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Show HEAVV FIGHTING IN SAND DUNES London, Jan 17. Having effectively effective-ly checked the German drive upon Boissons, the allies have plunged forward along the Belgian littoral in a violent offensive movement ealcu lated to relieve the pressure along the Aisne by attracting to the seacoast once again the important bodies of first line troops which were thrown to the southeasterly elbow of the German line to aid Von Kluck in his tmporary triumph The Great Dune, a mountain of sand to the east of Nieuport. ami northeast of Lomhaertzyde was violently vio-lently attacked by the rranco-Belgi-an orfces on Saturday afternoon, and today has been entirely cleared of the invaders who were routed from theii trenches by a spirited infantry attack, preceded by heavy artillery. Shells burst in the front and rear of the German trenches hurling great irifts of sand Into the air and blinding blind-ing the German defenders until thev were unable to reply to the allies fire, while showers of sand poured into the ditches, burying not a few of the occupants Hamlet Destroyed. Continuing their attack to the north of the Great Dune the allies com pletely destroyed the hamlet of Ro-dan. Ro-dan. and on the right the Creusot guns bombarded the German earthworks and trencher, to the south of St Georges Geor-ges along the canal The German official statement claims that in the fighting at Sols-sons Sols-sons the French have been driven back from one and a Quarter to two and one-half miles along a front from seven and one-half to nine and one half miles wide In the past four weeks, according to Berlin, the French losses "mav be estimated at not less than 1." 000, while the German Ger-man losses were less than one-fourth that number " The Germans state that the allies have made no gains worthy of mention, men-tion, while the Germans have made important advances north of La Bas-see. Bas-see. on the Aisne, and the Argonne region. re-gion. Artillery Duels. Of the fighting in Flanders the German Ger-man statement simply records a continuance con-tinuance of artillery duels in the operations oper-ations of today and yesterday. In France they In mi to have blow n up a factory near Blang , northeast of Arras, capturing a number of prisoners prison-ers there. while some progress through sapping operations is reported report-ed in the Argonne The French report admits the seizure seiz-ure by the Germans of the factory, but adds that the French retook it by a sharp counter aitack and have succeeded in maintaining their position posi-tion there. Artillery duels continue in the vicinity vi-cinity of La Bassee and Lens as well as near La Boissoll. where the French guns demolished one of the German trenches German attacks were repulsed near a sugar factory In the region of Try-on, Try-on, along the Aisne. and at the French trenches at Beaulme while In the V'Icinltj of Perthes and the Verdun, the French attacked the German Ger-man positions and made considerable progress, despite the heavy snowfall The fall of snow in the Vosges ami in tile Argonne region ha. completely tied the hands of the troops and no operations of any importance were attempted on this section of the front |
