FRANCE AND BELGIUM.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, Issue LXXII, 13 October 1916, Page 5

FRANCE AND BELGIUM.

A BRILLIANT FRENCH SUCCESS

GENERAL HAIG'S REPORTS

HEAVY RECIPROCAL BOMBARDMENTS.

GOOD WORK BY BRITISH AIRMEN

LONDON, Oct. 12. The Daily Chronicle's Paris correspondent states that after three weeks' quiet the French south of the Somme won a brilliant victory in the battle of Bovent, in which the 10th French, Army, under General Mecheler, straightened the German salient into a line four miles long, nearly approaching the -Berhy-Chaulnes high road. The French batteries on Hill 109, near Bovent, cover all the enemy positions to the Somme and Chaulnes, and the enemy is in the same predicament as he was at Thiepval and Combles sixteen days ago. General yon Kathen, commanding Siiesian, Bavarian and Wurtemberg troops, fought hard, coun-ter-attacking five times with much' vigor in the region of Ablaincourt and Chaulnes woods, which bristle with machine guns. . / (Reuter Service.) LONDON, Oct. 12." . General Sir Douglas Haig reports: There has been heavy enemy bombardment all day. Attempted enemy attacks north of Courcelette were, stopped. \Ve shelled hostile infantry assembling in the rear. PARIS, Oct. 12. There is reciprocal • bombardment along the entire Somme front. Violent enemy attacks at Bois de Chaulnes were repulsed.. (Reuter Service.) LONDON, Oct. 12. General Sir Douglas Haig reports: Our aeroplanes yesterday bombed and destroyed two enemy battery positions and damaged many others. They penetrated ''well behind the enemy front, and bombed railway stations and trains and billets effectively. Two of our machines engaged seven hostile aeroplanes, and downed and dispersed all but one of the enemy machines. They afterwards destroyed two others and severely damaged four. Our machines are missing.