CROWN PRINCE'S ATTACK MOST FURIOUS OF THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume xc, Issue 79, 1 October 1915, Page 7

CROWN PRINCE'S ATTACK MOST FURIOUS OF THE WAR

PARIS, 30th Septembar. A wounded French officer, describing the Crown Prince's latest attack in the Argonne, declares that it was the most furious of the war. There was a tremendous bombardment, to which the French guns replied with little effect. The French parapets melted away, but the French soldiers did not flinch. The German guns abruptly ceased, and a new kind of burning liquid (a mixture of tar and petrol) was projected into the trenches, making an almost unbearable teat. Tb.e French stood to their ground. Suddenly German, infantry loomed up. ' Iniire intervals between the assaults of liquid fire, wo poured in streams of le&<but the human wave slowly reached our trenches. Bloody hand-to-hand fighting followed in the dense smoke. We were obliged to fall back. Our reserves dashed forward, but were stopped by a curtain of lachrymatory shells. They put on respirators, but they were unavailing. Nothing daunted, they dashed through the vapour, holding their breath, and with their eyes streaming. They fell in serried masses on the Germans, who wavered and broke. \ ' Our artillery prevented supports from coming up, and thus, after twenty- \ four hours' fighting, the enemy retired to his trenches, though he held some of ours here and there. .