Show BROKE GERMAN LINE Details of Important Allied Vic Vic- Victory Victory Victory tory Before Ypres OLD SCORE IS WIPED OUT Capture of Ridges Peculiarly Gratifying as It Was the Scene of or Former British Defeat Defeat- Defenses Shattered With tho the British Armies In France June ln In 7 In one of the most elaborately planned and daringly executed maneuvers maneuvers ma mn- of the war Sir Douglas Halg's forces have dealt a mighty blow against the German line Une in Belgium and been heen rewarded with notable gains in terrain and the capture of more than prisoners and numerous guns of various caliber In addition they inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans The Germans though apparently aware that the blow was coming and seemingly prepared to meet It were I driven from their nearly three years' years hold bold on Messines l ridge opposite poor I old Ypres Ypres In n a sense was avenged today for Messines ridge has been heen the vantage point from which the Germans have poured torrents of shells Into the stricken city The British also wiped off oft an old score against the Germans Germans Germans Ger Ger- mans for they held the ridge in October Octo Octo- ber bar 1914 and with very thin forces and virtually no artillery fought bloodily bloodily bloodily blood blood- ily but vainly to hold It when the Prussian Prussian Prussian sian troops massed their modern and overpowering weapons of war against It Prisoners taken declared that the bombardment of Vinny ridge was childs child's piny play compared with the gunfire turned upon Messines l ridge Triumph for Artillery This fire reached Its climax Just Justas as dawn was graying Ing the eastern skies and while the full moon was still suspended suspended sus sus- suspended sus- sus high in the heavens The attack was accompanied by all the arts and deviltries of ot latter day war The enemy guns and gun crews had been batted bathed for days In gas gns shells sent ent over by the range long British guns The night was filled with red In Incendiary incendiary In- In flames Shells that spurted lead lend In streams crashed in appalling numbers about the heads of the defending defending defending de de- de- de fending soldiers High explosive and shrapnel fire was carried out with such rapidity that the earth writhed under the force of the attack Mines that had taken two years to dig and fill fiU with an overwhelming explosive explosive explosive ex ex- plosive broke Into an avalanche of flaming destruction In n the half halt light of dawn This was Indeed an Ypres day of retaliation and victory for the vicious sufferings of two years and eight months Gunners Strip to Waist It was a day of Intense heat and the gunners worked stripped to the waist The attack went forward with clock- clock like regularity The British casualties were slight Three out of four of the casualties were reported to be walking cases who would return to duty In a few days The attack began at dawn and the setting was as ns picturesque as can well be Imaginable The day before had bad been hot and sultry Toward evening U there re was a serIes of thunder storms which extended well Into the night the lightning mingling with the flashes of the guns but the thunder being virtually virtually virtually virtu virtu- ally unnoticed amid the din of the can can- non A full moon struggled struggled- continuously continuously to break breal through the heavy clouds which scudded across the vel vel- velvety velvety velvety vety night sky Sing on Way to Fight On the way to the Ule front were all the familiar pictures of the war war endless endless trains of motor trucks s all nil varieties of ot horse transport the British soldiers soldiers sol sol- diers marching to battle light of heart and singing songs familiar In every American community In the shadow of an old oM windmill which has withstood the storms of or a century and been undaunted by nearl nearly three years of war the correspondent witnessed the last phases es of the seven seven- day ilay preliminary bombardment and the final outburst of the guns which sent the British Infantry confidently on their way to new successes in fighting the greatest military nation the world has ever known From Flom the German line the same lazy looping rocket sl signals nals were ascending ascending as as- to Illuminate the treacherous bit of or ground between the trenches known as ns No Mans Man's Land This night night- nightly ly Iy had been going on so so so long that the enemy considered It l cn-l en 0 I normal and took no alarm Occasionally Oc Oc- Oca blue and yellow ellow rockets would be flung Into the air nil by Germans holding the front line Une One by one the guns became silent There was the old grandmother howitzer of enormous caliber which kept breaking the lie peace at min five ute uto Intervals the shock of each succeeding succeeding suc sue explosion and the shriek of the heavy sIH shells being e emphasized h by bythe bythe the silence which lay Iny over all the surrounding surrounding surrounding sur sur- rounding country Like Volcanoes In Eruption Day was scarcely breaking when from the dimly visible ridge a score of fiery flery volcanoes seemed suddenly to spring from the earth The night had been filled with strange noises and still sUIl stranger sights but these masses of lame flame leaping from the ground had a meaning all aU their own The They were the spectacular outward and visible evidences evi l dences deuces of more than a million pounds of ot high explosives which had been burled buried deep In mines below the enemy's enemy's enemy's ene ene- mys my's positions for months All AU the world appeared lurid and nud horrible under the sinister clo glow cloThe The earth shook as If torn by a great groat sets seis seismic mic disturbance It was not a single shock The force of the explosion actually set the earth rocking to and und fro and under the Influence of the giant guns which immediately began to roar from far and near the trembling trembling trem trem- bling bUng continued Indefinitely It was 3 10 o'clock when this final terrific bombardment began It has hns seemed that lint the battle of the Somme attained the ultimate In the close m assembly of war weapons but this sudden outpouring on ridge was beyond all calculation The rho lighter field guns far forward set up a perfect curtain fire firc under which the assaulting troops trudged confidently to their allotted goals Farther back the deep throated heavies began to pour out torrents of high explosive shells on the German trenches and communications while still other guns enough to win any ordinary battle battle- confined themselves solely to the task of ot deluging German guns and gunners In baths of gas tired fired In shells of every ever every ev ev- er ery conceivable caliber The effect of this counter battery work was not appreciated until later In the day when the Infantry sent back word that their progress had hadnot hadnot hadnot not been hampered by the enemy artillery artillery ar ar- ar- ar tillery and that their casualties amounted to virtually nothing Enemy Signals for Help Great black observation balloons had stolen skyward during the din of ot the newly begun battle In Ia the wood back of the windmill spring birds awakened by the deafening clamor had begun to sing joyously Like so many children who have come Into the consciousness of being In the midst of the war these birds regarded the appalling appalling ap ap- ap- ap palling noise of the battle as a normal condition of life The smoke of the giant mines exploded exploded exploded ex ex- along the battle front meantime meantime meantime mean mean- time rose in great curling plumes toward toward toward to to- ward the sky and was punctuated by byred byred byred red signals for help from the stricken Germans In the front and support lines Never was the air all filled with more frantic notices of danger The entire horizon glowed with red balls of ot fire sent up by the nervous Germans Ger Ger- mans More and more British airplanes bean began began be be- gan an to make their appearance One flew over the tho lines Unes the flashes of the guns being reflected brilliantly on Its highly glazed wings Under this appalling fire trudged forward forward for for- forward ward on the ten mile front General Plumer's army At many places the themen themen themen men found German troops utterly dazed by the mine explosion and the ordeal of the artillery fire First Taste of New Warfare Many Mony of these troops had but recently recent recent- ly Iy come from Russia where they had spent 18 months and knew nothing of what actual warfare was like on the western front They had bolted at the first mine explosion and had only been gathered together In groups by their noncommissioned officers when tho the British appeared out of ot the smoke and shells and made them prisoner They said they had been given to understand by their officers that the British always alwa's killed their prisoners It was really pitiful In some Instances to see the manner In which these prisoners prisoners pris pris- cringed to their captors As a matter of fact the British soldier soldier sol sol sol- dier when the fighting Is done Is inclined inclined in in- almost too strongly to treat the German prisoners as pals Some of the prisoners taken en today had only gone Into the German lines Unes last night and had made their way forward under un un- under der a galling fire and had lost heavily But the troops already in the line were calling for relief in such a manner that thai their appeals not DC De Failed to Time Attack In view of the fact that the attack had been expected the German commanders com com- commanders manders were endeavoring to get theft best hest units actually into the fighting front but had underestimated when the tho British would strike The troops troop In n a strange line were utterly bewildered bewildered dered when the attack began and fell feU easy prey to the advancing British The rhe Irish New Zealanders and Australians Australians Aus Aus- who had been rehearsed In every detail of the show knew just what to do from the moment the word to advance was given The buttle battle was far more visible dui dur dulIng during ing big the first uncertain moments than later when the sun gradually burned its way through the eastern banks ol 01 clouds By that time the smoke e of exploding ex ox shells and the vapors from the blinding barrage which had been part parl of the lie artillery duty obscured the more distant landscape to such an extent that the roaring guns could not be seen seen at tit nil all although the firing was almost at ones one's feet The brilliantly leaping shrapnel shells breaking far aboveground above aboveground ground appeared through a thick mist only as grist brief f and brilliant electric sparks I British Planes Rule Air For a month past but especially since June 1 the airplanes on this front have been Indefatigably at work during every possible flying hour rhe They had bad brought down clown nearly 50 machines machines ma ma- chines in six days as a means of blinding blind blind- blinding In ing the enemy Lately the Germans GermanS' have endeavored valiantly to obtain airplane observations for their artillery artil artH lery lety but their observing machines machine have seldom been able ahle to direct more than one or two two shots before the tile Brit Brit- British ish isle fighting scouts hud had pounced upon them and either sent them crashing to tc the earth or had driven them to cover at breakneck speed Today the British planes flew farand fur far and long over the enemy's retreating lines and were only challenged b by some very shooting bad anti aircraft batteries All through the day British planes ruled the air They operated co-operated actively with the he British artillery and infantry In III maintaining the success of ot this brilliant episode In Ito modern war war- fare |