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Show liEllLI. FIGHTING YANKS AMERICANS CROSS VESLE UNDER LEADEN HAIL FROM GUNS OF RETREATING HUNS. Every Hour the Positions of French and Americans Grow More Secure, it Now Appearing That Germans Expect to Retreat to the Aisne. With the Army in France. The Hermans Her-mans are slowly moving toward Rerun. Rer-un. They are not going very rapidly, but they are going just the same. They are making a stubborn defense and fierce counter-attacks, but gradually are being driven back over the road they came in their mad rush toward l'aris. And the allied forces are convinced con-vinced that soon the retreat of the Huns will become a rout; they believe victiiry is in sight. I'nder an inferno of shrapnel and machine gun fire and waves of gas, the Americans forced their way over the Vesle river on August 7, while rain, varying at times from a drizzle to a downpour, drenched the battlefield. French troops already have gained positions on the American left and the joint movement has straightened out the Hue from a point west of Bazoches to Fismes. The Hermans lost considerably in casualties. Prisoners' stories tended to corroborate the opinion of those previously taken that the Germans expect ex-pect to continue their retreat until the Aisne is readied. The armies on both sides are still fighting duels anil the Germans continue con-tinue small arm resistance. But every hour the positions of the French and Americans are more secure. Throw Bridge Across Stream. Under cover of a barrage, the engineers en-gineers threw light bridges over the stream, while the offerers placed their men in position, working them downward down-ward toward the bridges. The challenges chal-lenges were accepted by the German artillery, and in a few minutes the intermittent in-termittent reports of the guns which had been beard all day were merged into one great roar. The city of Fismes, drenched with gas, is practically unoccupied, but the Americans maintain their cordon around the outskirts while the Germans Ger-mans are' raining shrapnel and high explosives into tlie town and raking the streets continually with bursts of machine ma-chine gun fire from heights on three sides of the city. On the front east of Amiens, the British Brit-ish were quick to win' back from the Germans all of the more important ground they had lost astride the Bray-Corbie Bray-Corbie road, north of the Soninie. The German attack there proved a flash in the pan. The strategic situation of the Germans, Ger-mans, all the way from Albert to the Chamnagne. is such that Ludendorff cannot think of attacking anywhere tilling that line,' hut is more likely to make considerable withdrawals shortly. short-ly. His only chance for offensive actions are in Flanders and at Verdun, and possibly at Arras. The Germans are not likely to remain re-main on the defensive long, according to General von Ardenne, the military critic of the Berlin Tageblatt. Indications are that the German high command is about ready to proceed with another shortening of the western front on a different sector, according to a Zurich dispatch to the Matin quoting a Berlin dispatch. This operation, opera-tion, it is added, has in view more particularly the release of a considerable consider-able number of divisions. |