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Show ' GEN. FRENCH ON LATEJBHTING British Commander Believes Germans Have Been Defeated De-feated by Allies. BIG GUNS DO NOT SCARE Germans Have Wasted Am-munition Am-munition by Firing Their Large Siege Guns. London, Sept. 24. 9:15 p. m. The official press bureau tonight issued a report from Field Marshal Sir John French's headquarters supplementlnc the dispatch of September 22 on the British operations in France. The text fnllnus "The enemy Is still maintaining himself alon the whole front, and in order to do so is throwing into the fight detachments composed of units from very different formation, the active army, reserve and land-wehr. land-wehr. as is shown by the uniforms of the prisoners recently raptured. "Our progress, although Blow on account of the strength of the defen-she defen-she positions against which we aie pressing, has in certain directions been continuous, but the present hat tie may well last for souif days before be-fore a decision is reached, since it now approximates somewhat to siege n arfnre. "The Germans are making use of searchlights. This fact, coupled with their great Strength in heavj artillery, leads to the supposition that they an.: employing material which may have been collected for the siege of Paris Describes Situation. "The nature of the general situation situa-tion after the operations of the 18th lf'h und 2ith cannot better be summarized sum-marized than as expressed recently by a neighboring French commander to his corps: 'Having repulsed repeated re-peated and violent counter attacks made by the enemy, we have a reeling reel-ing that we have been victorious. "So far as the British are concerned, con-cerned, the course of events during these three days can be described in ,i tt-w words. During Fridav, ih.' Isth, artillers fir as kept up intermittently intermit-tently by both sides during daylight At night the Germans Counter attacked certain portions of our line, supporting the advance of their in f n tr-. as always, by a heavy bombardment. bom-bardment. But the strokes were not delivered with great vigor and ceased about 2 a m During the day's flighting flight-ing an aircraft gun of the Third army corps aiien . b d in bringing down a German aeroplane. French Demolish Railroad. "News was received also that a body of French cavalry had demolish ed part of the railway to the north, stopping, at least temporarily, one line of c oninuinlcation which is 0,1 particular importance to the enemy "On Saturday, the 19th, the bombardment bom-bardment was resumed by the Ger mans at an early hour and continued intermittently under reply from our own guns Some of their infantry advanced from cover, apparently with the intention of attacking, but on coming under fire they retired. Otherwise Oth-erwise the dav was uneventful, except for the activity of the artillery, Khlcn is a matter of normal routine rather than an event. "Another hostile aeroplane was brought done by us and one of our aviators succeeded in dropping several sev-eral bombs over the German line. I ne incendiary bomb falling with considerable effect on a transport park near LaFre. A buried store of the enemy's munitions of war. also was found, not far from the Aisne, ten wagonloads of live shells and two wagons of cable beJng dug up Traces were discovered of large Quantities of stores having been burned burn-ed nil tending to show that as far back as the Aisne the German re-j tirement was hurried. "There wan a strong wind durlnc I he dav accompanied by a driving rain This militated against the aerial reconnaissance "On Sunday, the 20th, nothing of importance occurred until the after- j noon, when there was a break in the clouds and an interval of feeble sun-1 shine, 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 ' lose to the enemy, but the casualties incurred by us were by no means light In one section of our firing llnefl the occupants of the trenches were under the impression that they heard a military band in the enemy 's lines just before the attack developed. It i- now known that the German infantry infan-try started their advance with bands ph yin?. The offensive against one or two points uas renewed at dusk ith no greater success The brunt of the n istance naturally has fallen upon I the infantry Iin spite of the fact j that they have been drenched to the skin for some days, and their trench-i trench-i s have been deep In mud and water, and in spite of the incessant night alarms and the almost continuous bombardment to which they have been subjected they have on every occasion occa-sion been ready for the enemy's In fan try when the latter attempted to assault, and they have beaten them back with great loss Indeed, the sight of the troops coming up baa been a positive relief after long, trying try-ing hours of Inaction under shell fire Can't Scare Tommy Atkins. 'The object of the great proportion of artillery the Germans employ is to beat down the resistance of their enemy by concentrated and prolonged fire to shatter the nerve with high explosives before the infantry attach is launched Tbey seem to hae re lied on doing this with us. but thej have not done so. though it has taken them several costly experiments to discover this fact. ' From statements of prisoners It appears that they have been greatly disappointed by the fact that the moral mo-ral effect produced by their heavy-guns heavy-guns despite the actual losses inflicted, inflict-ed, has not been at all commensurate with the colossal expenditure of ammunition, am-munition, which has really been wasted By this it is not implied that their artillery fire is not good, it Is more than good it is excellent. But the British 3oldier is a difficult person to impress, even by immense shells filled with a high explosive, which detonates with terrilic lo-lence lo-lence and form craters large enougn to act as graves for five horses. "The German howitzer shells are from eight to nine inches in caliber, and on impact they send up columns of greasy black smoke On account of this they are irreverently dubbed 'coal boxes." "black maria6.' or Jack Johnsons' by the soldiers. "Men who take things in this spirit are. It seems, likely to throw out the calculations based on loss of morale n earefully framed by the German military philosophers. What Prisoners Tell "A considerable amount of information infor-mation has been gleaned from prlson-era prlson-era l bas been gathered that our bombardment on the 15th produced a great impression The opinion also s reported that our tnfantr makes - ii li u'Miit use ol the ground that the German companies are decimated by cur rifle fire before the soldiers can be seen. "From an official diary captured by the first army corps, it appears that one of the German corps contains au e.araordinars mixture of units. If the i-omposition of the other corps la similar it may be assumed that the present efficiency of the enemy's fortes for-tes is In no way comparablo with what it was when the war com menced. "'The losses In offices are noted as having been especially severe. A brigade is stated to be commanded by a major; some companies of foot guards by one-year volunteers, while after the battle of Montmirail one! regiment lost fifty-five out of sixty officers of-ficers "The prisoners recently captured appreciate the fact that the march on Paris has failed, and that their' forces are retreating, but state that the object of this movement is explained ex-plained by the officers as being to withdraw into closer touch with the supports which have stayed too far in the rear Germans Praise English. "The otflcers are also endeavoring to encourage the troops by telling them that they will be at home by Christmas A large number of the iin d believe that they are beaten. "Following is an extra from one document : '"With the English troops wo have! great difficulties They have a queer way of causing losses to the enemy. Thej make ood trenches in which they wait patiently. They caretully measure the ranges for their rifle liii and thej open a truly hellish fire on the unsuspecting cavalry. This was the reason that wo had Buch heavy losses. According to our officers, the i8h Miking forces are exhausted; the English people never really want ed war." "From another source. " The English are very brave and Fighl ii the last man. One of our companies has lost 130 men out of 240.' Quotes Interesting Letter. "The following letter, which refers to the flghtiug on the Aisne. has been printed and circulated lo the troops. "Letter lound on rman officer ot Seventh reserve corps: 'Cerney South of Laon, September 17. 1014 'My Dear Parents Our corps has thy task of holdiue the heights souln of Cerney until the Fourteenth corps on our left flank can grip the encm s flank. On our right are other corps-We corps-We are fighting with the English Guards, Highlanders and Zouaves, The losses on both sides have been enormous For the most part this is due to the too brilliant French ar tlllery. ' 'The English are mnrvelously trained in making use of ground One never sees them and one Is constant 1 under fire The French airmen perform per-form wonderful feats We cannot gel rid of them. As soon as an airman air-man has flown over us. ten minuter l iter we get their shrapnel fire In our position We have little artillery in our corps; without it we cannot go forward. " 'Three weeks ago our division took possession of these heights and dug itself in Two days ago. early in the morning, we were attacked by immensely superior English forces one brigade and two battalions -and wore turned out of our position The fellows took five guns from us. It was a tremendous hand-to-hand fighL " 'How I escaped myself I am not clear I then had to bring up sup poll on foot My horse wat wounded and the others were too far In the rear Then came up the Guard Jagier battalion, Fourth Wager. Sixth regiment, regi-ment, reserve regiment. Thirteenth and landwehr regiments Thirteenth and Sixteenth, and with the help of the artillery we droe the fellows out of the position again Our rna-chlne rna-chlne guns did excellent work; the El -lish fell In heaps " 'In our battalion three Iron crosses have been given, one to C-0 , one to Captain and one to Surgeon i names probably deleted). Let u hope that we sball In the luck ones the next time "During the first two days of the battle I had only one piece of bread and no water. I Bpent the night In tin rain without my greatcoat. The rest of my kit was on the horses, which have been left miles behind with the baggage and which cannot ome up into the battle, because as eoon as you put your nose up from In hind over the bullets whistle 'War is terrible. We are all hop-Ing hop-Ing that a decisive battle will end the war. as our troops already have got round Paris, if we beat the Eng-Ufih Eng-Ufih the French resistance will soon In broken Russia will be very quick-lj quick-lj dealt with; of this there Is no doubt. 'We have received splendid help from the Austrian artillr-r at Man beuge. They bombarded Fort Cerfon-taine Cerfon-taine In such a way that there was not ten meters of parapet which did not show enormous craters made by the Hhells The armored turrets were found upside down ' 'Yesterday evening, about 6, in the alley in which our reserves stood, there was such a terrible caii-ii caii-ii nade that we saw nothing of the sky but a cloud of smoke We had i casualties ' "Among the Items of news are the following: Recently a pilot and ob-Bi ob-Bi rver of the royal flying corps were forced by a breakage In their aeroplane aero-plane to descend In the enemy's lines. 1 le- pilot managed to pancake his ma-eliiin' ma-eliiin' down to earth and the two escaped into some thick undergrowth in the woods The enemy ccmo up and seized and smashed the machine, but did not search for our men with much zeal. The latter lay hid until dark and then found their way to the Aisne, across which they swam reaching camp in safety, but barefooted. bare-footed. 'Numerous floating brldgiee have b now been thrown across the Aistie and some of the permanent bridges had been repaired under fire On the twentieth Lieutenant (name deleted de-leted t of the third signal corps, royal engineers, was unfortunately drowned while attempting to swim across tie river with a cable in order to open up fresh telegraphic communication on the north side. Tells of Spy's Death. "Espionage Is still carried on by the enemy to a considerable extent Recently the suspicions of some ot the French troops were aroused by coming across a farm from w hich the horses had been removed Aftei some search they discovered a tele phone which was connected by an underground cable with the German lines and the owner of the farm paid the penalty in the usual way iu war for his treachery. "After some cases of vtlla'- fighting, fight-ing, which occurred earlier in the war, It was reported by some of our officers of-ficers that the Germans had attempted attempt-ed to approach to close quarters by forcing prisoners to inarch in front of them. The Germans have recently repeated the same trick on a larger scale against the French Is shown by the copy of an order printed be low It is therein referred to as a ruse, hut, if that term can be ac cepted, it is a distinctly Illegal ruse ' 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, ill in order to put them on their guard agalu6t such a dastardh ruse 1 2 1 in crder that every soldier may know-how know-how the Germans treat their prisoners. prison-ers. Our troops must not forget that If they allow themselves to be taken prisoners the Germans will not Fall to expose them to French bullets SIGNATURE OF COMMANDER.' "Further evidence has now been collected of the misuse of the white flag and other signs of surreuder. During an action on the seventeenth owing to this, one officer was shot During recent righting also German ambulance wagons advanced to collect the wounded An order to cease firing fir-ing was consequently given to our guns which were firing on this particular par-ticular section of ground The Gel muu battery commanders at once took advantage of the lull in tin- em tion to climb up their observation ladderB and onto a haystack to locate lo-cate our jtiins. which soon afterward came under a far more accurate fire than any to which they had been sub jected up to that time Misuse of Red Cross. "A British officer who was captured by the Germans und has since es- ..p.-c i eports licit while ;L pnsonei he saw men who had been fighting subsequently put on lied Cross bras-b bras-b rds. That this Irregular use of the protection pro-tection afforded by the Geneva convention con-vention is not uncommon is confirmed confirm-ed by the fact that on one occasion men In the uniform of combatant units have been captured weuriug a Red Cross Brassard, hastily slipped oer the arm. The excuse given has been tbat they had been detailed after aft-er the fight to look after the wounded. wound-ed. "it is reported by a cavalry officer that the drher of a motor car with a machine gun mounted on It, which was captured, was wearing a Red Gross "Full details of the actual damage done to the cathedral at Rheiras will doubtless have been cabled home, so that no description of it is necessary. 1 he Germans bombarded the cathedral cathe-dral twice with their heavy artillery. "One reason it caught alight so quickly was that on one side of it was some scaffolding which had been erected for restoration work. Straw had also been laid on the floor for the n i i ptlon of German wounded. It is to the credit of the French that practically prac-tically all the German wounded were successfully extricated from the burning burn-ing building. "There was no justification on mili-tarj mili-tarj grounds for this act of vandalism, vandal-ism, which seems to have been caused caus-ed by exasperation born of failure a sign of impotence rather than of strength It Is noteworthy that a well-known hotel not far distant from the cathedral, which was kept by a German, was not touched." |