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Show ALLIES HOLD THEIR LINES I e 4- I Germans Making Desperate Fight j to Gain Headway Force of Blow Concentrated on Ten-mile Front Haig's Forces Reacting Strongly and Improv- ing General Positions Masses of Infantry ! Advancing in Flanders. LONDON, April 25. Heavy fighting continues on the sector east of Amiens, Reuter's correspondent at British army headquarters reports. The Germans appear to have obtained a foothold in d'Aquenne wood, west of Villers-Bretonneux but the British counter-attacked and drove them back to the fringe of the wood. At several places the British have retaken re-taken ground and their general position has improved con-1 siderably. Both British and German tanks participated in the fighting fight-ing at Villers-Bretonneux. The British tanks, the correspondent correspon-dent says, got among a mass of Germans and did great execution. execu-tion. The Germans made a determined attempt to rush toward Kemmel hill yesterday but without appreciable effect. The French counter-attacked and restored the position. At 2 o'clock this afternoon the Germans put down an intense gas barrage on the Anglo-French front in Flanders and two hours later deep waves of infantry delivered assaults Fighting still is in progress. Allied Line Standing Firm. Yielding only slightly at the first shock of the German assault in the renewal of the drive of the great battle bat-tle south of the Sonirae. the British ;md Franco-American lines are now standing firmly against the desperate assaults of the enemy. On the ten-mile front south of the Somme where the force of the blow has been concentrated, the British have lost Villers-Bretonneux and the French the village of Hangard -en -Santerre. Already Field Marshal Haig's forces have begun to react strongly in I ihc vicinity of the former place and I tlie have regained ground around it I and improved their general position. Hangard has once before been in German Ger-man possession during the Somme battle and it changed hands twice in the present fightlnp before the French drew out of it and established themselves them-selves firmly on Its western edge. The Germans have made repeated attempts to debouch from the place. Germans in Desperate Struggle. The fighting is continuing today I 'With the Germans desperately strus.el-ing strus.el-ing to make the considerable headway i they must have if they are to gain anything but relatively valueless local advantages. Thus the decision in the renewal of the battle is by. no means yet with either side The meager gains of the asemy, however, after a pause long enough for him to bring up his heaviest artillery and when he must have been at the pinnacle of his j strength, may well be compared with the sweeping successes achieved in the S ; beginning of the battle last month ."3 when he won miles of ground and cap- tured lens of thousands of prisoners. Meanwhile, the Germans have not j .abandoned even temporarily their Bf-91 Bf-91 torts on the Flanders battlefront. Ap-e Ap-e parent);,- they are centering their blows pg n the sector dominated by . Mount Kemmel with the object of forcing the defenders trom thit bulwark, They attacked at-tacked i he French last night in the region northeast ol Bailleul and alter 0 being repulsed returned to the attack 3gL loday with assaults In the same sector ef . and on the British front further east. The battle here was still in progress when the British official statement i -was issued this afternoon. 00 L NDON, April 25. Three attacks I made by (he Germans on British positions posi-tions east of Amiens have been re-I re-I pulsed, it is announced officially; On the Flanders front late yesterday yester-day the Germans attacked French positions po-sitions northeast of Bailleul and were repulsed. Early this morning after an intense bombardment they renewed 1 -their attacks in this sector and against the British positions further eaaL The British regained ground around Villi rs-Bretonneux by counter-attacks and took prisoners. Severe fighting was in progress all night in and around Villers-Bretonneux and still continues. Heavy casualties cas-ualties have been inflicted on the enemy en-emy there. On the Bailleul sector the battle is j continuing over a wide front. 5 Germans Capture Hangard. PARIS. April 25 The Germans I Sfeave captured .the -village of Hangard, V r on the front southeast of Amiens, the J war office announced today. This bat-tie bat-tie continued with violence through the night in this sector. The French lost Hangard. recaptured it and linal ly were again forced out of the town.' but are holding the ground Immediate ly around It. The statement follows: ' The battle continued with iolence around the village of Hangard on which the Germ. 'tis concentrated their orcee during the eight French troops resisted aliantly and counter-at-i tacked several times with success. The Ullage was lost, then re-taken by the French and finally remained in the hands of the Germans at the cost of heavy losses. "The French are holding the immediate imme-diate outskirts of Hangard. and the Germans have not been able to clc- I bouch from the town in spite of re- ' pea ted efforts. "On both banks of the Avre the artillery fighting continues with violence. vio-lence. "The French made severdJ success-ful success-ful raids, especially west of Lassiprny.1 south of Coucy le Chateau and in Lorraine. Lor-raine. We took a certain number of prisoners. "The artillery fighting was very active ac-tive in the Woevre. In the region ofi Fllerey and Regneux. Elsewhere thero is nothing to report " PARIS, April 25. The long range! bombardment of Paris w;r re umed again lodav. Americans Taken Prisoners. WASHINGTON, April 25 The number of Americans killed in the' Gprman attack of April 20 near Seich- eprey was less than a dozen and the number of injured was about twenty. Th se figures, made public toda, ap peared to give support to the German ' claim that 183 Americans were captured cap-tured since it previously had been admitted ad-mitted that the American casualties were around 2 I o . oo |