BAPAUME AND NOYON

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 207, 30 August 1918, Page 5

BAPAUME AND NOYON

RAPID PROGRESS ON SOMME

REPORTED OUTFLANKING OP PERONNE Continuous ■ progress is reported from both the British and French fronts. The British have captured Bapaume, round which the New Zealanders drew an ever-tightening ring, and further to the south, on the old Somme battlefield, they have reached the villages of Le Transloy, Les Boeufs. and Morvcl, on the line between Bapaume and Peronne, while it is also reported that they have outflanked Peronne. They are biting deeply into the main Hindenburg line round Croisilles, whila they are also little more than half a mile from the famous Queant-Drocourt line. Sir Douglas Haig reports that in the last nine days the British have taken 26,000 prisoners and 100 guns. Progress on the French front is equally important. Noyon, the strongest centre in the nose of the great salient formed by the German line in France, has fallen, and the French by approaching Ham, another important centre a dozen miles to the north-east, threaten to outflank the enemy forces south of the Somme. On Wednesday the French cleared six miles of territory on a twenty-mile front, and released forty villages from the enemy's grip. The Americans on the Vesle were strongly attacked, and were driven back at Fismette and Bazoches, but they aro now heavily attacking in turn, and it is probable that the position will soon be rectified.