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Show HUN COUNTER-ATTACKS FAIL; FRENCH CONTINUE TO ADVANCE c . HUMBERT BATTERS AT DOORS OFjJFERE Travecy Is Captured in Movement Which Puts Gallic Lines Ahead on a Twelve-mile Front. j Picked German Troops j Fail to Budge Poilus; j Field Marshal Haig Reports Re-ports Minor Gains. LONDON, Sept. 1L Tne British, Brit-ish, in local operations, have fur-; fur-; ther advanced their line north of j Epchy snd in the neighborhood of j Verroand, west of St. Quentin, ac-j ac-j cording to Field Marshal Hsig's j communique issued tonight. j By Universal Sen Ice. LONDON. Sept. 11. The Ke.iea battle for St. Quenti:. and I-a ere rajei on. I despite torrents of rain that have tuvned the righting ground into one huge swamp and b'.inded the aviators, il:e "eyes' of the armies. To the French arm;-- under Gene: al Humbert, battering down the doors cf 1jl Fere, belong the chief honors of the day. These troops, p!o ing forward with indefatigable in-defatigable ferv or after weeks of incessant inces-sant fighting, at last official accounts ha e captured Travecy, a village a mile and a h?.lf north of La Fere, just west of the Olse. Moreover, they had pushed their lines forward along the whole tweivc-mile sector sec-tor between rit. Quentin and La Fere, passing beyond Hinacourt. halt way between be-tween these two bastions. Everywhere along this vital front German resistance has been redoubled, and ricrce lighting was raging on the St. Quer.iin-La Fere road at the time the official day communique com-munique was issued, HUNS STORM AT FRENCH IN VAIN. Ludendorff, who was outwitted by Fo:i a few days ago, when he thought the menace to St. Quentin lurked from the British to the west and northwest of that bulwark, and that the French movement from the south and southeast was merely a maneuver to retain contact with the British, lost no time in bolstering up h's thinly held lines below St. Quentin, and the bad weather of toe last h :ny-six hours lias helped htm materially in taking this eleventh-hour precaution. But the French pressure is sustained. Counter-attacks have failed, so far, to budge Humbert's line in the slightest. Thus today, when picked Teuton troops were flung at the poilus from the direction direc-tion of Essigny-Legrand, four miles south of St. Quentin, their storming assaults as-saults broke down In the French fire, which is not inconsiderably aided by American batt erica. HUNS TO RESIST - ; TO LAST DITCH. At Travecy the French now stand at a favorable jumping off place for a crossing cross-ing of the Oise. which, if successful, would hopelessly outflank La Fere. More than that, it would shatter the Germans. Jo the southeast of La Fere the French are marking time, but at any moment a quick thrust eastward may r on tract Humbert's vise also from th:t direction. Meanwhile hammer and tons figir ipg resembling the old familiar trench warfare war-fare has been going on without let-in west and northwest of St. QuenLin. There, too, the Germans are showing eery sisn of Intending to fight to t .c last ditch I and progress has consequently become slow and difficult. Nevertheless Rawlins" British troop., accord In er to Haig's nignt announcement, made fresh headway today north of Epehy and In the neighborhood of Vcr-mand. Vcr-mand. Epehy. five miles we-st of Lr Cute-let, Cute-let, really lies outside the area of the St. Quentin battle proper, but indirectly British progress there has an important bearing on the situation before St. Quentin. Quen-tin. for Le Catelet is virtually the northern 1 key ol" the Hindenburg line' central b:il- : wark. One of the chief purposes of the irreat campaign now in pro'-rress is to smasn the German system of comtnuni'atiop -. Once tise are cut or enptnrrd. the various vari-ous bastions lose their vp ) hp, bpoir. 2 (Continued cn Pase Two.) HUMBERT BATTEBS I DOORS DF LA FERE ! I (Con-laiiei f: l"i.- 0:: ) rr!i ; If,, a I i ' . ''.'' , ' , - r i . ' . ' : r I l! I . " ' ' " i r"t .1 ... . i . . ' t . r u -. ... ' r t '. I r . . ' ' ' j : i ' t : . I- .-. I . "' f- j rr . . I . t ' I'r ' " i ' r . , I. i '. " ' ' .' ' i Orm.in Ut.nrtinn Violent. : X- . . : .- ! t r j ...... 1 ' :;.;! d-' .;.).' i 4- a. c.f' i .'- ( ( ' - r r ...--:, r. j!''r a . " F - 1 1 1 - i ' , . '. 'f rr- r. a r . o ' ii . ; ; ..f t - i x i - . . - r : i .- y. r f. ' r J. ' - ( r J |