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Show BRITISH CAPTURE LEIPZIG HUB! Immensely Strong Work Upon Which the Germans Ger-mans Have Expended All Their Mechanical and Scientific Energy Is Taken by Assault by Haig's Troops. PRUSSIAN GUARDS FAIL TO STEM TIDE Contalmaison Stormed, but Retaken by the Teutons in Counter-attack; Germans Obtain Foothold in French Trenches, but Are Driven Out. LONDON, July 8, 3:04 a. m'.-m French troops to tlie number of 4500 have disembarked at Petra bay, Mytilene, according to a dispatch dis-patch to the Daily Mall from Athens. It la probable tho latest landing of French troops Is for the purpose of recuperation lu preparation for the expected allied drive from Salonika Sa-lonika for which nearly 700,000 troops have been collected at that port. (Spnrlnl Cjitil hy Arnemnt vHUi Itnon Pally Tftlesr.pb and Iiit.rllallon.l Newtj Sorvli-o.) LONDON, July 7. The second phase of the battle of the Sonimc developed today with a strong movement by tho British over a front of approximately eight miles, extending from north of Fricourt to the Ancre. In the face of a determined German counter-offensive over a large portion of this front, into which the Prussian guards, the kaiser 'g famous regiment, were thrown, tho British in ado steady gains, capturing a series of Btrong positions. They have entered tho village of Orvillers, part of which they hold, and had in their pos-. session for a time the strong' defended town of Contalmaison. Tho Germans by a determined counter-attack regained this village, but tonight furious fighting proceeds In tho outskirts. On of the largest gains recorded by the British was won e;ist of Da BoUselle. After breaking through a (iermnn trench lino on a front of 1(JK) yards during tho night, English tron-ps today drove their advance 000 yards further on a 2000-yard 2000-yard front. Leipzig Redoubt Taken. The fighting today was a series of linked actions, with Thiepval on tint north, Orvillers and Contalmaison in tho center and the region north of Fricourt on tho south, tho point of heaviest contact. con-tact. Pol lowing the reenpt uro by the Germans of 300 yards of trenches northwest north-west of Thiepval, the British crumpled up a determined counter -at .1 adf nonth-west nonth-west of the town and today, launching an assault at dawn, captured by storm the ininieni-ely nt rong Leipzig redoubt, which the dernunis liar been fortifying for t we nt v months. This position was the principal point of support of tho Gorman hii lien t in t his region and its loss mennceH the entire wedc. Linked with this a-'tion in the south was tlie British drive on Orvillers. Hero they forced their way across more than a ij'uarter of a mile of fortified ground into tlie outskirts of the town. The Coi-talmai-on action took plac.- further to the south, while on the extreme wing of tlie advmi'-e British troops, striking f rorn a point northeast oi Frieourt , swept across three line' of German trencher and through two strongly organized or-ganized wo-j'If. German Reserves Smashed. General Uaig reports that, the German 0BB( during the d;iv were M'M'i'o, Several Sev-eral large orL'ani:i t ions of reserves were tai:en under the fire, of the British big t'lin', whieh kept up a st i ad v f irn igniji'-i. villages behind the f iermun front. The Briti h offensive today, aeenrding to ail iudira t inns, was launched at the psychological moment. It broke up a area t eon n t er -bl ow whieh the Germans api'Hretit.ly were just getting ready to st rik e fin the Knglish front . The concentration con-centration of reinforcements behind tho (Continued on Page Eight.) IITISH CAPTURE LEIPZIG REDOUBT (Continued from Page One ) ' front had been practically completed and the backfire was just (jetting undi'r way when the British artillery opened up at dawn, heralding the new drive. The. net result of the day's work, an advance at some points of 'more than half a mile, has caused great sat is tact ion in London, Lon-don, where the lull of the previous day had led to the fear that the " lug push ' was losing momentum. On the French front, joining the Brit-: Brit-: ish to the south, al! was quiet tnda v. The French now are holding a decirtediy precarious salient ami it is necessary to strongly organize the wedge they have driven into the German lines before at-; at-; tempting a new advance Approaching at the most advanced point to within ! three miles of the German base at Pe-ronne, Pe-ronne, the French salient is exposed on two sides to German attacks. The British Brit-ish fighting today helped somewhat to straighten out the line. About 700 more German prisoners were taken during, the day, bringing the total above 16,000 since Saturday. The end of the first week of the dual offensive finds the Germans driven from somo sixty square miles of French soil, with a loss m men estimated at more than 70,000, more than 100 heavy guns ami hundreds of machine guns. British Losses Heavy. The allies' losses so far are not known. , Paris reports that the French have suf- 1 fored only slight casualties and nothing of tleial is known of the British losses, beyond the stories of correspondents. Several of these have stated that the Fnglish and colonial troops lost heavily, but there is no confirmation of these statements. The first of the casualty lists, issued today, gives the names of 2(K) officers put. out of action, of whom twentv-five were hilled. Of the rank and file, 1700 names of killed, wounded and missing are given. The fear that lack of ammunition might hold back tho British troops in their Pieardy offensive, as it did in past movements, was removed today by a statement of Frederick G. Kellaway, secretary sec-retary to Dr. Christopher Addison, parliamentary par-liamentary undersecretary for the ministry min-istry of munitions'. Mr. "Kellaway, who is a" member of parliament, cited figures which show that the British output of munitions is now at the highest point since the beginning of the war. "If necessary, we could arm the front with big guns, muzzle to muzzle from the Somme to the sea, and our output is not yet at flood tide," was one or his most striking statements. .Mr. Kellaway gave statistics showing that there are now 900 new arsenals putting put-ting out guns and shells, together with 4000 private firms under government control. The total number of munitions workers in 19J4, he said, was under 2,-000,000, 2,-000,000, and there now are 3,500,000. The labor problem, Mr. Kellaway asserted, assert-ed, has been to a large extent solved by the women. Before the war 184,000 women were encaged in war industries. There are now 666,000 so.engagod. S:-!4 p. m. Despite stubborn resistance re-sistance on the part of the enemy, our infantry, well assisted by our artillery, ar-tillery, have pushed their advance ' with ' the utmost gallantry through-I through-I out this morning and gained several j important successes. Famous Redoubt Taken. South of Thiepval, after a fierce preliminary bombardment, a further portion of the immensely strong work known as the Leipzig redoubt was carried bv assault. This redoubt is situated in a salient of the German line and tho enemy has exerted all his ingenuity over lis fortification during the last twenty months. Farther south one of our brigades, j attacking from the west, forced its way across 5i0 yards of the German front-line trenches Into the enemy's defenses in Ovillers. Fierce fighting now is in progress for possesion of the . village. Following our successes of last night east of La Boisselle, we advanced our line over a maze of German trenches on a front of nearly 2000 yards to a depth of 500 yards. " North of Fricourt, Unking up with the above attack, we drove the enemy en-emy from two woods and three lines of trenches. Prussian Guards Beaten. About 10 a. m. the Prussian guards were thrown into the fight east of Contaimaison in a desperate effort to force us back. The attaek was crushed by our fire. The enemy subsequently sub-sequently fell back to the north, leaving 700 prisoners of various regiments regi-ments In our hands. About noon our infantry enrrled the village of Con-talrnaison Con-talrnaison by storm, but were subsequently subse-quently forced out again by a strong counter-attack. The enemy's casualties today must have been very severe. Large numbers num-bers of troops, retiring over Hie open, were caught by our artillery, and the village of Hazcntin-le-Petit was heavily heav-ily shelled at a time when it was seen to he full of German reserves. An officer-prisoner slates that bis battalion came under a raking machine ma-chine gun fire front one of our aeroplanes aero-planes which was flying over the battlefield at an altitude of 3000 feet. Shortly afterward the same battalion was heavily shelled by our long-range guns. A heavy rain has been falling throughout the day and the sodden ground ami flooded state of the trenches added to the difficulty experienced ex-perienced by our troops. |
