THE WESTERN FRONT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 4070, 26 October 1915, Page 5

THE WESTERN FRONT.

CONSIDERABLE ARTILLERY

ACTIVITY

NO INFANTRY ACTION.

GENERAL FRENCH’S DESPATCHES.

LONDON, Oct. 24, Sir John French reports: There has been considerable artillery activity the last three days southward of La Bassee Canal.

_ There have been no infantry actions apart from grenade fighting. Four of our airmen on Friday engaged German machines and compelled all tho enemy machines either to descend or to flee. One dived head first from a height of 7000 ft. into a wood just behind the German lines. Intermittent artillery action, mining and counter-mining have occupied the remainder of the front, with unimportant results

THE ALLIES’ SUCCESSES.

GERMANS THINKING HARD

ENEMY’S DEFENCE DISORGANISED..

(Times and Sydney Sun Services.) (Received Oct. 25, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 25. “The Times’ ” correspondent at Headquarters says: It is a month since the offensive began, and the hotch-potch regiments facing us are the best proof of how 1 successfully we have kept them on the hop. We disorganised their, defence and throw out of gear any idea of a serious offciisive. They have been compelled to bring up reinforcements from Massines and Douai, and. the transport of troops, impedimenta and waggons and ambulances is causing great difficulties.

THE CHAMPAGNE BATTLES

SKTL PUJ. FR KNCH 1 ’REPAR A-

TIONS

(Received Oct. 25 6.35 p.m.) PARIS, Oct. 25

Tho Official “Eye-Witness,” reviewing the Champagne battle to October 3, says 110,000 of the enemy have been nut out of action. Our prepartitions wore so skilful that the German General Staff thought a big effort was being made in Alsace, and consequently massed important forces there.

THE GALLANT BLACK

WATCH.

STIRRING STORY OF LA BASSEE

PIPERS LEAD THE CHARGE

(Received Oct. 25, 10.15 p.m.) PARIS, Oct. 25

Although the British attack northward of La Bassee on September 25 paled before Loos, nevertheless it is memorable for the superb gallantry of the Black Watch, who went over the parapet with pipers playing ahead, while the men bombed aloJig the trenches. After the first rush two pipers stood on the parapet under terrific fire and nlai'ed “The Hieland Laddies” while the men rushed to The charge. The pipers’ defiant skirl was head above the boom of tho guns. One piper was shot down, but his companion continued. A Black Watch sergeant killed seven Germans with the bayonet single handed. . \ A sergeant of the Leiccsterslnres lying wounded after the retirement saw the Germans bayonetting the wounded. He feigned death and the marauders were content with stealing his watch.

EPISODES OF HILL 60.

ITS CAPTURE AND LOSS

A FAILURE. BUT A GDORIOPS

FAILURE.’

A remarkable story <>) how the -KU a Brigade took Hill GO. and liow it was afterwards lost} is told by Mr Yah tine Williams in the “Daily Mail. Twice, ho writes, the 13th Brigade attempted to recapture the hill. Twice it failed. There was no shame in the failure, only glory. The commander-in-chief had already expressed his warm appreciation of its gallantry, and now the army commander had come to speak his thanks to the 13th Brigade for its splendid services. A FOUL CRIME.

It is a story illuminated by innumerable feats of deathless heroism, _ a story of splendid tenacity and grim determination, beginning with a fine feat of amis and ending with the asphyxiation of gallant men taken unawares, a crime so foul that no man who saw the railway cutting by Hill GO after the Dorsets and the Duke of Wellingtons had been gassed will ever take the hand of a ■German again. If, after reading this story as it was told to mo by the men who went through the fight, any man can shirk in’s duty to his country, then surel> our dead of Hill 60, the men who he|d on to the hilltop to the end and lie there still, will rise up m their hundreds on the Judgment Day and d<> nounec him. „ CHARGE FOLLOWS MINING. Five mines were exploded, and the Royal West Kents mid 2nd King's Own Scottish Borderers charged. “The Germans were completely surprised. As the West Kent* were getting away a panic-stricken German rushed out of the smoke of the explosion, with hands uplifted, and tumbled headlong over the parapet into our trench, where he was made prisoner. Our tuachinVgutis got well into the surviving Germans as they hastily quitted their ruined trenches feueii Germans as stood their ground made a mere show of resistance, and.wet© either bayoneted or driven down tiicir comm jnieaHou trenches by our homt>61 “It was found that the. names had done their wprk completely, and blasted all the barbed wire away. Iho biggest of the five craters formed W fully 50yds across and about 40 tt deep. In the meantime while the West Refits pushed on and captured the trenches beyond the craters, barricading the communication trenches, a digging party of the Ring’s Own Scottish Borderers who had ollowed. up set about diggiaig trenches across the lips of tho craters “A stern ordeal awaited the Scottish Borderers in tho trenches they took over. The Germans maintained a terrible bombardment, but tile 1C.0.5.8.’s never lost heart. These astounding men, ensconced in hastilydug trenches by a yawning crater lull of dead and wounded, with highexplosive shells bursting all around them and often falling into the trench, actually sang as they fired over the parapet or lobbed their bombs over the barriers across the old German ■communication trenches. “Amid the flares that lit up tho barren bill-top as clear as day, and tho shells that burst noisily amid clouds of ivliiteish yellow smoke, they shouted in chorus, ‘Here wo are ! Here we are! Hore we are again!’ ” Next morning the K.0.5.8.’5, who had had to fall back from a trench on a big crater, were relieved by the West Riding and other regiments, all of which did magnificently under a mcricless German bombardment. The Dorsots, who labor hold the position, were gassed, but kept the Germans at bay. The Devons also went up and held the position for days, and were joined by tho West Riding men—“the Duke’s.” At last, “choking with gas, swept with shells and bombs and maebino gun fire, they were forced to give ground. “If it was a failure it was a glorious failure, and in the future no battle honor shall figure more proudly than Hill GO on tho standards of the gallant regiments that fought and died upon those barren slopes.”