BITTER FIGHTING IN THE COUNTER-ATTACK

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 141, 14 June 1918, Page 7

BITTER FIGHTING IN THE COUNTER-ATTACK

GERMANS' LOSSES WERE HEAVY

(bbuter's telegbam.) (Received June 14, 9 a.m.) • LONDON, 13th June, 2.35 a.m.

Eeuter's correspondent, writing from French Headquarters on the 12th, .states : Our counter-attack yesterday, between Courcelles and Belloy, was delivered just as the Germans had assembled for the attack, consequently their psition was strongly held. . The fighting was bitter. The Anglo-French air squadrons flew over the front infantry, spraying the Germans with bullets from a height of a few score yards, while bombing machines attacked the enemy concentrations at the rear. The losses by the Germans, owing to the overcrowded front, were of the heaviest. Their strength is indeed remarkable. Four divisions were identified on a front of 3500 yards.

The enemy in the centre continues, at heavy cost, to .push his way yard by yard down the Matz Valley, where the abundance of small woods and broken ground afford maximum protection against machine-gun and artillery fire. Our troops further west have pushed their progress on the plateau into the valley below this position, in which the enemy believed himself firmly established forty-eight hours ago. It was important for his advance in the^ centre, as it overlooks the Matz Valley and commands the junction of the main roads from Montdidier to Beauvragnes and Cuvilly, through which the enemy troops and supplies for the front line in the fiver valley must pass; and also the junction of the Serilis and Compiegne roads, on which the enemy depends for his advance to the south. The French thus overlook the German centre, and this must already greatly embarrassed the enemy.