Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-10-27 | Page 1 | Teutons Battling Against British

Fighting Grimly in Face of Advance Which Threatens to Bottle Up City of Valenciennes. Boches Thought to Be Seeking to Hold Present Pres-ent Line to Prepare Their New Defenses. WITH THE BRITISH ARMY IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM, Oct. 26. (By the Associated Press, 11 p.' m.) Heavy enemy counterattacks counter-attacks on the British right in the vicinity of Mount Carmel have forced a slight withdrawal by the British. It is announced that General Rawlinson's fourth army, from October 1 to 25, inclusive, captured 397 officers and 17,334 other ranks. In addition 91 officers, and 2628 other ranks passed through the casualty clearing stations as prisoners. pris-oners. WITH THE BRITISH ARMY IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM, Oct. 26, 2 p. m. (By the Associated ' Press.) Heavy fighting continued today in the Valenciennes Valen-ciennes area, particularly along tho Kho-nelle Kho-nelle river, south of that city. Theenemy was battling grimly this morning to retard re-tard the British advance, which from its speed threatened to bottle up Valenciennes before its defenders could withdraw. It seemed certain today that Valenciennes Valen-ciennes could not hold cut much longer. Yesterday the British drove forward across tho Le Quesnoy-Valenciennes railway, rail-way, the Germans being forced to withdraw with-draw from1 their strong positions and fail back to new defenses along the Rhonelle. Ce Quesnoy was closely besieged this morning by the attacking forces. BRITISH ADVANCE TWO MILES DEEP. Southward the British Third army had pushed forward a considerable distance and forced its way through Englefontaine after severe fighting. Tho British attack north of Valenciennes Valen-ciennes yesterday had carried them forward for-ward to an average depth of two miles. The villages of Moen and Heestert were captured and Spichtestraat and Driech approached and the troops which stormed Moen pushed on to the line of the river at Bossuvt and Autryve, From statements of prisoners and liberated lib-erated civilians it would appear that the Germans intended to hold along the present pres-ent line around Valenciennes only long enough to complete the preparation of tho defences along the Maubeuge and Mons "to which they will retire shortly. Civilians Ci-vilians report that troops were set to work on this line some time ago. There was a battle In the Artres-Fa-mars sector, just south of Valenciennes. British cyclist patrols reached Artres at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The Germans threw in a vigorous counter-attack along a considerable front, but their advanced troops were forced to fall back to the line Of the railway. West of Famars the , enomy made another fierce counter-attack; they came up against Scotch Highlanders, High-landers, who not only repulsed the attack, bu t drove the Ge rm a n s bac k i o the line of the railway. The enemy sufft red heavy casualties here-t COUNTER-ATTACKS EASILY REPULSED. Counter-attacks attempted north of Fn-glefoniaine Fn-glefoniaine were easily repulsed. Ma-resches Ma-resches was heavily garrisoned by the enemy and yie advance, at least temporarily, tempor-arily, was held up here by a terrific machine-gun fire from the town. In Ven-degies, Ven-degies, which was captured, the British found a well-concealed system of camou -O.ied trenches. The whole village was barricaded and wired and presented a formidable for-midable obstacle, which evidently was meant to ,be held. Yesterday's advance south of Valenciennes Valen-ciennes was rendered doubly hard by the extension of the flooded area. The British Brit-ish were forced to work iiround this. There was hard fighting west of Conde. and, according to latest reports, the enemy was battling fiercely to hold this position with a ring of forts. An attempt by the British to cross the Rhonelle river between Artres and Sep-meries Sep-meries early toaay was Mocked by a heavy machine gun and artillery fir1 from ' the north bank of the river, but the at- J ;;irklng troops pushed ahead and estab-i3hed estab-i3hed themselves along a iine running from northeast of Scpmerics to just south of Artres.