IN FRANCE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 17 October 1914, Page 5

IN FRANCE.

ALLIES MAKE PROGRESS

•GERMAN OFFENSIVE STOPPED

DISEASE AMONGST GERMANS

. HORRIBLY INSANITARY CONDITIONS.

....'.. v: PARIS, Oct. 16. An official communique issued to-day estates: "The Germans have. evacuated ■*he left bank of the Lys and the La JBasse Canal. "The situation is stationary in the Lens region. "We have made notable progress between Arras and Albert. . "We have advanced towards Craonne >and carried several trenches in the direction of Beine, in the Rheims district. . . ■'•■;' '• . ■ "We repulsed night attacks between 'the, Meuse, and the Moselle, and progressed south of Verdun and the Metz . irpad. ■• "The German offensive has been detfinitely stopped." COPENHAGEN, Oct. 16. \A ; German- headquarters' message -■states that 4500 French prisoners were -taken at X/ille. PARIS, Oct. IC. Maurice Daxre's, who visited Alsace, estates that the French found the GerJznan ambulance at Raon l'Etape in an -appalling condition as the result of the •doctors' intemperance. Rooms Were. full of wounded aad fjnangled bodies, which had been 3.3?J #or over a week. - . Some of the wounded had remained 'for several days with operations Lsvif i&rished, arid one room contained stacks •of corrupting dead. • .A commmique issued on the 1 ~th *»>- ----•anidhight. records the capture ::i Es ;taires, and an advance north and east *of Rheims, where the -Allise have j^ain••ed two kilometres, and south of St. ;Mihiel. :•>■,. v - ■■];:■'' - .■;■. Professor Bessell, of Munster, has 'been sent to 'Metz to combat a th'reat•enirig epidemic of diseases. He found -an exceptionally large number of cases] s>f dysentery, inflammation of the lungs j =and typhus. He declares that this is "not surprising when the soldiers were for five days and! -nights in -trenches half full of water,1 Adhere it was impossible to.send them 'fresh supplies of provisions, and the '•soldiers were living on the rations carried in their knapsacks. These rations Anally became mouldy. The horrors of "the .insanitary .conditions were increased by the fact that in many instances it was impossible to remove the ■dead and wounded. : ROTTERDAM, Oct. 16. The Daily Telegraph says the Ger<mans are ci-eating havoc in the coal Tnines, evidently wrecking their -renjgeance before retreating acorss the Belgian border. The entrances to three •of the biggest mines in the Courrirs 'district have been destroyed, and the machinery blown r up. French artillery, swept position after position, their fire being terrific. Gerinans occupied a wide area, but their batteries were ineffective. The French "batteries, after half-an-hour's contimi:ous battle,. cleared every foot, of: the. "German trenches. ■ ; :THE HAGUE, Oct. 16. A correspondent named Helleyen, recently with; the Germans in Lorraine, -states that the. Germans" .'are dissatis"fied with the progrssrmade,-and admit' "that the French artiilery:is proving superior, The French/-ißem^ to have -dragged heavy guns ou^ ; of/fortresses^

and are now using them in the open field, where they out-range the German, guns by two kilometres. The Germans continually find Frenchmen in trees and in cellars, with pocket telephones, who inform Verdun of any change in the position of the Austrian and German guns. Though Landres and Romains have been taken, the guns of the forts at Parodies and Leonville still cover the gap.