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Show BATTLE FRONT DESCRIBED BY PMEAU Official Account of British War Office as to Happenings Happen-ings on Firing1 Line September Sep-tember 25 to 29. LONG-RANGE DUEL WITH THE BIG GUNS Germans Wound Nine Men With 300 Shells; English Soldiers on Second Line Play Football. LONDON, Oct. 2, midnight. The official of-ficial press bureau' issued tonight a statement from the headquarters of the ; British expeditionary force, under date of September 29, concerning the move-j move-j ments of the British force and the ! French armies in immediate touch with it. The statement follows: "The general situation as viewed, on the map remains practically the same , as that described in the last letter and ; the task of the army has not changed. It is to maintain itself until there is a j general resumption of the offensive, j "No ground has been lost. Some has been gained and every counter attack at-tack has been repulsed in some in-1 stances with severe losses to the en-! ! emy. , I "Nevertheless the question of posi-J tion is only a part of the battle, and i there has been considerable improve-1 : ment in the situation in another im-! im-! portant respect. Eecout offensive ef- forts of the enemy have been made ; without cohesion, his assaults being de-; de-; livered. by comparatively small bodies 1 acting without co-operation with those , on either side. Some of them, indeed, evince clear signs of inferior leadership, this bearing out statements made by prisoners as to great losses in officers ; suffered by the enemy. Less Artillery Fire, i "Further, the hostile artillery fire has decreased in volume aud deteriorated deterio-rated in control aud direction. The first is probably due to tlio transfer of metal to other quarters, but the- two latter facts may be the direct result; of the activity of our air craft aud their interference with the enemy's air j reconnaissance and observation of his! fire. j " The Germans recently have beeu re-' lying, to some extent, on observations : from captive balloons sent up at some distance in the rear of tbeir first line, which method, whatever its cause, ia a poor substitute for the direct overhead reconnaissance obtainable from aero-, planes. , "As a consequence the. damage being done to us is wholly disproportionate to the amount of ammunition expended by the enemy. For the last few days it 1 has amounted to pitting ccrtaiu areas with large craters and in rendering some 1 villages ' unhealthy, ' as the soldiers put! it. A concrete example of what was on one occasion achieved against our infantry trenches is given later. Aeroplane Brought Down. ' ' Of recent events an actual narrative narra-tive will be carried on from the 2uth to 20th, inclusive. During the whole of this period the weather has remained Hue, though it has not beeu so bright as it was. On Friday, the 25th, comparative compara-tive quiet reigned in our sphere of action. The only incident worthy of special mention was the passage of a German aeroplane over the interior of our lines. It was flying high, but drew a genenil fusillade from below, with the result that the pilot was killed outright out-right and the observer was wounded. ; The latter, however, was able to continue con-tinue the flight for some miles, but was , then compelled to descend, his petrol- eum tank having been struck. lie was i captured by the French. j "That night a general attack was' made against the greater part of the j allies ' position aud it was renewed in j the early morning of the 2iSth. The I Germans were everywhere repulsed with loss. Indeed, opposite one portion of our lines, where they were caught in mass by our machine guns and howitzers howit-zers firing at different ranges, it is estimated es-timated that they left 1000 killed or woumied. "The mental attitude of our troops may be gauged from the fact that the official report next morning from, one (Continued on Page Five.) BAHLE FRONT FRANCE DESCRIBED (Oontiinied from Fage One!) " 1, cont, n l v. T.HU1 .f,htinK' ran thus ( "'V1'1-: night was quiet, 0I- both f n ri1rtain amo"t of shelling "t ? ,othl' eni""-v ,md ourselves on nVr rli t"' "; "ttllck "IC on oui r.ght. At 5 a. m. there was a seneral attack on the right of the -th dntston, but no really hoavv firillg Mir her tnctfoctual efforts to'drive ' us back were made, on y.iturdav at. S a. in. and .u the afternoon, and the art;'lory cimtinned all day ' The Germans camo on in'-T' formation for-mation several lines shoulder to shoulder shoul-der followed almost immediatclv bv a column in support. After a very fow nunutes the men hud closed up into a mob, which afforded au excellent target tar-get tor our fire. "On Sunday, the 27th, while the t.ermnn heavy guns were in action, their brass bands could be heard plav-ing plav-ing hymn tunes, presumably at divine service. "The enemy made an important advance ad-vance on part of our line at 6 p. m., and resumed it in auothor part with no better success, however, than on tho previous night. Sniping continued all dav a,ong the whole front. 'On Monday, the 28th, there was nothing more severe than a bombard-rneiit bombard-rneiit and intermittent sniping, and this inactivity continued during Tuesday, Tues-day, tho 2h, except for a night attack at-tack against our extreme right. 'An incident that occurred Snndav, the 27th, serves to illustrate the tvno of fighting that has for the .last, two weeks being going on intermittentlv ou various parts of our line: It 'also brings out tho extreme difficulty of ascertaining what, is actually happening happen-ing during an action, apart from what seems to be happening, and points to the value of good intrenchments. Guns Well Hidden. "At a certain point in our front our advance trenches are on the north of the Aisne, not far from a village on a hillside, and also within a short distance dis-tance of German works, being on a slope of a spur formed by a subsidiary valley running north and a main valley val-ley of tho river. Jt was a calm, sunnv atteruoon, but hazy, and from cmr point of vantage, south of the river, it was difficult to locate on the far bank the well-concealed trenches. "From far and near the sullen boom of guns echoed along the valley and at intervals in-a different direction the j sky was flecked with the almost motionless mo-tionless smoke of antiair crafts shrapnel. shrap-nel. v "Suddenly and without any warning, for the reports of the distant howitzers from which thoy were fired could not be distinguished' from other distant reports, re-ports, three or four heavy shells fell into the village, sending up huge clouds of dust and smoke, which ascended in a brownish-gray column. To this no reply was made by our side'. ''Shortly afterward there wa.s a quick succession of reports from a point some distance up the subsidiary valley on the side opposite our trenches and therefore rather on their flank. It was not possible, either by ear or by eye. to locate the guns from which the sounds proceeded. Almost simultaneously, simultan-eously, as it seemed, there was a corresponding cor-responding succession of flashes and sharp detonations in the line of tho hillside along what appeared to be our trenches. There was then a pause and several clouds of smoke rose slowly and remained stationary, spaced as regularly reg-ularly as poplars. "Again there was a succession of reports re-ports from German quick-firers on the far side of the misty valley, like echoes of detonations of high explosives. explo-sives. Then the row of expanding smoke clouds was prolonged bv several new ones. Another pause and silence, except for the noise in the distance. English Guns Roar. "After a few minutes thorn was a roar from one side of the ma:;i valley as our field guns opened one r'ror another an-other in a more deliberate Gre upon the positions of the German guns. After six reports there was again silence, save for the whir of shells as they sang up the small valley. Then followed flashes and balls of smoke, one, two, three, four, five, six as the shrapnel burst, over what in tho haze looked like some ruined buildings at the edge of the wood. "Again after a short interval the enemy's en-emy's guns reopened with a burst, still further prolonging the smoke, which was by now merged into one solid screen above' a considerable length of the trenches, and again did our guns reply. "And so the duel went on for some time. Ignoring our guns the German artillerymen, ar-tillerymen, probably relying on concealment conceal-ment for immunity, wore concentrating all their efforts on a particularly forceful force-ful attempt to enfilade our trenches. For them it must have appeared the chance of a lifetime and with their customary cus-tomary prodigality of ammunition they continued to pour high explosives or combined shrapnel and common shells into our works. "Occasionally with, a roar, a high angle projectile would sail over the hill and blast a gap in the village. One could onlv prav that our men holding1 the trenches had dug themselves in deep and well and that those in tho village were in cellars. "In the bazo, bathed m sunlight, not a man, not a horse, or a gun nor even a trench was to be seen. There were only Hashes and smoke and noise. Above against the blue sky several round white clouds were hanging. The only two visible vis-ible human souls were represented by a olistening speck in the air. On high, iilo were to be heard more, or less geu-tie geu-tie reports of the anti-aircraft projectiles. projec-tiles. "But the deepest impression created was one of svmpathv for the men suh-iected suh-iected to the bursts along that trench. Upon inquiry as to the losses sustained, however, it" was found that our men had been able to take, care of themselves them-selves and had dug themselves well in. In that collection of trenches on that Sunday afternoon were portions ot tour battalions of British soldiers the Dor-sots, Dor-sots, the West Kents, tho King s Own S'oritshire light infantry, and the K'.ng s Own Scottish Borderers. "More than .100 projectiles were fired against them. The result was nine men wounded. "On the following day lOfl shells were fired at the trenches occupied by the West Kent regiment, alone. Four officers offi-cers were buried but were dug out. unhurt. un-hurt. One man was scratched. The vil-lage'itself vil-lage'itself was unoccupied. "Many camp yarns are now in circulation circu-lation among the troops, mostly of :iu amusing nature. As an instance a report is current that the Turcos, who arc our close neighbors, havo been rather short of food and have bartered us two heavy guns for 10,000 tins of ration beef. The market rate of exchange between pins and meat, however, has not yet been worked out. "Our troops in the second line at certain cer-tain spots pass the rime by iinntinu the football on the villnce place?. It is ril-i ril-i mor'd that a Gorman aviator observed ! this and has sent in a report that the British forces arc thoroughly disorganized disorgan-ized and running about their post in blind panic. " |
