THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES.

Marlborough Express, Volume LI, Issue 230, 28 September 1917, Page 3

THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES.

STRONG BRUTISH ADVANCE

FIERCE- COUNTER-ATTACKS

The battle which all the world has been expecting has begun, wrote Mr Philip Gibbs from the British front in describing the advance from Ypres which began on July 3XI After weeks of intense bombardment, we launched a. great attack on a front stretching, roughly, from the rivnr Lys to Boesinghel. We have gained ground everywhere, and with the help of French troops, who are fighting shoulder to shoulder with our own men in. the northern part of the line, we have .captured the enemy's positions across the Yser Canal and thrust him bank from a. wide stretch of country between Pilkem and Hollebeko. Ec fought desperately at various points, with a groat weight of artillery behind him, and made strong counter-attacks and flungj vp his reserves in order to che:*k this sweeping advance. Many tanks have gone forward with our infantry, and have done better than well against several of the enemy's strong points, where, for a. time, our men were held np by machine-gun fire.

Poring over maps of this northern front, and looking across the country from tho coastline and newly-taken 1 "j, like those of Wytsnhaete, the difficulty of the ground wliich our men have to attack has been horribly apparent. Those-swamps in the north around Div.inude, the Yser Canal, which must bo bridged under fire> for men to cross under fire, the low flats of our lines nround Ypros, like the well of an amphitheatre, with the enemy ab-Ov-e on the Pilkom Ridge, were so full of peril for attacking troops that optimism itself might be frightened and downcast.

LTNES VJtILBD BY MIST.

A great rainstorm begaji after the advance across the enemy's lines to tho Pilkem Ridge and the northern curve of tho Ypres salient, and veiled, all tho battlefield in a dense mist. It impedes the work <>f cur airmen, makes our artillery co-operation with the infantry niiore" difficult, and adds to the inevitable hardships of our men out in tho new lines, where the ground lias been crate-red by our shelllire into one great quagmire of pits. To the enemy- it is not altogether a Messing. His airmen get no observation of our movements, and his gunners do not find their targets, wink his wretched infantry, lying out in open ground or in woods where- they get no cover from our fire, have been reduced to a frightful condition, un-

?, fiblo to get [nod. boc«'i.ii-:c oi" iio- bar- ! ! ragos In-hind them and wet- -o Lhi> i. skin. Tiie enemy's o:mimand v:m un- [ able at :fii«b to organise anj- cix&Xxvv i eoimter-aitacks, and tx?nt forw.^rtl ! smail bodies ox .storm troops, movfit^ i vaguely to uncertain objectives and | smashed by our fire- before they havo j reached our lines. There have been ! many of fchese attacks-. Agninst some | of lour English and Scottish troops j they were repeated all thrrirtigh the • j first day, beginning at three o'clock i j in the afternoon and coming, again at i ! eleven o'clock, a quarter co two. and j i a quarter past seven this morning. The Lehr Regiment, whom the Kaiser called his "brave Coburgers" during tho battle.-i of the Somme, were very severely mauled, suffering. heavy losses. Both the 235 th Division and the 3rd Guards Division engaged by our' men on the Steonbeek line have been shattered. So great has been the alarm of the enemy at the menace to his lino that he has been rushing up reserves by omnibuses and light railways to the firing-line over tracks shelled day and night. EIGHTLNG IN QUAGMIRE. The weather continued ! rightful on the third day of the advance. Tho fields are quagmires, and in slie.llcrater land, which is miles deep round Ypres, the pits have filled with water. The woods loom vaguely through a wet mist, and road traffic labora through rivers of slime. It :s hard luck for our fighting men. But in spite of repeated efforts the enemy has not succeeded in his counter-at-tacks, after our line withdrew somewhat at Che end of the first day south and south-east of St. Julien. It is now certain that, whereas many of the German infantry, terror-stricken by the bombardment, surrendered easily enough, others made good use of strong defences not annihilated by our fire, and put \ip a desperate defence. Fresh troops, like the 221 st Division, were flung in by the German command in the afternoon of the first day and made repeated attacks, under cover of the mist, against our men, who were tired after 24 hours in the zone of fire, who in some sectors had suffered heavily, but who fought still with a courage which defied defeat. The feature of the fourth day of the fighting was the continuance of strong counter-attacks at many points of the new line, and especially to the north of Frezenberg, west of Zonnebeke where, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the enemy infantry advanced after a violent bombardment. They were swept down by artillery and machine-gun fire. At five o'clock they came on agai'.), moving suddenly out of a dense smoke barrage, and gained three hundred yards of ground. The guns poured shells on to this ground, and at nine o'clock at night our men went behind the barrage and regained the position. Generally the situation, l'omained exactly the same as it stood at the end of the first day of the battle, when our advance was firm and complete at tho northern end of the attack, where the Guards and the Welsh had swept' ro-er tho Pilkem Ridge without great trouble, and where further south the troops who had advanced beyond St. Julien had to fall back a little, partly under the pressure of counter-attacks, but chiefly in order to get into line with their right wing, which had been engaged in the hardest fighting, and had not reached the same depth of country. That was in the wooded ground south-east of the salient where the enemy had n large number of machine-guns, in the cover of small woods and copses. TROOPS SNIPEJ) FROM THE ■ RFJAR.

Hard fighting happened southward and on the right of our attack past Hol'ebeke i*nd the line between ■Qostaverno and Warneton. Opposite Hollebeke there were Tnglish county troops, and they went ''over the bags," as-they call it, in almost pitch darkness, like the men on either side of them. This was the reason of an accident which was almost a tragedy. As they went forward over that shelldestroyed ground they left behind them Germans hidden in shell-pits, who sniped them in the rear, and picked off many of them until later in the day they were routed out. Beyond this open country the ruins of Hollebeke were full of collars, made into strong dug-outs, and crowded with Germans who would not come out. They will never come out. Our men flung bombs down into these underground places, and paused on to the line where they stay on tho east side of the village. O.itside one copse there, was a very

strong position, known to bur men as Stirling Castle. It was once a French chateau, surrounded by a park and outbuildings long destroyed but made into a strong point with concrete emplacements. Rapid machinegun fire poured cut of this place against our men, but it was captured after several rushes. The trenches in front of^ it were also gained by some Scottish and ' North Country lads. Later a counter-attack was launched against them by the Germans of ono of the young classes, <>nd here at least those lads, who do not seem to have fought very well elsewhere, came on like tiger cubs and gained some of their trenches back. From all the woods in this neighborhood there was an incessant sweep of machine-gun bullets, and many small counter-attacks were launched from them, without much success, but strong enough to make progress difficult to our men.