BRITISH OFFENSIVE

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 67, 16 September 1918, Page 7

BRITISH OFFENSIVE

TRIBUTE TO THE TROOPS

ENGAGED

"ENTERPRISE ONLY EQUALLED BY 1

THEIR SUCCESS."

(ACS. AND N.Z.. CABLE ASSN. AND RBUTEB.)

. LONDON, 14th September. In a supplementary despatch Sir Douglas Haig states : In the series of Guccessful battles on)the Somme front beginning on Bth August, English, Scottish, and Welsh divisions took an important share in the '"fighting, and performed • many gallant' actions. Most of these divisions have been advancing over the same ground on which they met and ultimately checked the enemy's great offensive in March. During the past few weeks they have shown without exception that the tremendous strain they sustained earlier in the year with so much courage and resolution has in nowise diminished their splendid fighting spirit. For. example, a Guards division which in March and April at Boyelles and Boiry-Bec-querelle maintained the northern pivot of our defence, attacked on 21st.August and captured Moyenneville and Hamelincourt, and also Saint Leger on 24th August. i , The gallant exploits of some twenty other divisions are mentioned, including the Fourth, which broke the enemy's attack on the north bank of the Sca-rpe on 28th August, and in the .face of strong resistance on 2nd September carried the defences of the Drocourt-Queant line. The 32nd Division, after heavy fighting at Dammery, on 10th and 11th August, captured Herleville on 23rd August, Vermandovillers on 27th August, anfl successfully participated with the Australians in the advance across the Somme. Sir Douglas Haig states that this account of the doings of those different English, Scottish, and Welsh divisions is necessarily brief and incomplete. He concludes : "On the same battlefields on which they withstood the heaviest assault the British Army, lias ever faced, all have fought, side by sid6' with the splendid divisions from Australia, Fanada, and New, Zealand, with a courage, a gallantry,, and an enterprise only equalled by their success."