ALLIES RETAKE DIXMUDE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 242, 16 November 1914, Page 8

ALLIES RETAKE DIXMUDE.

FIGHTING IN WATER. A STUBBORN CONFLICT. " LONDON, November 14. \ The Allies recaptured Dixmude early .gn Wednesday morning. PARIS, November 14. The eommander of the German army corps which attacked Dixmude ordered the Germans not to retnrn aliye'if they did not take Dixmude. The conflict was a fight for the dykes. It was,impossible to use heavy guns, owing to the morass.. •The Gerjnans cleverly* surmounted the difficulty by carrying machine-guns in the inundated areas. During the battle both sides were fighting in water. The earliest German onslaughts resulted in the slaughter of 80 per cent, of the attackers, who were unable to cross the

flooded fields speedily.

Finally ■ the

•corpses formed a footway for the in- *» fantry, who followed. Many German wounded were drowned. Some, realising that there was no chance of rescue, begged their comrades to kill them. After the capture of Dixmude the Germans attempted to cross the Yser to the right and left of the town, but were repulsed, and their communica- ■ tions with Dixmude endangered. The Allies then shelled Dixmude with shrapnel and high explosive shells, until the Germans were threatened with extermination. ' A bayonet charge enabled French marines to recapture the greater part of the town. Germans had been holding a number of isolated farms, amid the flooded area around Nieuport. The Allies' infantry was unable to reach them, but the artillery finally forced the Germans . to fly from the burning buildings, amid pitiless shell fire. General Joffre has sent to General French two German standards found in trenches captured by the British.