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Show HEROIC BATTLE OE LONDON SCOTCH. London, Nov u, io 20 p m. The official press bureau issues the fol lowing descriptive account, which has been communicated by an eyewitness present with general headquarters, and continues and supplements the narrathe published on November 6 of the movements of the British j forces and the French armies In immediate im-mediate touch with It: November 4 Before the chronological chrono-logical record of the course of events is resumed a short description will be given of the part in the battle played on October 31 by the London Scottish regiment. The occasion is not looked upon as a special one, because this battalion acquitted itself it-self well for that was reparded as a matter of course nor because it has done better than the regular batta lions, who have been doing as much, if not more, for weeks on end It Is a special event because it forms an epoch in the military history' of the British empire and marks the time that a complete unit of our territorial ter-ritorial army has been thrown into a fi?ht alongside Its sister units of the regular army. Briefly, what happened happen-ed was this: , "On Saturday October 81; being ordered to take up a section of the firing line to support some of our caralry and having advanced to its position under heavy fire from field guns, howitzers and machine guns, the battalion reached a point where further movement forward was impossible im-possible There it maintained itself until dusk, when it proceeded to entrench. en-trench. From 9 o'clock tha' night until 2 a m, Sunday the Germans made numerous attacks on the Scottish Scot-tish line, all of which were repulsed by rifle fire. At 2 a. m. they made their great effort and assaulted the 1 1 uui uuti iwii oi mi jx.iMiiuu mi i eai i force A considerable number sue- j ceeded by a detour in getting around the flank of the regiment A large proportion of these were engaged by the companies In support and re-1 serves, while others penetrated be tween the first and second lines of trenches and assailed our firing line in the rear. While lighting with rifle and bayonet bay-onet was going on, both in front and immediately behind the firing line, a reserve company still farther behind made repeated bayonet charges ngaln6t the enemy who had got round, and so prevented the entire envelopment of the battalion Behind Be-hind the tirinc line the scene of combat com-bat was lit up by a blazing house, which the Germans had set afire. "At dawn It was discovered that large numbers of the enemy had, ac cording to custom, worked round both flanks with machine guns, and a retirement was carried out This was effected under a cross-fire from machine puns and rifles. "Naturally, in an encounter of this nuture, the battalion suffered a heavy-loss, heavy-loss, but, though unable to maintain its position, It acquitted itself with gallantry and coolness in a situation cf peculiar difficulty and, following the national moto of 'Nemo me im I pune lacesslt ' Inflicted far more damage dam-age on the enemy than it received. British Operations. "To turn to the general narrative: On November 1 the full violence of the enemy's attack again fell on our l ft, their main efforts being still directed slightly south of Ypres Such was the force of the onslaupht and the weight of artillery supporting It , that our line was temporarily driven hack. It was soon readjusted, however, how-ever, and by evening the situation in this quarter was the tame as it had been twenty-four hours earlier "That night some shells were 'hrown Into Ypres itself. Further to the south the Germans had, during the previous night, retaken the village vil-lage of Messlnes and had also captured cap-tured Wytschaete By 11 a. m. our cavalry, working in co-operation with the French, drove them out of the latter place by a brilliant bayonet charge, but we did not occupv it A few of the prisoners taken at this place were only 17 years of age and said that they had had practically no training and little food. Some of them had never Hred a rifle before Germans Suffer Heavily. "The fact that Messines still remained re-mained in hostile hands necessitated a slight adjustment of our front in the center. But apart from this there was no change in this quarter, the bombardment continuing all day. During the action around these two villages, thc Germans moving across our front suffered very greatly from the massed fire of our horse artillery at short range, but, though they fell literally in heaps, they still came on with admirable determination. "South of the Lys some of the trenches which had been lost on the previous night were captured by us; otherwise the situation remained as it had been. No attacks were delivered de-livered against ub and the enemy contented themselves with bombard lng our trenches A heavy battery-was battery-was knocked out by our artillery' fire. "One of our prisoners, a Saxon pro-feesor, pro-feesor, who was captured on the first day he entered the field, stated as his opinion that Germany realized I that she had failed in her object and i was only fighting in order to obtain good terms. What his opinion is worth remains to be seen. Aeroplane Captured. "During the afternoon a German aeroplane was captured, quite uninjured. unin-jured. On the second, on our left the pressure still was kept up toward Ypres, and, at first our line was once more forced back, but it was restored toward evening by a vigorous advance ad-vance carried oUt in oooperatlon with the French who were rendering us very timely assistance, "Thc- maximum effort of the Germans Ger-mans on this day, however, was more to the south of Ypres, as if to drive a wedge between that town on tho north and Armentieres on the south, and the bombardment of our positions in this quarter of the field was especially heavy, though it was well replied to by a concentric fire from our guns and those of the French. 'The French delivered a counterattack counter-attack in the direction of Wytschaete, viiich remained disputed ground, fiercely blazing amidst a hall of shell from both sides. "More to the south the enemy advanced ad-vanced in force, but were checked. Still further toward our right a hostile hos-tile attack in the neighborhood of Armentieres met with the same fate On our extreme right several assaults . a were repulsed, though at one or two points the Germans gained ground slightly, obtaining possession of Neuve Chapelle. "The Inundation around Nieuport had by this day reached the enemy s ti cnches. and It is stated that two heavy guns and some field artillery had to be abandoned in the mud "The third was, on the whole a comparatively uneventful day which enabled our troops to p,' a much needed rest In front of Ypres thc German Infantry' ceased tn press, but to the south. In the neighborhood of V ytschaete and Jiarlebeke, they made unsuccessful attempts to get forward, effective counter-attacks being be-ing delivered by the French and British. In this quarter the fighting v.BB of a severe nature. "South of the river there were some minor attack against our trenches, which were beaten off It seemed that the violence of the German Ger-man efforts was abating, even the cannonade beint; in some places less heavy than it had been." oo |