ENEMY WAKING HIS SUPREME EFFORT.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 72, 25 March 1918, Page 5

ENEMY WAKING HIS SUPREME EFFORT.

POSSIBILITY OF A TURNING MOVEMENT FROM HAM. GERMAN CAVALRY MOVING ALONG ROADS NORTH OF HAM. (Received 8.35 a.m.) LONDON, March 24. Reuters headquarters correspondent, telegraphing to-day, says:—There is no doubt the Germans are making their supreme effort against the British. Fifty enemy divisions have already been flung into the battle, whilst probably 25 more an in close reserve. The Germans are pushing on, regardless of cost. Under their tremendous onslaught our troops in many places are very slowly falling back voluntarily in excellent order. They maintain an unbroken front to the dense enemy masses. Yesterday and throughout the night the battlo-front continued to extend southward. I hear that the French are now engaged on our right. The most intense fighting was around Roisel and Tincourt Bouchy, 2i miles west of Roisel, where with indomitable valour every foot was contested. The slaughter of the enemy was appalling. Twelve times every available gun in this urea was concentrated upon solid masses of Germans. Northwards the enemy is pressing hard upon the defenders of Hermies, on the Bapaume-Cambrai railway, eight miles east of Bapaume. They got into Mory, but a most dashing counter-attack drove them out, and a large parly were surrounded and probably captured. The enemy is advancing in bom north and south towards St. Lcger, a mile and a-half south-west of Croisilles. Dense columns are reported to be marching from Lagnicourt down the BapaumeLagnicourt road, through Vaulx-Vraucourt, four miles north-east of Bapaume. In the afternoon bodies of cavalry were seen moving down the roads from Ham to Metigny, four miles north-west of Ham, and from Ham to St. Quentin, and it is rumoured that some infantry crossed the Somme Canal. We are confident that the Germans' tremendous, probably despairing, effort has failed, but the test is a supreme one. News comes out of the thunderous vortex in disjointed scraps, difficult to piece together. If correct it suggests that the Germans arc attempting a turning movement pivoting on Ham, in which case, owing to the masses of troops at their disposal, the situation here may prove less promising than along the rest of the line of withdrawal. Meanwhile the weather remains brilliant. Terrible slaughter of the enemy hordes continues from the ground and air.—(Reuter.)