SACRIFICES TO SAVE THE HINDENBURG LINE

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

SACRIFICES TO SAVE THE HINDENBURG LINE

MAIN GERMAN ARMIES CONFRONTED

LONDON, gsth April, Mr. Philip Gibbs writes: The. enemy's resistance was the most desperate of its kind since the Battle pf the Somme. The Germans were willing to make dreadful sacrifices to defend the northern approach of the JJindenburg line. A battalion of Rhinelanders wgs annihilated at the chemical wprksat Fampous. ■The Germans are also fighting desperately to regain the key position §t tylpnchy. Our airmen discovered that four thousand Germans had been 'concentrated at Bois Sart Wood, intending to attack, The British batteriejs filled the. woods with gas shells, and the German casualties were horrible.

The Germans are fighting in a better spirit than thfly did In the Battle of Vimy, no dpubt because fresh troops have only just been flung into the fighting line. The second phase of the Battle pf Arras is in our favour. We have taken many prisoners, white our losses are'much lighter than Hie Germans'. We are now confrqnted with the main German armies, which are np longer fighting Tearguard actions, but standing- up to the-battle, and striking back hard. •

The Hindenbnrg line v not a German myth. It is a very real -thing, running through Drocourt and Queant. Its defences have not yet been finished, Pioneer battalions, following armies of forced labour, including French civilians and Russian prisoners, are working day and nigbt upon trenches and emplacements. The General Staff has ordered the Germans to hold the forward positions to the dea,th, to enable the defence* to be. completed. Fresh troops -were rushed up on Monday to relieve the battalion* that already had been broken in the British attacks. These reinforcements, in some cases, flung back our Ene, but we regained the ground. After the Scotchmen took Guemappe, German reinforcements retook it in the evening. A second Scottish attack recaptured jt, and many Germans were taken prisoner.