THE FIGHT FOR SAILLY

Evening Post, Volume XCII, Issue 148, 20 December 1916, Page 7

THE FIGHT FOR SAILLY

('SOU OUR'OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, 20th ' October. The capture on Sunday of the southwestern half of the joint village of Sailly-Saiilisel was a considerable battle in itself. The place had been subjected for 40 hours to a shattering concentration of French heavy gunfire, under which no fixed works could stand. And, in fact, the infantry part of one of General Fayolle's army corps, consisting mainly of men from Auvergne, got comparatively easily over the intermediate 200 yards of trenches, including two concrete redoubts which w.ere completely smashed in. In one large dug-out 200 Germans were found to have been suffocated by the fumes of exploded shells. "When the French reached the broken houses of the village," writes Mr, IG. H. Perris in the Daily Chronicle, "they found that the greater part of the garrison had been able to find shelter against the rannonade, and for several hours the most desperate hand-to-hand fighting took place. 'The village forms a rough cross, of which the head, consisting of the chateau and a ruined chapel, lies at the west .side of the Bethune high Toad, while the tail, consisting of the single street of Saillisel, stretches eastward. The head and arms of the cross were attacked by three converging columns, the northernmost of which was chiefly intended to prevent reinforcements from coming up from La Tianslov.

"Rarely have the Germans put. up a better fight. The chateau, a large country honse which once had 26 windows in its two-story front, was ihe centre of the struggle. Machine-guns pointed their deadly little mouths from every heap of .bricks and rubble. The Poilus had to bear several reverses ere thoy carried this place, and then they had to penetrate a series of deep trenches connecting the chateau with the middle of the village.

"Hardly less severe was the combat further northward amid the ruins of the old church. These also passed from hand to hand several times, before the enemy gave up, and it was the same dreadful story with every block ofhouses on the west side of the Bapaume road, where the conflict reached its limit." /

The Germans delivered a determined counter-attack, but all failed. The superior speed, accuracy, and mobility of the French 3-inch field guns have something to say for the failure of* these attempts, but principally, without a doubt, it was due to the superior will, the swift, steely daring of the French infantry. In such a feat as this theworld has never seen their "like.