LAST NIGHT'S NEWS. THE DARDANELLES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 2733, 31 July 1915, Page 5

LAST NIGHT'S NEWS.

THE DARDANELLES.

ALLIES' GREAT TASK.

LONDON, July 29. Router's correspondent with the Mediterranean Expedition quotes a battalion commander as saying while crouching in a dug-out watching the .shells bursting: '"For goodness sake, tell the people at home what a tremendous proposition we are up against. Reuters correspondent goes on to sa y ; "By dogged determination and Homeric courage the Allies are no longer holding on by the skin-of thoir teeth, but a supreme task is absad. The fire-ravished soil is furrowed as though by a Titanic ploughing competition on every side. Fragments of shell aggregating iron enough to build a battleship lie on the trackless waste, and barbed, wire of enormous gauge trails across the scorched, yellow stubble every dozen yards. " Twelve miles up the coast the Australians and New Zealanders are holding a wonderful cliff-perched enclave, wiiich compels the Turks to maintain at least two divisions as a counterthreat. It constitutes a permanent thrust at their communications. "The Turks are being .abundantly fed, which is a great factor in sustaining their war worthiness. Prisoners admit their weariness, but the Turks are still convinced that England conspired to betray them to Russia, and still regard the annexation of th-pir two battleships which were building in Britain as an act of piracy, while Germany is looked upon as a benefactor in giving them the Goeben and the Breslau, and sending submarines Ho attack the Allies' warships."