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Show ALLIES IKE GAINS ON ftUJH IIS ENGLISH TAKE GERMAN LINES ALONG FRONT OF EIGHT MILES AFTER LOMG FIGHT. French Troops Arc Battering Their Way Into Perrone, While Russians Arc Advancing Upcn German A 8tronghold at Kovel. London. Thn capture of the whole of the German first system of defense on a front of II, two yards (nearly elht miles), after ten days and nights of continuous lighting, Is announced in Hie official report from British headquarters head-quarters In France. The number of prisoners taken exceeds 7,500. The Ilrilish front la less than nine miles from La Ponno and with the French army to tho south lookin7 down on Peronne from the high plateau pla-teau on the south bank of the Somme. Uoth important strategic points are gravely menaced. The French troops of General Foch ftpent Tuesday in consolidating their gains and in bringing up the heavy Buns by which they propose to batter their way into Perrone. The French batteries, directed by swarms of aeroplanes, which have practically driven the Germans from the air, are bathing the shattered city with steel and pounding the German defenses into duts. The Germans are counter attacking furiously at many points on tills front ns well as against the lines held by tho British. They are trying desperately desper-ately to retain their hold on the Mar metz woods, the larger part of -which was wrested from them by the troops of General Halg, and are Btrlklng desperately des-perately at tho British along the La Pomalne-Peronne high road. The Russian armies are rapidly advancing ad-vancing on tho German stronghold at Kovel, it was announced Tuesday in Petrograd. Fierce lighting continues on the west side of the Stokhod river, on both sides of the Itovno-Kovel railroad, rail-road, and the czar's troops are pressing press-ing the Teutons back toward Valdimir-Volynnskl, Valdimir-Volynnskl, west of Lutzk. According to Russian reports, the retiring Germans are setting forest fires to cover their retreat. The most serious of these are raging between the Styr and Coryn rivers and south of the Sarny-Kovel railroad. |