OCR Text |
Show 4:7M ha M ml Sv ii M 'W U ttWf 3 ttif $a II fill 1 M Mm Q I - f ipTfllF mm OFPlflMS III 1MWP YANKEES " J JiLES French-U. S. Troops Hurl Foe Back by Great New Offensive in Champagne Sector. Allies Push Forward on Front Extending From Suippe to the Meuse in the Verdun Region. By The Associated Press. Twelve towns and more than 5000 German Ger-man prisoners have been taken by American Ameri-can troops, fighting In conjunction with the French, in a new offensive begun with the break of day Thursday in the region extending from the northwest of Verdun - -to within fifteen miles of the cathedral city of Rheims. The Americans advanced to a depth of seven miles, overcoming the stubborn resistance re-sistance of the enemy. Pennsylvania. Kansas and Missouri troops were among the fighting forces which in less than a day won territory of great importance to the enemy and further depleted his army through men captured or killed or wounded. YANKEES TAKE OVER SECTOR. American troops have taken over a now sector In France, and In conjunction with the French have forced the Germans on the defensive on still another battlefront. The gage of battle has been thrown down on a forty-mile front extending from the Suippe river in Champagne, fifteen miles east of Rheims, eastward through the Argonne forest to the Meuse river northwest of Verdun. In the first stages of the battle the allied al-lied lines were pushed forward for material mate-rial gains that portion immediately northwest of Verdun held by the Americans Ameri-cans to a depth of from five to six miles and that of the French to the west nearly four miles at certain points. HUNS RETREAT BEFORE SHELL. Under the terrific bombardment preceding pre-ceding the commencement of the battle the Germans hurriedly quit numerous positions, and into these the Americana and French went unimpeded. At last accounts ac-counts the allied attack was progressing favorably. Many French villages and German strong points had been captured. British troops have invaded Bulgaria from the north of Lake Doiran in Macedonia, Mace-donia, making another epoch In the history his-tory of the war. Aside from the moral effect of the penetration of the mountainous mountain-ous country of King Ferdinand, th4 maneuver is likely to prove of great strategic value once the Istrumitza river valley leading toward the Sofia-Seres railway is reached. Meantime days of adversity continuo with the Teutonic allies In southern Serbia Ser-bia and Palestine, and the British and French are keeping up their maneuvers which are gradually bringing the important impor-tant town of St. Quentin into their hands. In Serbia the Serbs, Italians, Greeks and British are still threatening the enemy force;? with disaster by reason rea-son of their rapid advance and the state of confusion into which the Bulgarians and Germans have been thrown by the shock of th3 offensive Turks Harassed. Likewise the Turks in Palestine are being be-ing sadly harassed by-the lorces of the British General A lien by and the tribesmen tribes-men of the King of Hejaz. Almost surrounded east of the Jordan, the Turks arc frantically endeavoring to extricate themselves trom the converging allied forces. From the east and south the British Brit-ish are driving the Ottomans northward, and coming south to meet tho enemy and to crush him between the two allied lines are the Arabs. Seemingly, with all the crossings of the Jordan now in allied hands, the Turkish lourth army ha.s little chance to escape. Taken in conjunction with the allied offensive, of-fensive, which has materially bent back the German front In Flanders. Artois and Pkardy and along tho Aisne, the new drive of Marshal Koch in the south will bear important fruit if it meets with success. Driving northward tho entire, western bat-tWroiii bat-tWroiii would be shaken and of neces-iiiy be compelled to readjust it self. Lateral railway lines of great importance to th German positions between Laou and Ver- ' (Continued on T-'S6 Two.) h YANKEES ADVANCE DM GBEfcT FBDHT (Continued from Page One.) dun lie directly in the path of the advancing ad-vancing Franco-American forces. Vou ziers, an Important railway junction on the main line from Laon to Metis, is but twelve miles north of Servon, which already al-ready is in the hands of the French. Line Threatened. The Americans through the capture of Gerocourt, northwest of Verdun, are in the Meuse valley, which lends northward to Sedan, and a little farther west, at Varennes, have won the Aire valley, which winds in a northwesterly direction to Vouziers. A successful advance along these two valleys for any appreciable distance dis-tance would be disastrous to the German lines from the North sea to the Swiss frontier. Northwest of Verdun, Mont Faucon, a German strongpolnt of great resisting power, is said to be in American bands, as likewise are several other villages between be-tween the Meuse and the Aire. Around St. Quentin both the British and French armies have made further advance ad-vance against the Germans and repulsed heavy countcrvat tacks. In Flanders and also near Arras the British have advanced ad-vanced their fronts. |