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Show t LONDON, Nov. 21. The Hindenburg line has been broken to a depth of four to five miles, the war office announces. an-nounces. The British troops stormed the system of first line defenses de-fenses on the whole Hindenburg front between St. Quentin and the Scarpe river. From St. Quentin to the Scarpe is thirt3'-two miles. The British infantry and tanks pressed on and captured the second system of defenses over a mile beyond. Hindenburg Support Line. The second system of German defenses captured by the H British known as the Hindenburg support line. The British 1 captured Benavis, Lameau wood, La Vaccjuerie,- the defenses 1 known as Welsh ridge and Ribecourt village. Their operations I ; are continuing. I " "Several thousand prisoners have been taken. fi lie Winnie vjci iiia.1 i 1111c; w co l u j. luc victual uli muiu lu lug Bapaume-Cambrai road has been captured. The British also fought their wa)' through Couillet wood. Lieu tenant-General Sir Julian Byng is in command of the attacking army. The attack was begun 3'esterday by the third army. There was no artillery preparation and the Germans were taken completely com-pletely by surprise. The towns of Havriricourt, Marcoing, Graincourt and1 Anneux and Neuf wood have been captured by the British. -mm A large number of tanks moved forward in advance of ) j the infantry when the attack was opened and broke through . j ; successive belts of German wire defenses, which were of t great depth and strength. ; LONDON, Nov. 21. The number of prisoners taken ; thus far by the British is given at about 5,000 in a Reuter dispatch filed today at British headquarters. Jfl ! LONDON, Nov. 21. Despite the continuation of the :I ? storm on the British battle front, the British troops and tanks 'IS-' were still pushing forward today, Reuter's correspondent at W' headquarters reports. ! Official British Announcement. Tho announcement follows: "Yesterday morning Ih'e Third army, under command of General The Honorable Honor-able Sir Julian Byng, delivered a number num-ber of attacks between St. Quentin and the river Scarpe. These attacks were carried out without previous artillery preparation and in each case the -. enemy was completely surprised. -J "Our troops have broken into the enemy's positions to a depth of bc- M , tween four and five miles on a wide 00. front, and have captured several thou- J sand prisoners, with a number of guns. ' Our operations are continuing. , , "At the hour of assault on the prin- was cipal front of attack a large numbor yer , of tanks moved forward in ndvance of tno lnfantry and broke through suc-lowieas suc-lowieas j cesslvo belts of German wire which ok were of great depth and strength. v I "Following through the gaps made ! by tho tanks. Scottish, English and Welsh regiments swept over the enemy's outposts and stormed the first defensive system of tho Hindenburg line on the whole front. "Our Infantry and tanks then swept on in accordance with tho program, and captured the German Bccond system sys-tem of defense more than a mile beyond. be-yond. This latter is known as tho Hindenburg support line. "In tho course of this advance East County troops took tho hamlet of Benavis and Lateau wood after stiff fighting. "English rifle regiments and light infantry in-fantry captured La Vacquerie and tho formidable defenses on tho spur known! as Welsh ridge. Other English county j troops stormed the village of Ribecourt I and fought their way through Coillet wood. "Highland territorial battalions crossed the Grand ravine and entered Flesquieres where fierce fighting took place. The West Riding territorials captured Havrlncourt and the German trench systems north of the village while the Ulster battalions, covering the latter's left flank, moved northwards north-wards up the west bank of the Canal du Nord. "Later in the morning our advance was continued and rapid progress was made at all points. English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh battalions secured the crossings on the canal at Masnieres and captured Marcoing and Neuf wood. "The Westring troops who had takon Havrlncourt made remarkable progress prog-ress oast of the Canal du Nord, storming storm-ing the villages of Graincourt and Anneux An-neux and, with the Ulster troops operating op-erating to the west of the canal, carried car-ried the whole German line northward to the Bapaume-Cambrai road. "West Lancashire territorials broke into the enemy's positions east of Epehy and Irish troops have captured important sections of the Hindenburg line between Bullccourtand Fontaine les Croissillcs. "The number of prisoners, guns and materials captured cannot yet be estimated. es-timated. "The spell of One, dull weather which favored our preparations for our attacks broke yesterday. A heavy rain fell during the night and the weather is now stormy." Even the rather extensive operations in this sector, reported last night by the British war office, which the German Ger-man staff announced it had taken measures to meet, gave hardly a hint that a push in any such force or over such a wide extent of front was in prospect. There has been little speculation over the possibility of a British attack m lorct on uie Avesiern ironi mis lan in any area other than that of Flanders ' where the main British effort for sev- eral months past has been expneded. Even here the lateness of the season and the difficult nature of the ground at this time of year, particularly, seemed seem-ed to give littlol basis for rxpectatlon of anything more than local strokes. It has been apparent, however, that German attention was largely centered center-ed on tho Italian front where the raili-i tar move in force intended to crush Italy is now in full swing. Admittedly, numbers of German troops had beon sent to the Italian front, but the assumption as-sumption has been that these had been largely drawn from the Russian front where the collapse of the Russian military mili-tary machine had made it unnecessary for the Germans to maintain much more than trench garrisons. It is considered con-sidered possible, however, that tho British secret service had knowledge of a weakening of the German front in the west by the withdrawal of highly trained, experienced troops to give backbone to tho push in northern Italy, an opportunity thus being afforded to catch the Germans unaware and give them a crushing blow while their strategic reserve in the Franco-Belgian war area was depletod. , The element of surprise, the reports state, was a large factor in the initial British success as, contrary to tho almost al-most Invariable rule in this war, there waB'no advance preparation by the British artillery, the troops going "over tho top" and falling upon an enemy apparently ap-parently without any expectation that he was about to bo attacked. The British movement in its early Phaser, gives the appearance of being the most ambitious that has been undertaken un-dertaken by them on tho western front since the creation of their new armies gave them tho power to strike effective blows. The attack came almost without with-out warning, tho only premonitory symptoms being a series of somewhat elaborate trench raids. The British drivo covers n part of ,the field of last year's offensive on tho Somme and the section of the Arras battle front south of Arras. Tho I British center In this thrust is nearly I opposite Cambrai, tho important Ger- ' man base and railway center from which the British line on the Bapaume-Cambrai Bapaume-Cambrai road was about nine miles distant as it had stood for several months past. The main force of the push just launched is apparently aimed at Cambrai, along this road. What is known as the Hindenburg line was established by the German command last spring when the famous "strategic retreat" on the Somme front was carried out. It was a supposedly impregnable barrier. The British and French, however, showed in the Arras battle, last spring and in the French drive on the Aisno front that the line was by no means a bar to their progress and serious inroads in-roads were made upon it in various attacks on both these fronts. No definite def-inite break, however, sufficient to permit per-mit the penetration of a large force I which could debouch for large field operations op-erations had over been effected. 1 , Review of War Situation. j Field Marshal Haig has sprung a j surprise on the Germans In northern France, attacking suddenly on a front i of more than thirty miles and breaking the famous Hindenburg line to a maximum max-imum depth of nearly five miles. His troops are still fighting their way forward for-ward In the most spectacular offensive of the war on the western front since the trench lines were established. Haig's troops pressed until at Mar- 1 roing and at Anneux on the Bapaume-Cambrai Bapaume-Cambrai road they were only three and three-quarters miles from Cambrai, the important German base and important railway junction which apparently is the British objective. Several Thousand Germans Captured Several thousand prisoners have been taken by the British as well as large quantities of war material. The attack was carried out In unfavorable atmospheric conditions and the weather weath-er has since grown stormy. Today's official German statement reports no change on tho Italian front indicating that tho Italians are still holding firmly their line on the Piave and westward to the Trentino. Russia Out of War. Tho Russian Maximalist government has declared Russia out of war, according accord-ing to information from German and Scandinavian sources. A dispatch to Copenhagen from Berlin says that the belief is held in the German capital that the prospects for "a peace of conciliation" con-ciliation" are far better than previously. |