MESOPOTAMIAN MOVE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 4459, 29 January 1917, Page 5

MESOPOTAMIAN MOVE.

STRIKING BRITISH ADVANCE.

TIGRIS BEND CLEARED-

ENEMY SUFFER HEAVILY.

(Australian and N.Z. Cable Assn.) (Router’s Telegrams.) (Received Jan. 28, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 28.

A Mesopotamia official report says: By a determined assault under cover of an intense bombardment, we seized and consolidated eleven hundred yards of first line trenches on the "right bank of the Tigris south-west-ward of Kut-el-Amara, and also a considerable length • of second line trenches. Our losses were slight. The Turks westward "of the Hai river thereupon made four furious counterattacks. ’ The first and third were broken by our artillery, infantry, and machine gun fire, but the second and fourth were momentarily successful. AVe resumed the offensive, and regained much ground whence We had been temporarily dislodged. The Turkish losses all day were extremely heavy. AVe took 70 prisoners and 580 corpses were buried in the loop eastward of Kut-el-Amara, besides 500 buried by the enemy. TURNING THE TABLES.

CLEARER TURKISH ESCAPE

GALLIPOLI RUSE FOOLS THE

BRITISH

('Reuter’s Telegram.) (Received Jan. 28, 5.5 p.ni.) LONDON, Jan. 28

Air. Edward Candler, the British correspondent in Alesopotamia, reports:^—On the morning of January 17 we occupied a triangle of trenches comprising the .last foothold of the Turks in the bend of the Tigris below Kut. The enemy resisted doggedly for ten days, but as he was cornered we economised in casualties and advanced our trenches gradually. Our concentrated artillery and trench mortar fire made the area hardly tenable, but the enemy made desperate sorties and counter-attacks. AVe had 'cleared part of the last trenches with ..the bayonet, when the Turks finally departed most cleverly. They kept up the noise of digging all night, while they slipped across the Tigris in boats, pontoons and coracles concealed in the shelters beneath the banks. Hence, our assault in the morning was comparatively bloodless.