BATTLE OF FESTUBERT

Grey River Argus, 31 December 1914, Page 5

BATTLE OF FESTUBERT

A PIERCE CONTEST. GERMAN VICTORY BECOMES DEFEAT. (Red. 9.55 p.m.) PARIS, Dec. 30. Further account of the fighting at Festubert and Givenchy states that the Indians held trenches between two villages. The German trenches in places were les sthan fifty yards distant. The Germans attacked using bayonets and hand grenades. The Indians resisted for .hours using bayonets and knives until ordered to withdraw. Meanwhile hand to hand fighting spread through the villages, every street and liouse being hotly contested. The Germans gained possesison of Givenchy, but at the most critical moment two" regiments of French territorials arrived and spread over the whole line. The French, English, and Indians fought desperately side by side in a confused line regardless of nationality and regiments with bayonets knives and bombs but hardly a shot was fired. Believing the day won the Germans had quitted the trenches and amazed at the onslaught vaiuly took refuge in the trenches The Allies turned them out of every .line of trenches and saps traversed. The German dead lay in heaps. At dawn the Allie3 were again in possession of Givenchy.