lombardy, or even to the Riviera to work in the quarries and upon the roads on the foothills of the Apennines, overlooking the blue Mediterranean.

"Many feel that the final, fatal stroke to the Central Powers was given by Italy when driving the Austrian army north and east, she took more than 450,000 prisoners. More she might have had, but they were permitted to move on, a disheveled, discouraged host, witnesses to the Austrian and German people of a last, fatal defeat; they tramped northward self-stripped of all equipment as a half-drowned man might throw away his clothes, hoping to reach a distant shore.

"After the battle, in which I took a prominent part, I followed behind these half-starved, half-naked soldiers, first a fleeing army, then a mighty horde of discouraged tramps, then corraled and organized and under guard. The road was pock-marked with shell holes, which were being filled by laboring soldiers, first with Austrian dead, then stones, then earth. The way was strewn with weapons and clothing and blankets and helmets and love tokens and overturned trucks and cannon and dead horses and dead men."The weak and famished died by the roadside or gorged themselves on the dead artillery horses or those ridden to death by fleeing cavalry and officers. Their hunger appeased, many sat in the sun, naked to the waist ridding themselves of vermin or lay in exhausted stupor. The stench was as revolting as the picture.

"Such was the panorama all the way from Tonale Pass east, to Fucina, Male, Cles, Bolzano and south to Trent and Rovereto and along the Piave to the sea.

"Now, if you will pardon personal allusions, I will tell you how I was wounded and how I obtained the Croce di Guerra. I—, etc. I—, etc," (We will omit the account.)


As John Calhoun now called himself a Republican, his residence at Richmond in a congressional district normally Democratic, did not suit his political ambitions; so in December, following Governor Morrow's election, he removed to Pineville in the Eleventh Congressional District, which was overwhelmingly Republican, and for a lawyer a better business location than Richmond.

He built a very handsome, brick residence on one of the foothills of Pine Mountain overlooking the little, mountain city and the broad valley in the bend of the Cumberland.

He felt satisfied that after a couple of years' residence in Pineville he could procure the nomination for Congress, which was equivalent to an election.

The change of residence he found perfectly satisfactory from every standpoint, but Mrs. Rosamond Clay Saylor was not satisfied. She closed one of their very common wrangles, and she usually closed such bouts, by saying: "Well, John Calhoun, you have grown very arbitrary and headstrong since your experiences in the World War. I shall acquiesce since most of my time will be taken up on the lecture platform, advocating woman suffrage. I suppose I can find the place bearable during the heated term if you make yourself a little more agreeable. I wish I had married your brother-in-law, John Cornwall, when he asked me; he at least is a gentleman."


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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