APPALLING GERMAN LOSSES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 180, 4 September 1914, Page 7

APPALLING GERMAN LOSSES.

ALLIES PURPOSE ACHIEVED. A MERCILESS COMBAT. LONDON, September 2. Mr Martin Donohoe, correspondent of the "Daily Chronicle," telegraphing from France, says that the Fourth German Army suffered appalling losses in attempting to envelop the British. Monday's fighting was as desperate as Sunday 's. French artillery and infantry were sent to support the British, who retired under enormous pressure, and are now defying the enemy's concentrated weight in new positions.

It lias been a merciless combat throughout. The superiority of the British artillery ami the indomitable pluck of the infantry has enabled the British to achieve their purpose of delaying the German advance. A few more such days and the Fourth Army will cease to exist. Whole divisions of infantry disappeared. The Germans persist in using the massed attack, and demoralisation is increasing in their shattered ranks. The infantry has lost its elan and no longer pushes the attack with vigour. It showed marked signs of unsteadiness, and several times llocf in Monday's final assaults, despite officers' efforts to rally the men. The net result of the two days' battle is that the Germans gained a few miles at an enormous cost. There was a lull in the lighting on Tuesday morning. COPENHAGEN, September 2. A German casualty list shows that the whole of ; the infantry regiments stationed at Zabern, in Alsace, and more than twenty thousand Mecklenburg troops, have been lost*