Under the pale street lamps, amid the weeping and curses, the simple truth was being uncovered. After the day’s massacre at Altofaro, and the clumsy impotence of the warships – whose shells appeared to have fallen harmlessly in open country – it was being learned again that men needed more than courage, anger, slogans, convictions, or even a just cause when they went to war. The village became aware that night, not for the first time in its history, that a people’s army could be defeated.
