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Show JGRRENTiAL RAINS HAMPER OFFENGiVE I i . FURIOUS DOWNPOUR PREVENTS ACTION ALONG THE FRONT ! IN FRANCE. LRussian Armies Are Again Attacking Along Whole Leng'.h of Their Front, Having Pierced German Lines in Two Places. London. Official dispatches record little change in the situation on the British front. They show that the Germans have brought up strong reinforcements rein-forcements from other parts of their line and are stubbornly contesting every yard of the British advance. Torrential rains on July 4, however, hampered the offensive operations and the British action was confined mostly to consolidating the ground already wen. The French have captured two more villages and are on good roads to Peronne. But there is yet no decrease de-crease in the violence of the German attacks in the Verdun region. Dispatches from German war correspondents cor-respondents indicate the realization that the central powers are losing the initiative, whkn their favorable positions posi-tions on the interior lines enabled them to hold throughout the long course of the war. Moreover, in com-.menting com-.menting cn the enormous resources in munitions and war material the entente allies have been able to pile tip through the wearying months of preparation, they equally recognize that a profound change has occurred in the relations of the belligerents. Sin ukaneously with the opening of the Ang'.u-French offensive, the Russian Rus-sian armies are again attacking on the "whole length of their front. An entirely en-tirely new offensive has been opened f gainst Prince Leopold's Bavarian forces in the region of Baranovichi, where the Russians have pierced the German lines at two places; while the Italians are maintaining strong pressure pres-sure along their entire front. The Er:; ish newspapers consider that these events prove that the moment mo-ment cf the "great squeeze" has at last arrived and not since the war began be-gan have hopes ran so high. Nevertheless, Never-theless, almost every British correspondent corre-spondent on the western front warns against being ever sanguine, and daily reiterates that the progress must necessarily nec-essarily be Flow and methodical. Vp to Ju:- 4, the Anglo-French captures cap-tures in the battie of the Somme totaled to-taled mere than 14,000 prisoners, twelve heavy guns and twenty-eight field guns. This booty represents for the man in the street a very satisfactory satisfac-tory result of a little over three days' lighting. |
