SPLENDID SUCCESS OF RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 10330, 27 March 1916, Page 5

SPLENDID SUCCESS OF RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE.

HUNS DOSED WITH THEIR OWN MEDICINE.

(Times and Sydney Sun Service.) LONDON, March 25. The Times correspondent at Petrograd says that the military authorities consider tho Russian movement has been independently conceived rather than a demonstration to detract the enemy from the western front.

The Daily Mail’s correspondent at Petrograd says that the Germans have tried (ho old trick when they suffered a reverse of stressing heavy Russian losses near Dvinsk. There are good grounds for stating that tho Russian casualties are by no means heavy. In fact, in many places tho Russians drove out the Germans from their trenches and occupied strongly fortified points, which give the best possible grounds for confidence in tho future.

All tho art of the German engineers had been devoted throughout the winter to making tho front impregnable with barbed wire defences, concrete parapets, armoured block-houses, ingeniously laid mines, reservoirs of poison gas, and numberless machine guns, yet at the first determined onslaught the whole elaborate system of defence crumbled, when the Germans were liberally dosed by flame-throwers and gas. The Germans have reason to curse the day they adopted this devilish means of warfares There are few games that two cannot play, as the Germans will learn to their bitter cost in the season that is coming, when tho enemy are more and more worried and weakened by necessity and are mooting attacks at a number of points simultaneously. AAISTERDAM. March 26. A German communique says: The Russians renewed attacks westward of Jacobstadt, using fresh Siberian troops, who broke down, suffering heavy losses.

ADVANCE CONTINUES STEADILY.

PETROGRAD. March 25

A communique states:—The Russian offensive is developing north-west of Lake Vargunck. There was desperate bayonent fighting in tho Klipa sector, where, despite a heavy German lire, wo forced all the enemy’s protective lines by a. vigorous thrust. Fighting continues near Lake Narotch. PETROGRAD, March 26.

A communique states: —'Wo continue to follow up our successes south-east of Augustinbof, after a fierce conflict on fortified ground around Lapuku. Furious counterattacks followed. Wo continue to advance in the Dvinsk Vidsy regions. The Germans in the latter district are using explosive bullets. ANOTHER RUSSIAN RAID ON TURKISH SAILERS. PETROGRAD, March 26. A communique states; —Our torpedo boats destroyed sixteen _ sailing vessels on the Anatolian coast (Asia Minor).