TERRIBLE ENCOUNTERS RAGING

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 99, 26 April 1917, Page 7

TERRIBLE ENCOUNTERS RAGING

DESPERATE EFFORTS TO ARREST THE-ADVANCE

PICKED TROOPS BROUGHT UP

GERMAN LOSSES THE HEAVIEST SINCE THE SOMME

(B? TBLKMAPH^nUWBD PEWS. ASSOCIATION.—<tyPYpjGI|T.) (AUSTEALIAN-HBW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) (Received April 26, 8.20 a.m.) LONDON, 25th April. Mr. Beach Thomas writes :-r Terrible encounters rage across, the bare, undulating country beyond Arras, the troops, marching, charging, manoeuvring, and fighting in the .open. The Germans never used greater number of troops in counterattacks. Monchy was the centre of the storm pi Monday'.s <;ounterra.ttacks. Sart Wood and Vert Wood were shattered and broken by the terrific concentration of the British heavy artillery. The miserable remnants of the Germans in Sart Wood did not dare to debouch, but the Germans in Vert Wood persisted, despite the bloodiest of losses, and succeeded in driving us bapk a few hundred yards. Later we re-attacked, and forced the German storming party from the most important places, while the enpmy emptjed shells into Monchy, blowing up the village till only a few skeleton houses remained. We captured Gavrelle village after slight resistance. The Germans eurrendered easily, but immediately afterwards they hurled away glasses of fre?h troops ia vain attempts to recapture, it. Two battalions, unable to it^e our shellfire, bolted across the open, where the creeping barrage almost annihilated them. ' ■ ■ /

The sternest fighting was at Guemappe. Fierce counter-attaclcs temporarily drove us back. Subsequently W/B Renewed the battle, and re-stormed the village. We found eipery cejlar bjpwn jbp piece? by the shellfire. The Germans have never last more men since the battle, of the Sojmne* and their shellfire fatalities were unusually high. The fighting continues fiercely, th.c Germans bringing up the Guanjs and other picked troops, and aye massing batteries, which ppur shejls across the Scarpe Kiver to arrest the advance. The battlefronts ax» without definition. There-arp-no straight, continue™ lines of regular trencher.' The enemy is endeavouring to conceal his enormous losses by removing pv conceaKpg the dead. A captured dpcoment,-<iemandipg more/French civilian workers from "German Commandants of certain villages, provf^tha^ piave labour is definitely, ia^. corpoxated in the-German.Army system.