The attack had been beaten off, though of course I had a foreboding, that it might not be the last, which would be made on our position today. It was moreover the case that the main flurry would come first. So I went with the proper assumption that the Welschen would now at any moment bring together a violent Artillerie fire upon the point on which we laid, inasmuch as it was from there that we had expelled them through our flanking fire. For this reason I shifted my men and myself, sliding on our bellies, to the left, into the same portion of the trench from which they had just taken flight. From there on, I distributed my men appropriately for the defending of the area. We found therein, a considerable number of enemy dead and wounded, which were comforting themselves by moaning and crying "grazie!" while they wallowed in the mire. We weren't able, nor did we dare, rescue them from the shots with which we had just "redeemed" them, for we would have given away our position, which the Italians presumed to be unoccupied. The "Böhm" took a stone into his hand and used it to hammer about on the head of the one who cried out the most until he was silent. The Jäger Pichler, who in civilian life, was a shoemaker and who had previously been convicted eight times on account of violence, scuffles, and similar delicacies, took his extra sharp bayonet down from his rifle and stabbed to death the remaining wounded. I didn't desire to look on. This guy was the most brutal beast that I knew. He had already distinguished himself in the early battles in Galacia through his cruelty and technical skill with the hanging of traitors. As a soldier he was otherwise very brave and extremely obedient. As a Kamerad he was immensely generous, cheerful, and true. No one could be his enemy. To his grim joy he discovered all kinds of treasures on the dead Welschen, whom he thoroughly searched. One had a few Lira. From another's pocket he pulled a curved carving knife which was stuck with muck. From the third he found a tin of food, which he devoured right away. And so it went on. He thoroughly examined each object that he found and rejoiced over it like a child under a Christmas tree. He didn't perceive one whiff of the hideousness of the moment. I was envious of him for that, for I felt my soul becoming brittle from all of this frightfulness--or as one may want to say--my nerves were giving out.

My hypothesis proved itself correct. For even while Pichler could still taste the Welschen tinned food (which he compared to ours), there cracked a salvo, one after the other, into the position that we had occupied earlier. They seemed to want to thoroughly smoke us out and to bombard us steadily into nothingness. We didn't budge an inch, except to prepare the ammunition and hand-grenades. I was becoming anxious again. The reinforcements, which must be coming at any moment, couldn't advance forward since the "Katzelmacher" were keeping the approach path to our position under Artillerie fire. Soon down below things also let loose, as an entire wave of men surged forward from the enemy trenches and rolled themselves against us. We shot like fools. But what was the use, even if we did also cause many Italians to tumble head over heels. "Hand grenades" I cried, as they came onto the appropriate distance. They hesitated slightly at this point and even scattered and ducked but then they again jumped up and forward. Ever closer this "wave" rolled toward us. Our kills almost could no longer overtake them. When all at once I heard a comforting and lively crackling to my right. A Zug of reinforcements had arrived from the 1st Kompagnie. The robust Zugführer immediately grasped the situation and allowed his group of men to quickly dash into the enemy's flank. There arose a murderous whirlwind to my left, where there was already hand-to-hand fighting, but the Welschen now felt horror over the flanking fire, and were undecided as to whether they should storm our trenches completely or flee backwards. In any case they would rather have done the latter, but their reserves sprang forth at once out of their trenches. I noticed a sabre (still permitted by the Italians) sparkling in the evening sun, down with the reserves. I brought it forth exactly on my sight and shot down this officer. He must have been a superior officer, since five, six, then seven of his men sprang instantly to him, or in any case they jumped mainly at the chance to be around him and thereby save themselves from our lead, in that they might escape back into the safe trenches with him. So it now went exactly as it had so often with the Russians: hardly was the "Capitano" gone than the noble Romans fully lost their dash and turned themselves around to a hurried retreat. We crackled into the crowd around the fallen officer, which then also promptly and howlingly broke itself up. This then was the general signal for the retreat. Where one of them turned around, he was immediately joined by a large number of other. There now came something very comical up to the left where they had already penetrated and suppressed the two men that I had posted there. These Italians, who saw the flight of their comrades next to and behind them, now didn't know what they should do. We hurled some hand grenades over there and they then sprang out of the trenches like scalded cats. They were wanting to run after their comrades, however, we obstructed this in that we shot down the first of them. As the furthest of them now collapsed, the other five made and arranged themselves to be dead, almost as if on the common "Down." That seemed absolutely suspicious to us, so the Jäger Washl broke cover taking a hand grenade in each fist, and moved towards these five "dead" men. Coming onto about 20 paces of them, he hit the two hand grenade detonators together and threw them over to the Welschen. Whereupon not only the five which I had suspected to be uninjured, but on the contrary, even two more, in addition to them rose up and ran screaming horribly down towards their trenches. All except one that is, who hadn't the presence of mind to disappear before the fuses of the grenades burnt down and exploded. He stood fearfully motionless and only cried: "Not hand grenades!" whereupon both exploded and killed him. I note here for the layman that the grenades that we employed at that time needed 6-8 seconds after knocking off the detonator in order to explode. Consequently then, the others had sufficient time to disappear from the vicinity of the fragment range. Of course, we shot them all down as they ran back down towards their own lines with the exception of two who luckily reached their trenches.