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Show ALLIES DEVELOPING . SWIFT OFFENSIVE I AGAINST AUSTRIANS I Driving From Mountain Passes Toward Austrian Frontier and i lfi Across Plains East of the Piave in Northern Italy On i j All Battlefronts Allies Continue to -Make W "Inrjortant Advances. W (By The Associated Press) I On the Italian ljne over a front of 1 nearly forty miles from the Brenta to the middle reaches" of. the Piave river, ' the British, French and Italian armies ar-mies are developing witli success an 1 offensive against the Austro -Hungarians and are swiftly driving them from the mountain passes toward the Aus- 1 trian frontier and across the plains east of the Piave in northern Italy. American reserves are behind the lines prepared" to aid the allies when the opportune moment arrives. On all the other battle fronts the allied arms continue to be served. In Belgium there has been little fighting except by the artillery wings of the ! opposing armies, while In the region I around Vnrenciennes tho engagements between the British and Germans have savored more of outpost encounters than pitched battles." In whatever fighting there has been, however, Field Marshal Haig's men have retained the upper hand and taken more prisoners and additional guns and war stores. Farther south the French are continuing con-tinuing successfully their process of levelling the old salient between "the territory enst of St. Qucntin and Reth-el. Reth-el. Additional progress has been made by General Deboney's troops notwithstanding notwith-standing tho violent resistance of the Germans who all along the front are : using machine guns to retard the ad-' ad-' vance of the Frenchmen toward the important lines of railway communi-I communi-I cation to the east. On some sectors I the Germans are slowly retreating, but nowhere aro the French patrols per-Imitting per-Imitting the enemy to get out of contact con-tact with them. Aside from artillery ancL machine gun activity there has been little fighting fight-ing on that part of the front held by the Americans from the Meuse river to the vicinity of Grandpre. The Ger- mans have been heavily bombing the II American -positions with shells of all wM calibre, including gas projectiles, with 'Ml the Americans answering them shot 1 m for shot. t Ba Big Guns Pounding Enemy l5f The new big guns of the Americana jj are violently shelling German posi- Itf-I tions far behind the lines, taking un- :uj der their fire towns of strategic im- M portance from the standpoint of com- tDK munications and troop formations pre- M paring to bo sent as reenforcemcnts iH to' salient points of the crumbling bat- WL tie line. ' ' Hf. Conflans, lying to the west of Metz and the principal junction point oC communication with the big fortress 'jj on the Moselle and Epincourt and jtj Dommary-Baroncourt also important jlj railroad junctions, all were under a ijj' particularly heavy fire from the Amer- j ican guns throughout Tuesday. In. . M addition American aviators continual- 1 m ly are lending their aid to the big lti guns in the process of blasting ene'my t positions and troop concentration , . points inside the German lines. In jajj the latest operations by the aviators m; nine German machines were sent irttw crashingjdown. Many Prisoners Taken on Italian Front !h Large numbers of prisoners and I mi. numerous guns have Seen taken by jff the allied troops in the big battle that M is in progress on the Italian front. The allies, particularly tho British, are well Mi across the Piave river from where tho j ; battle line in the mountains curves fi and bends southward toward the Adrl- j atic. The latest British official com- ,M municntion announces the opposition !ftp of the Austro -Hungarians appears to Jj be weakening in the face of the at- jjjf tacks of the British Tenth army which w J is successfully driving northeastward. |