ENEMY'S FRANTIC EFFORT

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 50, 28 February 1916, Page 5

ENEMY'S FRANTIC EFFORT

TO BREAK FRENCH LINE APPALLING LOSSES IN FIERCE ATTACKS P. & 0. LINER HALQJA MINED SUNK OFF DOVER WITH LOSS OF 25 LIVES. RESCUING STEAMER MAKES SECOND VICTIM. The terrific battle, one of the greatest of the war, for Verdun continues, and, at the price of enormous sacrifices, the Germans have made some little progress. They have advanced as far as the former fortress of Douaumont, five miles northeast of the fortress, where they captured an empty shell. There was not a gun or a man in the fort, which was dismantled in the early stages of the war. The enemy advanced beyond this fortress, but a French counter-attack drove him back and gave the defenders possession of the ground won from them to the southward of the fort. The French are holding their ground well at other points, and are by no means perturbed at the turn of events, military authorities being convinced that in launching such an attack the Germans are playing into the hands of the French. The enemy's losses, according to his own admissions, have been appalling, while he has been compelled to exaggerate the number of the prisoners captured in order to offer an adequate set-off for his own sacrifices. Further to the westward, at Celles and St. Marie a Py, German attacks broke down before the French defence, while : along the British front there is little new to record. The Maloja, the crack steamer of the P. and 0. fleet, struck a mine off Dover and sank. It is officially announced that the majority of the 140 passengers on board and the crew have been saved. The steamer Empress of Fort William, a 2,000-ton collier, which rushed- to the assistance of the Maloja, ■ also struck a mine, and sank in half an hour. Her crew were W saved. 7 The Russians are still making rapid progress in Armenia, where the Turkish retreat has not yet been arrested. In Persia considerable progress has been made by the Russian expedition, and Kermanshah, the headquarters of the Germans, who engineered the trouble, is now in their hands. The whole of Rumania's first line army is now in., battle array, and the Interventionist movement is growing in strength daily. One of its leading supporters, M. Filipescu, has gone to Russia on a secret mission.