Moving to the British Red Cross headquarters in Genoa from late 1917 to spring 1918 after the Italian defeat at the battle of Caporetto, Ashby then moved to Rome as an education officer (lecturing on ancient Rome to the troops), and only resumed his role as director of the school in spring 1919. On his return, he and Strong had immediately to restart the school's work on the sculpture catalogue which Stuart Jones had begun, though Ashby still managed to return to Malta in March 1921 to work with Themistocles Zammit at Hal-Tarxien (in work published in the Antiquaries Journal (1924) and to continue his interest in prehistory by collaborating with Peet and H. Thurlow Leeds on an essay on the western Mediterranean for the Cambridge Ancient History (1924).