BRITISH ATTACK IN BELGIUM

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 136, 8 June 1917, Page 5

BRITISH ATTACK IN BELGIUM

PROGRESS ON NINE-MILE FRONT MESSINES CAPTURED WYTSCHAETE SURROUNDED The British have gone "over the lid" again in Flanders, and on a nine-mile front between Ypres and Armentieres have gained all their objectives. They took the village of Messines and surrounded Wytschaete, in addition to taking their other objectives on either side of these positions. Prisoners are coming in, but their number had not been counted when the cable was dispatched. The Austrians have counter-attacked on the Carso Plateau, necessitating a minor readjustment of the Italian line, but on the whole the attack proved a disastrous failure, the enemy losing heavily and being forced back to his original trenches. The Rumanian army has been reorganised and re-equipped, and is now reported to be ready to take the field again under better material conditions than when it first entered the war. The French Premier, in outlining the war aims of France, made it clear that due reparation must be made for the destruction of Northern France, and that Alsace-Lorraine must be returned. At the same time he disclaimed any intention to seek the economic or political ruin of any' of the foes of the Entente. He urged an after-war League of Peace, which would be sufficiently strong to dissuade the nations of prey from again opening the floodgates of horror upon an unsuspecting world.