Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 246, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1917 — Modem Joan of Arc of Italy [ARTICLE]

Modem Joan of Arc of Italy

By G. Kay Spencer

It was dusk in the Carfile Alps. The deep green hues of the mountain forests were blending In the gloaming, and a restful gloom was settling down In the mountains. Insects hummed and droned among the blue grass of the pastures. Devious pathways cut an uncertain course through the voluptuous color of the vegetation. Along one of these overgrown guiding ways a regiment' of the Italian Bersaglieri was making a tortuous ascent. The crests of the plumes in their helmets were rustled by mellow breaths from the Adriatic, and the gravel was crunching under roughshod soldier feet. Otherwise no sound came from this redoubtable column. For these men were moving forward to attack an enemy position which their air forces had failed to locate all through a humid day of death. The Austrian battery had swept with withering waves of steel the backs of these hoary Italian mountain crests. Thirteen thousand of Italia’s first line troops had vainly endeavored to pass the enemy emplacements. The blood of Italy’s sons dried on every leaf and gravel path, and her wounded lay where the Red Cross could never reach —at the feet of these eternal piles, mangled masses of human flesh. The Bersaglieri, Italy’s strange, swift-loping infantry, was going into the action; expert, accurate marksmen, every man. The advanced patrols and several on the flanks had engaged enemy patrols several times and had only succeeded in adding to the perplexities of the situation. Suddenly there was a challenge, an oath in Italian, and presently a corporal was seen making his way to the main body. With him was a woman—a young girl, self possessed and smiling. She inquires her way to the com-

manding officer. She carries an automatic at her hip and she knows the Austrian position. She is a native of the parts and has won the confidence of Austrian officers. The engine of blue steel flashes dully from her hip to her hand and points upward and onward. She cheers—a wild Italian mountain cry —and the troops respond. The officer had not the chance for orders —if he would have given them. Before he realized the situation the Bersaglieri were in motion; following the young •woman, who marched rapidly and firmly with her automatic in the fore, greedy for a target. They soon encounter their own advanced patrols and, Joining, they make a precarious way over piles of ageworn rock. — Direct to the task she leads them. She fights with them; her pistol spitting Its doses of death into enemy breasts; her cheers ringing shrilly above the maelstrom of swirling foes, and steel firing steel on its errand into enemy vitals. The encounter was violent and decisive. The Austrians were routed — to be technically correct —were annihilated. The Italians occupied the position and signalled headquarters the location of adjacent enemy outposts. The result was the eventual occupation by the Italian armies of the entire Austrian system on that sector. In Rome, a few days later, a “medal to military valor” was struck and presented to p coy young girl, who insisted that she had done nothing remarkable in thus serving her country. ’ Italian poets and novelists are perpetuating her name and exploit. She is the idol of King Victor’s soldiers. Her real name is Marla Abrlanl, but the men in the Bersaglieri know her as Jeanne d’Arc d’ltalla.