Dominic Sandbrook

You know, don't kill yourselves for nothing.

So here's an example.

An Austrian captain shouting to his machine gunners.

He says to them, what do you want to do?

Do you want to kill them all?

Let them be.

And then he says to the Italians, stop, go back.

We won't shoot anymore.

Do you want everyone to die?

Loads of accounts of Austrians saying, Italians, go back.

We don't want to massacre you.

You're brave men.

Don't get yourselves killed like this.

And there's even a story from later in the year, the Austrians actually stopped firing during a battle and they said to the Italians, go on, enough, get your dead and go back down.

And as the Italians were collecting all their dead, the Austrians came out from behind their machine guns to help them, to bring them stretchers and cigarettes.

And the Italians gave them some of their feathers from their plumed hats as nice souvenirs.

They're still wearing their plumed hats.

I mean, what are they thinking?

So that was the second battle.

The second battle was a massive bloodbath.