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Show FLAMING FURY OF BAnLESOFARRAS Roar of Great Guns Heard far Back of Allied Lines in France. (From a Staff Correspondent of The Associated Press.) WITH THE BRITISH ARMIES IN FRANCE, via London, April 23, 10:50 p. m. The battle of Arras, which has been smouldering for a week past, burst Into "flaming fury again today, and is still raging tonight with some of the heaviest fighting of the war in progress. The sky is alight for miles with the flashing of guns, with star shells that spread a moonlight paleness over the battlefield and with vari-colored rockets which flash signals to the opposing op-posing artillery. The cold east wind carries the echoes of the reverberating reverberat-ing cannonade far back of the British lines. ' The fighting today covered approx- . Imately an eight mile front, from , south of Vimy ridge to a point well , below Crolsllles. At the north end of 5 the attack the British swept over Ger- , man fixed positions running almost , due south from Lens and captured long series of German positions in front of the Ilindenburg lino and a great number of prisoners. More than twelve hundred prison- ' ors were counted in this sector late today and others were still coming in. 1 The largest number of prisoners was from the 141st Pomeranians, who surrendered in hundreds after brief ( resistance. A battery of field guns also was taken. Between Gavrelle and Croisilles the heaviest fighting occurred along both banks of the Scarpe and around Mon-chy-le-Preux, where the British Easter advance had projected a sharp salient into the German lines. Monchy was taken in the first phase of the Arras battle after three days' fighting and has been held against desperate counter-assaults. The Germans always managed to cling to tho slopes on either side of the hill on winch Monchy le Preux is perched, being the highest point ea6t of Arras and Vimy, overlooking the great broad eastern plains of northern north-ern Franco. Tho Germans today were undoubtedly throwing their full force into their resistance along the Scarpe. They had brought up strong reserves to oppose a further British advance and had thrown in scores of new batteries bat-teries of artillery. The fighting about Gueraappe, due south of Monchy, was extremely bitter. bit-ter. The attacking British waves "went over" in the half gray light of dawn. It was still dark enough to make a flory spectacle of the barrage which crept ahead of them a veritable verit-able wall of exploding shells. Men who have been over several times under un-der the protection of a barrage are apt to grow over-confident in following the shells and occasionally get hit by bits flying back, although virtually every shell clearing the way for the infantry infan-try bursts forward with a great spray of shrapnel bullets. A modern barrage bar-rage as set up by the British and French gunners is a terrifying thing to face, and the Germans involuntarily involuntar-ily break before it, many of them seeking seek-ing any dugouts available. Today in many parts of tho battle fronts there were no more dugouts to use, as shelters, and the Germans had to stand and fight with the result that their casualties were higher and the prisoners fewer in those sections of the lino. Machine Guns. The British advanced in nearly every ev-ery instance from mere half trenches where they had been lying for the past week awaiting the bringing up of artillery and the order to advance. The Germans opposite them had been digging at every possible opportunity, but they, too, were unable to construct con-struct more than sections of an unconnected un-connected trench, with4' many guns concealed in every possiblo nook and corner. In the villages which skirt- : ed the battle front it seomed as if every ev-ery building contained machine gun crews. Many machine guns were fired ! on the opposite bank of the river Scarpe and It was somewhat difficult J to deal with them. j The artillery preparation for today's ' attacks did not cover tho ground and did not equal in intensity that of Easter Eas-ter Monday, when the first battles of Arras wore launched. There had been what is termed a deliberate bombardment bom-bardment for two dayB, but nothing liko the mass of flro, which was concentrated con-centrated to blow tho Germans out of their old positions opposite the cathedral cathe-dral city. I i |
