HUMBERT'S ATTACK

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 40, 15 August 1918, Page 8

HUMBERT'S ATTACK

KEY POSITIONS CAPTURED

ENEMY'S RELIANCE ON MACHINE-GUNS.

(DNIIBD MESS ASSOCIATION.—COPTRIQHT.I

(REUTERS TELEC.RASI.) (Received August 15, 1 p.m.)

LONDON, 14th August.

Reuters correspondent at French Headquarters reports : General Humbert, whose front as the result of recent progt'ess now faces east instead of north, again attacked the Lassigny or Thiescourt massif positions to-day. His left was heavily counter-attacked, and remained on the- defensive; but his right pushed forward all round the western and southern edges of the "little Switzerland" and reached Plessier de Pioye Park and the village of Belval, where General Humbert, with the same army, had stopped Yon Hutier's rush in March after one of the bloodiest fights of the year. To-day's battle raged till- evening, when the French hold the Saint Claude Farm and Ecouvillon, two of the most important points on the massif. The fighting is difficult, for the enemy is holding the front thinly with almost as many machine-guns as men, and their whereabouts is difficult to locate. The enemy is filling the valleys, posses, and woods with mustard gas. The French arc fighting their way with rifles find grenades, and advancing over the broken country by infiltration. The enemy's tactics' indicate that he is retiring to a not distant defensive line.