Show of E TELLS HOW BRITONS illy mat HAE FACED GIANT GERMAN GUNS S sih at a S idon th the official press bureau ishler erf aed Sa a report from field marshal arshal Al sir lut man 0 French 8 headquarters on tile tho hash operal operations in france the fore ore I 1 lebet follows door f ot the enemy ia till still maintaining him odle c the whole front and in order w along wait booso Bd do oso so Is throwing throw lne into tile the fight do t of units from tho the 3 coin composed posed a ott arent formations tho the active army the and nd landwehr as Is shown by med lah uniforms r of the prisoners recently ophir oared op tir 4 pa fl our progress although slow on ac vie w cant u ot f the strength of the defensive re W atlon against which wo we are pressing ng 8 ik b hu in certain directions been contina of th fl om cog but the present battle may y well 1 tur 4 B lail for some d days ays more before a do tha 1 l cislon Is reached since it now av ap v 1 tofa nearly to siege warfare al the germans are making use of 0 IB searchlights earch lights this tells fact act coupled with r 14 fal their great strength in heavy artillery leads to the supposition that they are employing material which may have T two a B tee been collected forthe forthe siege of paris confident of the result hile the nature of the general situation at after the operations of the eighteenth MI nineteenth and twentieth cannot be letter better summarized than as expressed S K recently in a neighboring french com M mander amander to hla his corps lla having ving repulsed 3 repeated and violent counter attacks made by the enemy we have a feeling that we have been victorious so far as the british are concerned the course of events during these three days can be described in a few words during friday eighteenth artillery fre fire was kept up intermittently by both tides aides during daylight at night the germans counter attacked certain portions of our line supporting the advance of their infantry as always by a heavy bombardment but the strokes were not delivered with great vigor and ceased about 2 a tn during the days fighting an aircraft air craft gun of tile the third army corps succeeded in bringing down a german aeroplane news was waa received also that a bo body dy of french cavalry had bad demolished part of the railway to the north cutting at least temporarily one line of communication which la Is of particular importance to the enemy german attack stopped on saturday the nineteenth the bombardment was resumed by the germans at an early hour and continued intermittently under reply from our guns some of their infantry advanced from cover apparently bently with the intention of attacking but on coming under fire they retired otherwise the day was except for the activity of the artillery which is a matter of normal routine rather than an event another hostile acro aeroplane plane was brought down by us and one of our aviators succeeded in dropping several bombs over the german line one incendiary cen diary bomb falling failing with considerable effect on a transport park near la pere fere A burled buried store of the ammunitions of war also was found not far from tile tho aasne aisne ten wagon loads of live shells and two wagons of cable being dug up traces were discovered of large quantities of stores having been burned all tending to show that as far back as the ainne aisne the german retirement was hurried there was a strong wind during the day accompanied by a driving rain tills this militated against the aerial reconnaissance several german attacks fall on sunday the twentieth nothing of importance occurred until the afternoon when there was waa a break in the clouds and an interval of feeble sunshine which was hardly powerful enough to warm the soaking troops the germans took advantage of this brief spell of fine weather to make several attacks against different points these were all repulsed with loss to the enemy but the casualties incurred by us were by no means light in ono one section of our firing line the occupants or of the trenches were under tile the impression that they heard a military hand band in the line just before tile the attack developed it is now known that tile the german infantry started their advance with bands playing tile the offensive against one or two points was renewed at dusk with no greater r success the brunt of the resistance si naturally has fallen on the infantry in spite of the fact that they have been drenched to the skin tor for ome days and their trenches have beet been deep in mud water and in ili spite ot df the incessant night alarms and tile the almost continuous bombardment to which they have been subjected they nave have on every occasion been ready for the en infantry when the latter attempted tempted it to assault and they have beaten them back with great loss in ac eed ed the sight of troops coming up has been a positive relief after long try trying jug hours bours of inaction under shell tire german cannon fire falls falla tile the object of the tha great proportion of artillery the germans employ ig 1 to beat down the resistance of their enemy by concentrated and prolonged fire to shatter their nerve with big high h explosives before the infantry atta attack ck Is 1 launched they seem to have retied relied on doing this with us but they have not done so BO though it has baa taken them several costly experiments experiment a to discover this fact from it onte of prisoners its pears that they have been greatly dis appointed by the moral effect produced by alair heavy guns which de elte the actual jossef inflicted has baa not cot been at all commensurate with the tha colossal expenditure of ammunition which has been wasted illy by this it is not implied that their artillery fire Is not good it Is more than good it la Is excellent dut but the british soldier to la a difficult person to impress or depress oven even by immense shells filled with a high explosive which detonate with violence and form craters largo large enough to act as graves for five horses scoff at german shells the german howitzer shells are from eight to nine inches in caliber and on oil impact they send up columns of greasy black smoke on account of this they are irreverently dubbed coal boxes black marias or jack johnsons by the tha soldiers men alen who take things in tills this spirit are it seems likely to throw out the calculations based on loss of morale so carefully framed by the german military philosophers A considerable amount of into information rt n a has been gleaned from prisoners it has been gathered that our bombardment bar dment on the fifteenth produced a great impression the opinion also is reported that our infantry makes such good use of tho the ground that the german companies aro are decimated by our rifle ride ire fire before tile the soldier can be seen from an official diary captured by tho the first army corps it appears that one of the german corps contains an extraordinary mixture 0 of units unit 5 it if th the 6 composition of the other corps is sim ilar it may be assumed that the pree ent efficiency of the forces is in no way comparable with what it was when the war commenced germans lose many officers tile the losses in officers are noted as having been especially severe A bri gado gada is stated to be commanded by a major some companies of foot guards guardo by one year volunteers while after tho the battle of one regiment lost fifty five out of sixty officers the prisoners recently captured appreciate preci ate the fact that the march on I 1 paris has failed and that their forc forces es are retreating but state that the object of this movement Is explained by the officers as being to withdraw into closer touch with tho the supports which have stayed too far in the rear the officers are also endeavoring to encourage tho the troops by telling them that they will be at home by christmas A large number of tile the men believe that they ar ari ara i beaten among the items of news are tile the following recently a pilot and observer of the royal flying corps were forced by a breakage in their aeroplane to descend in the lines the pilot managed to pancake hla his machine down to earth and the two escaped into some thick undergrowth in the woods tho the enemy came up and seized and smashed the machine but did not search for our men with much zeal the latter lay hid till dark and then found their way to the ainne aisne across which they swam reaching camp tn in safety but barefooted numerous floating bridges have by now been thrown across the aisne aasne and some of the permanent bridges have been repaired under fire on the twentieth lieutenant name deleted of third signal corps royal engineers was unfortunately drowned while attempting to swim across the river with a cable in order to open up fresh telegraph communication on the north telephone aid to spies espionage is still carried on by the enemy to a considerable extent recently tile the suspicions of some of the french troops were aroused by coming across a farm from which the horses had been removed after some search they discovered a telephone which was connected by an underground cable with the tha german lines and the owner of the farm paid the penalty in the usual way in war for his treachery after some cases of village fighting which occurred earlier in tile the war it was wag reported by some of our officers that tile the germans had attempted to approach to close quarters by forcing prisoners to march in front of them tile the germans have recently repeated the same trick on a larger scale against the french assis asis shown by tile the copy of an or order der issued by it the he french officials it Is therein referred d to as a ruse but it if that term can be accepted it is a distinctly illegal ruse charges tricks to germans during a recent night attack the order reads the germans drove a column of french prisoners in front of them this action is to be brought to the notice of all our troops 1 in order to put them on their guard against such a dastardly ruse 2 in order that every soldier may know haw the germans treat their prisoners our troops must not forget that it they allow themselves to be taken prisoners the germans will not fall fail to expose them to french bullets further evidence has now been collected of the misuse of the white flag and at other her signs of surrender during recent fighting also german am ambulance balance wagons advanced advance d la in order to collect the wounded an order to ce cease ase fire was consequently given to our guns which were firing on this particular section of ground the german battery commanders at once took advantage of the lull in the action to climb up their observation ladders and on to a haystack to locate our guns gun 9 which soon afterwards came un under der a far more accurate fire than hay any to which they had bad been subjected up to that 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