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Show OLD OUTPOSTS GOSLGFBRITISH Anglo-French Attack Has Pre-March Line as Present Pres-ent Objective. Everywhere the Germans Yield, Though Ordered to Hold at All Costs By PHILIP GIBES. (New York Times-Chicago Tribune Cable, Copyright.) WITH THE BRITISH ARMffiS, Sept. 18. On a front of something like sixteen miles, from below Gouzeaucourt to Savy wood, near St. Quentin, an attack was made by English, Scotch, Irish and Australian Aus-tralian troops, in co-operation with French battalions on our right. By Hol-non Hol-non wood, as I ss.w myself this morning, morn-ing, a number of prisoners had been taken. Our men, by stubborn fighting against stiff opposition in some of the enemy's positions, made ood progress and scaled much of the high ground immediately west of the Hindenburg line. On the southern part of our front several sev-eral villages, including Peiriere, Epehy, Templeux-le-Guerard. Le Verguier and Hargicourt, have been the scenes of fierce conflicts, but some of these places are now in our hands, according to reports re-ports just received, and from one end of this attack to its other boundary Germans Ger-mans have been forced to yield ground which they were ordered to hold at all costs, in order fo protect the forward positions po-sitions of the Hlndenlurg4 litre. .' c , Foe Has Many Guns. Our primary object this morning was to gain our old outpost line as it existed before last March, running along the ridge from which spurs strike down to tho St. Quentin canal. The enemy had already withdrawn his artillery behind that canal and was relying mainly on long-range high velocities to harass our positions and silence our batteries. He is now strong in gun power for the protection of the Hindenburg line, and from- personal observation I can say he has a most unusual number of these long-range guns, and he used them this morning to draw a line of fire across our country. He was, however, holding his outpost lines, once ours, as I have said, with many of the same troops who have borne the full brunt of our recent battles and suffered exceedingly, so that their spirit has been lowered to gloomy depths, while other divisions less mauled, though by no means unscathed, are being be-ing held by the Gorman command to defend the Hindenburg line Itself. No Rest Given. This has been the enemy's policy for some time, owing to his increasing dearth of men after the allied attacks along many parts of the line. He has given his troops no rest or support until un-til they are thoroughly worn out, when he stiffens them with material of the better bet-ter class. It is a merciless, but. from the German point of view, a necessary, method. Since August S our Fourth army, for instance, engaged thirty-four divisions, twelve of which have been in battle for the second time. Among those facing our men today were remnants of the Second guards division, whose spirit is at a low ebb after their fighting at Mont St. Quentin and Peronne, in which city they were hunted into ramparts and routed out like rats after a savage defense. de-fense. j The Gorman Alpine corps who were i met tills morning are the best class of troops the enemy can now nyuster and they fought hard and fiercely at Lin-court Lin-court and other places outside Peronne. so that in spite of their losses trouble j is expected from them. Hun Defense Stubborn. Today the Mi.h German cavalry division, divi-sion, from which we captured many prisoners pris-oners in recent dnys, proved it.self of much vaiue as a demounted force, notwithstanding not-withstanding their supercilious pride over their own infa.nt.ry. The 'jOist division,' which came into line againsi us for the first time, Is made up of men from Knst ! Prussia, Biulen and Silesia, j The Fifth Bavarian, the Seventy-ninth !ocim;'i dMsien and the Twcn ty-fi:':h aw all much tried men. To be fair tr 1 i all of them, however, I r.v.st say, f;; , j as today's fighting goes, they put up a 1 i lc a e ar.d stubborn dr.. er.se, which has j only been broken down by the determined I efforts of our own men. IKjbt south of ! the right of our line of attack a pre- 1; in iiia ry or-rr Lio-i was cj rried on yes-i yes-i lord ay by th--- EriUsh ar.d French trvops around l'olnon wood nnd Savy in oder to shorten the disLi.r: . Our tToors enr-'urod H''r,oa viiiL;.-;?.. while the Krrr..- .i av.inoed hlf v .xi through Sry t -;. in ,o:'.' cn.-f s r.-r. j r'-,:nr ur. nrv- rcn A'r.cd in t'.: vil'ar, j a vvd as iv : he -ond. -,v: : ;i : Frnr-h i ;i j : ;i ' ; 1 1 a i d , r d ' "t ';- v (Conttritied on Tagc licvro.) FOUR OUTPOSTS GOAL OF BRITISH (Continued from Pae One.) not mopped up in our ease until early this morning-, white the French had some trouble in clearing their ground of this j menace behind them. j No night came before the battle, which: was to begin at dawn today. It was a j night of white mayic, following a strange- j ly beautiful sunset, when the sky way : tilled with wide winys of flame, and then, I when the iight faded, with wings of white down until the stars ca me out into the ! pale blue of the sky and the moon rose, , flooding ail the fields with radio nee. i There was no wind and the air was warm and the trees stood very still, darkly etched under this starli t heaven as in Italy, but unusual in northern France. Over the lines shells were bursting and guns firing with a scarlet glow, but behind be-hind there was peace und beauty. At 2 in the morning it began to rain stead 11 j', making the ground soft and sticky, especially where it was cut up by the shell craters and chalky trencnes, so that if was not good going for i he tanks, crawling from their covers, nor after v ard for thy men in fighting kitu, who hact to s'-ram hie over tha t slimy i chalk, 'Where there was no grip for the j foot, and to go forward behind a creeping barrage of fire to meet Ufeir enemy and iiis machine guns. That was u mucky, and the mists of dawn, creeping up fiom ' the undergrowth of wood, flowing in the valleys and hanging low below the rain i I clouds, prevented aerial observations, and I saw a number of our planes darting i about like swallows, as though distressed by this lack of vision. In Stricken Peronne. Later when the battle was in progress below the weather cleared shortly after ; dawn. 1 wont over our old battlefields , through the stricken city of Peronne and j the villages beyond on a far journey I . through this land of ruin, where the ! gaunt skeletons of trees a re like gal-' gal-' lows on. the sky line and dawn breaks with its light through shcli holes in : houses and Vails, and in the first twilight of the day there is a leprous look over I all the wild litter of these fields. We had no long preliminary lom bard-men bard-men t before this attack. At twenty mtn-'. mtn-'. utes past five, when our men rose and went away, it was a brief hurricane of fire followed by a moving barrage, to which our troops kept ciosc together with perfect confidence. Several of them toid me after that it was a perfect wall of shellfire, and so accurate that no shells buret short to do them harm. The -enemy's retaliation bv artillery was quick and not outrageously hea vy. according ac-cording to officui I views, 1 hough viol en t enough, in the opinion of the men who had to take the risk and were bounded! by it. , End of Open Warfaic Fortunately, they were beyond Hk main point, to use a gnnner's phrase, before the full weight of it fell, but in spite of the; light Josses in the first assault, if I might .Indue from the conditions in the field dressing stations t-p which our walking walk-ing wounded ca me first, it z s significant signifi-cant of the eDd of open warfare for the time being, now tha t the enemy is protected pro-tected hythe Illndenburg line, that most of these casos had been hit by shell splinters and not maohine gun bullets, as in the recent fighting. Certainly. I seldom, if ever, have seen so much from long-iangc guns as this morning, when these high velocities i bursting with high clouds of clorcd smoke over a wide line of the count ry behind Lc Verguier and F-largicourt. almost al-most amounted to n barrage, which is not generally possibic wil h high velocities. |
