Page:Cesare Battisti and the Trentino.djvu/35

 three children. All his thoughts, while campaigning, are for them and their mother, and he has faith that their love for him will carry him safely through. "I strongly believe in and feel assured of my individual luck," he writes, "you and my children protect me."

On the Fourth of July he reaches the summit of the fatal mountain where he was to be captured. He writes to his wife: "I am in receipt of yours of the 23rd instant. It reaches me on the eastern top of Monte Corno, an ugly conglomerate of decaying rocks that we have been trying to get from the Austrians. It is a desperate conflict. We live, hanging, so to speak, to the walls of the mountain, without tents, often without food, always without water, eating snow instead. The war we are waging these days is terrible, engagements following one another in rapid succession. But it is a necessity. We must win — we shall win."

The following day, writing to Gigino, he says: "I know that you are anxious to enlist, but I am very much afraid that you will not succeed owing to the precarious condition of your health. Do not let this discourage you; there are many other ways of fulfilling your duty to your country on other occasions."

It is to be noted that Gigino was then only sixteen years old; that his father was not dissuading him from enlisting, but simply trying to console him in the event of his not being accepted as a volunteer. This Gigino tried repeatedly, but in vain. He was accepted only in the winter of 1917, and the writer of this booklet had the honor of being his instructor in the Alpine company to which he was attached.

At the end of June, 1916, Battisti sent to Miss Avis Waterman, an American, then war correspondent for the Times at the Italian front, that famous letter in which every word is a glorification of the Italian war and of the Alpine Corps. It was published in all the newspapers a few days after his death.

On the 10th of July the battle of Monte Corno took place, and during this engagement he was taken prisoner. His Page thirty-three