themselves had to cope with difficulties of transport, food supply, the occupation of the Rhine area, etc.
From the middle of November I was in continual touch with the French General Staff about these questions. I had first settled a regular transport plan with Colonel Philippe, which I then submitted to General Alby, Chief of the General Staff at the Ministry of War, but neither the General Staff nor Colonel Philippe would allow our regiments to leave France without complete preparation, new equipment, new uniforms, and unless they were reorganized in such a manner as to set a model standard at home. To this I had to agree.
With the Italian regiments the matter was even more troublesome. The first difficulty was due to the fact that at the last moment before the Italian offensive the division had received a new general. On October 21st a telegram suddenly reached me from General Diaz stating that he was obliged, for reasons of organization, to remove General Graziani from the command of our division, and that he proposed General Piccione as his successor. I was not altogether surprised at this, as I knew that there had been disputes between Graziani and the Supreme Command. Nevertheless, I was at first unwilling, for reasons of principle, to agree to this proceeding. By the terms of our agreement with the Italian Government the Supreme Command was not entitled to take stuch a step unless the matter had been first arranged by a preliminary agreement with us. But I knew that our division was about to take part in important operations at the front, and I therefore telegraphed my provisional consent in order that no crisis might arise in the command of our troops, with the possibility of a resulting disaster in the field. I intended to discuss the matter during my visit to Italy, but the development of events made this superfluous.
When the Armistice was signed, and we were to prepare our regiments for departure, this naturally tended to impede the smooth working of our plans, just as it had done in France. In Italy, however, the postponement was caused notably by a fresh decision to prepare a whole corps for us, and from the enormous number of new prisoners who had been captured after the victory at Vittoria Veneta to organize new militia regiments so that it would be possible to return to Bohemia with a fully equipped army comprising units of every kind.
Under these circumstances I decided, after consulting with
