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Show PROGRESS OF THE WAR. This has been a week of powerful reaction . by the Germans against tho forces of General Byng in the Cam-brai Cam-brai circle. The Teutons were still defending de-fending themselves desperately in the region west of Cambrai at tho beginning begin-ning of the week. By the end of the week they were attacking everywhere and the British were on the defensive except for strenuous counter blows. While bringing up reserves of men and guns to throw against the British wedge which apexed near Cambrai, the Germans ' counter-attacked near the apex, that is to say at Fontaine Notre Panic and Bourlon wood. At one time the British occupied half of Fontaine Notre Dame and had taken Bourlon village. These gains they were unable to hold. The enemy reacted again and agaiu. For five or six days tho lines shifted back and forth while Fontaine, Bourlon and Bourlon wood were being reduced to ruins. The tanks which had played such ft decisive part in the earlier fight began be-gan to be destroyed by cannon which the foe sent into front line positions. By direct hits the armor was pierced and the monsters rendered impotent. Another method used against the tanks is a deep pit camouflaged with brush and leaves. When the tank falls into it there is no immediate escape and the machine must be blown up and abandoned aban-doned if the British are forced to retreat from the neighborhood. By various means thirty of the 200 tanks have been destroyed. de-stroyed. When it began to be obvious that the tanks were no longer serviceable service-able General Byng withdrew them from the Fontaine and Bourlon regions and sent them back to await a new chance. This came late in the week when the Germans overran British positions southwest of Cambrai. The tanks went back over the British positions unopposed unop-posed bv frost-line cannon and unimpeded unim-peded by traps. They rendered excellent excel-lent service in retaking - captured J ground. The fighting at Fontaine and Bour-j Bour-j lon wood culminated last Tuesday in some of the most furious fighting of the vear. No sooner had one side gained than the other counter-attacked. Much of the fighting was Jiand to hand and the losses were heavy. In this way the Teutons kept the British out of Cambrai while evacuating evacuat-ing the civilian population and con-! con-! centrating guns and forces for an offensive of-fensive in an effort to smash the Byng wedge entirely and restore the old positions. po-sitions. Wednesday and Thursday saw more fighting near Bourlon, where tho British took some high ground and 500 j prisoners, at Moeuvres, to the west, and ; at Bullecourt, northward oo the old line. ! When the GerniRns began their of fen- . sive on Friday morning it was a twofold , blow. The enemy attacked from the north, between Bourlon and Moeuvres, and from the south Rlonc a nine-mile front, half of the lino being southward : of the Byng weugc. The attack along j the sector south of the points where the ! British had made gains was for I the purpose of entering positions j which would seriously outflank the j British if any advance was made. The 'attack along the other half of the soc-i soc-i tor was at points where Byng had j driven in his wedge and any gains here I were simply the recovery of lost ground. Roth blows wero launched ith ter-j ter-j tific, violence after a few hours of the most intensive artillery fire. The t'-rr mins in tho fir-t two hours advanced two miles on the southern front.1 reenp-j reenp-j tunng Ixi Vacqnerio and taking Villers-! Villers-! Guiidain, Gnnneliru and Gouzeaueourt. I The last-named village was the extreme I point reached ,by the Germans and they ! were driven bu-k from it and from the j ridgf to the east. Tho strcoM of thn I town w cro 1 itt ercd with (term an (lead, guns, sabres and other war materinl. Toward evening the Hritish retook J I. a Yacquerie, but they wero unable to j recover Gonnelieu or Viilers. In the first rush pome British bat tone vrere caught and the crews blew j np tho gunn. About 4000 British were j trapped and captured. At. points two (mile? bach tho British reformed for tho counterblast, and fought their way 1'or-j 1'or-j ward about half a mile. On tho cc- ond day of the battle tho British were 'still counter-attacking. ) SrKJii after launching the blow to the ( pouth tho Teutons swept in between Bourlon and Moeuvres, on the northern ! flank, anil forced their way forward about t'.o miles, ii'-aring Graincourt. ' Tlo-v mif fc red the hen i est. bm?es from j machine gun and artillery fire as they i ad van cod in den so format ions. Thei r lins broke, just north of Graincourt and recoiled. They fled back up tho . Houthern slope of the. Hdg ' Meantime the GermanH had not been idle around nrnbrai and M nsri ieres. , The v at tac k''d in thee regions hoping ! to i inn Mi in the point of the wedge, but v.-ero reputed everywhere. The hi 1 1 1 a I i i ui of tho I'.rit ih is still perilous and a retreat, from the Cambrai Cam-brai circle, or at least a partial retreat, miiv be ti Mary if counter attack do jn4 j.'ive th'-m more elbow ro"iu. While. Jj)l fujJULU butth'3 "V"" J1 progress near Cambrai the Teutons were not relaxing their efforts in Italy. Time and again they assailed the mountain positions of the Komans between the Piavo and the Brenta, but without avail. Time and again the Romans counter-attacked and even gained a little lit-tle ground and took a few hundred prisoners. pris-oners. This was the situation when the British and French reinforcing armies arrived and then tho Teutons, seeing that further attacks would bo futile and would entail useless losses, suspended sus-pended their efforts to await developments. develop-ments. Whether the Germans sent troops back into France from the Italian Ital-ian front is conjectural. There may have- been no need of such a measure. The Russian front has held no menace for weeks and the Germans probably have withdrawn hundreds of thousands of men for service in France, The French have kept the crown prince occupied in the Verdun sector. Fast of the Meuse. in the region of hill r-14, and eastward thereof, they took back iu one big bite the positions at which the crown princo had been nibbling nib-bling ever since the French major gains a few months ago. In Palestine General Allenby pushed his advance toward Jerusalem and to points northwestward. He began to meet with determined resistance and was he'd up. On the coast nis troops crossed the river near Jaffa, but were driven back to the southern side. Close to Jerusalem several severe fights occurred. The Turks have been making violent demonstrations against tho British Brit-ish lines, which, however, have not been much affected. In East Africa the British captured a force of 100 Germans and several thousand natives. The Germans unwittingly unwit-tingly stumbled into one of their own villages to find that it had been occupied occu-pied by the enemy. The long campaign in East Africa, which has been conducted conduct-ed by the Germans with brilliancy, appears ap-pears to be nearing an end. The last German forces are in bad positions and aro in danger of being surrounded and besieged. The British losses for the month of November were 120,000, to which must be added the heavy losses of Friday, November 30, not included in tho official offi-cial reckoning. The "Rainbow division," which comprises com-prises national guardsmen from thirty-two thirty-two states, has arrived in France C7t 000 strong, without losses. They have; been in training in France for several weeks. The submarine campaign has regained some of its old power. The British lost fourteen ships of more than 1600 tons and seven of smaller tonnage. The Bolsheviki government in Petro-grad Petro-grad sent agents across the lines to confer con-fer with German officers of the general staff regarding an armistice. The Germans Ger-mans welcomed the agents and agreed to a conference, which begins today at a point between the German and Russian lines. The Russians have cased fighting fight-ing on their E-tiropean front, hut in the Caucasus their troops defeated the Turks in a small engagement in the Black sea region. General Maude, commander of the British forces in Mesopotamia, died of cholera. zontal strirp's, alternate red and white, and ' that tho union be thirteen white stars on a blue field, but it did not define how many points the stnrs should have, how they should bo arranged, nor make provisions pro-visions for additional ones. One of the first, occasions for public display of the stars anil stripes is paid to 'nave been on August 6, 1777, when the new flatj waa hoisted over the troops at Fort Srhuyier. Rome. X. Y. John Paul Jones is said to have been the first to fiy ttie etars and stripes over the hiyh seas, on the Ranker, in November. 1777. The national na-tional museum has an early naval twelve-star twelve-star type flag said to have been flown by John Paul Jones during the war of the revolution. FVom the time of the revolution the stars and stripes in the flaer have varied. There were thirteen stars during the revolution, revo-lution, fifteen in the war of 1S12, twenty-nine twenty-nine In the Mexican war, thirty-three to thirty-five In the civil war. forty-five in the Spanish war and forty-eight today. The stripes were changed first from thirteen thir-teen to fifteen, and then back again tn thirteen. It may be surprising" to know that our national flag l.s among- the oldest ftacs of the nations, being older than the present British Jack, the French tricolor, and tne flag of Spain, and many years older than the flags of Germany and Italy, some of which are either personal flags or those of the reigning families. The American flag of the highest historic his-toric and sentimental value to the whole country is in the national museum collections. collec-tions. Jt Is the original star-spangled banner, which flew over Fort Me Henry, in Baltimore harbor, during the bombardment bombard-ment or. September 12-4. 1M4. and was the inspiration of Francis Scott Key's immortal poem, now sung as our national anthem. It is of the fifteen-star-and-s tripe type, adopted after the admission of Vermont and Kentucky by an act approved ap-proved by President Washington January IS. 1794. The star-spa ngied banner measures meas-ures about thirty feet square, though It was probably somewhat loncer, and Is much battered and torn, with one star missing, possibly shot away. From 1795 this form continue'? as the standard flag until President Monroe's administration, ad-ministration, when congress enacted that It should thereafter be of thirteen stripes and twenty stars, with the addition of a star for each new state, commencing July 4, ISIS, It jeems that for manv rears the army did not carry the stars and stripes In battle, bat-tle, though.it had been in geneiai u?e as a garrison flag. The land forces during this period and before carried what were known as national colors or standards of blue, with the coat of arms of the I'nited States, comprising an eagle surmounted bv a number of stars emblazoned thereon, with the designation of the body of troops. ' In 1SS4 war department regulations gave the artillery the right to carry" the stars and stripes. The Infantry and cavalry still used the national standards, which re-, re-, mained the colors of the Infantry until : 141 and of the cavalry until 17, when I that branch of the army was ordered to carry the stars and strifes. From Its adoption In 1777, however, naval vessels universally displayed the national flag. The history of our flag thus indicates that the stars and strip?s was not officially offi-cially carried by our troops in battle until the period of the Mexican wax, 1S4-5-47. In that war a flag of thirteen stars and stripes was carried by the battalion of volunteers from Maryland and the District of Columbia, and the flag of I company. Fourth rmgiment of Indiana Infantry, of thirteen stripes, with an eacle in the field. Ten flitgs of the national museum collection collec-tion pertain to the civil war. Other. Tag include some of the Spanish-American Spanish-American war, a fla e used by Admiral Charles Wilkes, I'nited States navy; a miniature flag carried bv Captain C. F. Hail in the Arctic. 1"4-16S: the American Ameri-can colors rarrled by Re-ar Admiral Peary In his Arctic explorations in 1909; the fia? carried by the Pmlthsonia n African expedition ex-pedition uruW th direction of Colonel Theodore Ko-evelt, In 1-10; and numerous nu-merous examples of the national ensign which has flown In notable engagements and during countless worthy achievements. Reclamation Record. |