ST. ELOI VICTORY

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 78, 1 April 1916, Page 5

ST. ELOI VICTORY

FUSILIERS' IRRESISTIBLE

ADVANCE

THROUGH A MAZE OP BARBED WIRE

LONDON, 31st March.

Mr. Philip Gibbs, the war correspondent, says: "The British achievement at St. Eloi was of real importance. It was' planned by fine generalship, and carried out with superb courage, showing that, if given a chance, our men will show an irresistible spirit.

"The position was as strong as any of the German lines, and formed a salient in a fork of two roads, leading from St. Eloi to Messines and Warneton, and just where the enemy's line. strikes in westward below the southern shoulder o£ the Ypres salient. In tlie centre of the triangle was The Mound, giving the enemy a commanding position over our trenches On the side of the hillock was a ruined house, from which the enemy machine-gun swept the ground in front of their entanglements. The position was thickly wired, and seemed almost impregnable against infantry. The network of trenches behind was faced by strongly-built parapets seven to nine feet high, and but for our mining underneath would have been impossible to assault without great loss.

IN STRAIGHT LINE TO THE. GOAL.

"Suddenly, at 4.30 o'clock in the morning, there was a great noise like the upheaval of a mountain aide or a volcanic eruption, a great warning blast wliicJi tore the earth open and shook the ground for miles around with a frightful spasm. Tons of earth were flung up hi a black mass on a long frontage, and almost before the earth 7ell our men were away like a Rugby team in straight line to the goal. Two battalions had quitted the trenches before the enemy machine-guns had time to fire on our parapets, yet only a minute elapsed from the last rumble o£ the explosion before the swish of German bullets came from each side of the enemy salient, which was a wreckage of earth and human debris. Already the Fusiliers were flinging themselves upon the entanglements, which, notwithstanding the explosion, stood strong. The Fusiliers swept across, not stopping to cut the wire, but stormed through it, and over it, tearing their clothes and lacerating tneir hands and shoulders in a great jumbled mass of human energy. "At the outset many lives were saved by the coolness of a young officer and two or three men. From the ruined house the German machine-gun was fired. The young subaltern dashed for it, threw a bomb at close range, knocked out the gun, with the officer and several men ; the others were bayoneted. If the bomb had failed the whole company of Fusiliers would have been mown down.

"There was little resistance within the salient. The trenches were blown shapeless, and the communication trenches were blocked up. None of the survivors within the salient could escape, and they had not the strength to resist. They were dazed and terrified, and came out of holes in the earth shaking and moaning and utterly cowed, and were made prisoner without trouble. FUTILE COUNTER-ATTACKS. "Only on the extreme right was there any attempt at a counter-attack. A party of German bombers came up just when the Northumberland Fusiliers found a store of German bombs, which came in useful at an awkward moment. The German Grenadiers did not make a desperate attack, and thirty-five surrender cd. We then took the second line, causing the enemy to fall back beyond tho marshy ground a thousand yards to the rear, where they made redoubts for ma-chine-guns. "Our men did not suffex heavily, although they were extremely exhausted, looked like a ragged regiment of scare- ■ crows. They were dirty, but by tho' Lord they were wonderful to see as they marched back from the fields of death."