Excerpt from ATTACKS
By Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

The night limited visibility to a bare fifty yards along the road and the terrain to the right and left was pitch black. When the enemy was within fifty yards I shouted "Halt!" and demanded their surrender. The answering roar was neither affirmative nor negative. No one fired and the yelling mass drew nearer. I repeated my challege and got the same answer. The Italians opened fire at ten yards. At the same time a slavo rang out on our side, but before we had a chance to reload (light and heavy machine guns were unfortunately missing) we were overwhelmed and trampled down by the powerful mass. Almost all who were on the road fell into the enemy's hands. The bulk of the garrison in the house, whose upper story had only black painted windows, and consequently was poorly adapted for defense, escaped in the dark across the Piave. The Italians raced along the road to the south.

At the last moment,I escaped capture by jumping over the road wall and I raced the Italians moving along the road. I tore across country over plowed land, small brooks, over hedges and fences. The 3d Company, 26th Imperial and Royal Rifle Regiment and a heavy machine-gun platoon of the Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion were still at Fae, a mile away. They faced south and were ignorant of the impending danger. The thought of losing this last remnant of my force gave me superhuman strength. I felt a path under my feet and raced on toward Fae.

I succeeded in arriving before the enemy, and, with everything available, I hastily formed a new front to the north. I was firmly resolved to fight to the last man. Scarcely had the 3d Company of the 26th occupied the north edge of Fae, when we heard the Italians coming down the road. I opened fire when they were still some two to three hundred yards away. The hostile advance slowed down immediately and the Italian machine guns began to rattle, spraying their fire against the walls which sheltered the Styrian troops. The enemy appeared to be attacking to right and left of the road. A thousand men were yelling "Avanti, avanti!" ("Forward!")
If I wished to defeat a hostile breakthrough to the south, my reinforced company had to hold a line extending from the sawmill on the Piave, four hundred yards east of Fae castle, across the north edge of Fae to the cliffs of Mount Degnon, three hundred yards west of Fae, or a total front of nearly seven hundred yards. In the middle of this line the reinforced 3d Company of the 26th was already engaged on both sides of the road. Large gaps existed between Fae and the river and Mount Degnon. My last reserves consisted of one or two squads of the 1st and 3d Companies, the remnants of the forces which had advanced against Longarone. (Sketch 70).
In order to be able to sense hostile attempts at encirclement, and in order to have better visibility, I ordered a squad of mountain troopers to light fires along the entire front from the Piave to Mount Degnon. The riflemen knew that "the chips were down." Soon the sawmill on the Piave was burning and flames began to rise from a large haystack fifty yards to the right of the road and from various houses and barns on the left above the road.