Dominic Sandbrook

Basically, you can't get very deep.

So when the Austrians fire at you, lots of you end up dying.

Blokes are being ripped open by shells and whatnot.

And he gives us a description of a single day on the upper Socha River on the 14th of August.

Gives you a sense of what it's like.

So the Italians started with an artillery bombardment at three o'clock in the morning and they set off uphill.

Before they even really started uphill, most of them were absolutely exhausted.

And some of them, while they're walking, fell asleep while they were walking, which seems a bit much.

The sun finally comes up and they discover that they're on this hillside.

They're totally exposed, no cover.

They're exposed to the Austrian guns.

The Austrians fire at them and kind of rake them with shrapnel.

But that goes on till midday.

And then at midday, their officer says, okay, charge now.

They start charging.

The people who've got the wire cutters are all shot down before they even get to the barbed wire.

So the rest of the men then are underneath the barbed wire and the Austrian machine guns are just firing at them.

Bon amore.

The dead are in piles on top of each other.

Nearly all the senior officers have fallen.