READY TO MAKE DASH ON CALAIS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 1 July 1915, Page 5

READY TO MAKE DASH ON CALAIS.

GERMANS HAD 100 000 CAtALRY MASSED BEHIND LINES. LONDON, May 20. A despatch to the Morning Post from the north of France says: "So confident were the Germans of breaking through at Ypres that they had massed a hundred thousand cavalry between Poelcapelle and Roulers with which they hoped to dash through Steenstraate by the main :*oad and so j on to Dunkirk and possibly -Calais. ; This force was fully equipped with quantities of machine-guns and heavily teamed, galloping batteries. The projected dash explains the extraordinary effort that was made to consolidate the bridge held at Steenstraate. All this plan has now been changed by the Allies' successes, and large detachments of dismounted troopers have, been brought into the firing line. "There was terrific; fighting, it is said, around the railway triangle east of Quinchy. Here, too, the Germans have been using every species of foul device. There is reason to believe that the water in this district has been poisoned—our doctors suspect with arsenic—and careful analysis is now being made to establish the point.

"As an illustration of the German methods, one may mention the case oi' a young subaltern, newly out, who, at the risk of his life, went to give a drink to a wounded German officer who was calling piteously for water. As he bent over him with his flask, the German se'zed a bayonet that was Iving by his side and stabbed his benefactor through the heai't. The gallant youngster had already been wounded in two places. The wounded scoundrel endeavored to escape," but was promptly riddled with bullets by the outraged regiment that had witnessed the whole affair."