| OCR Text |
Show Have Taken Over a Sector of French Front Where Battle Bat-tle Is Raging. WITH THE AMERICAN ARMY IN FRANCE. Feb. 3. (By the Associated Press. A German barrage fire at sundown sun-down last night opened the heaviest bombardment of many days along the American sector, the American artillery artil-lery replying shell for shell as the firing fir-ing of the heavy guns spread along, several kilometers of front. Two Americans were killed and- nine wounded during tho bombardment and one suffered shell shock. WITH THE AMERICAN ARMY" IN FRANCE, Saturday, Feb. 2. (By the Associated Press.) American troops now are occupying a sector of tho Lorraine Lor-raine front in France. This announcement announce-ment is permitted by the military censor. , The correspondents permanently accredited ac-credited to the American army have been informed that they mny proceed to virtually any point within the zone of fire, except the trenches, without j escort and without special permission. Arrangements were made today whereby newspapermen may proceed to any brigade headquarters a few kilometers behind tho trenches after first reporting their presence within the zone to the headquarters of the division of which the brigade is a part. Unless there is some occurrence which makes it inadvisable in the opinion of the brigade commander for correspondents corre-spondents to move nearer the front they may walk from his quarters to regimental headquarters behind the lines' Within Easy Range. Since all roads immediately behind the "front are within easy German gun range and under German observation, not more th"an two correspondents may move forward together. They must wear gas masks in alert position and helmets. Newspapermen must obtain special permission to visit tho trenches and must be accompanied by an escorling officer. Tho fact that American troops were in the trenches in Lorraine was revealed re-vealed by the Gorman war office three months ago. At that time, according to an official German announcement, j the Americans were on the front at the Rhlne-Murno canal, which intersects inter-sects the battle lino near the German border due east of Nancy. This announcement an-nouncement was made in the official report from Berlin of tho first German raid on the American positions in which three Americans were killed, five wounded and twelve captured. Tho4eastern end of tho battle line in France and Belgium runs through French and German Lorraine. French Lorraine, in which is the American sector, is included in the departments of Meuse, the capital of which is Verdun; Ver-dun; JIeurthe-et-Noselle, whoso capital cap-ital is Nancy, and Vosges, with the capital at Epinal. The length of the1 front in French Lorraine is about 150 miles. This section of the battle lino extends ex-tends into the Meuse from tho Marne near St. .Monehould. and runs eastward east-ward to the north of Verdun, south to St. Mihiel and east to tho German border There it turns to the southeast, south-east, and almost parallels the border to the vicinity of Leintry. Below Lein-try Lein-try it cuts a section of French soil, past Badonviller and Senones and to the ea3t of St. Die, and again crosses tho German border at a point west of Colmar. The remainder of the line to the Swiss boundary is in Germany. Since the battle of Verdun there has been no fighting of great importance import-ance along this front. For tho most part, it runs through high and broken country. Since the present battle line was established early In the war, there has been comparatively little activity on the front to tho east of the Verdun sector, the nature of the coun try making large operations impracticable. imprac-ticable. oo |
