BATTLE OF THE NORTH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16895, 6 July 1918, Page 8

BATTLE OF THE NORTH

AUSTRALIANS TAKE PART, STORY OF THE TIN WHISTLE. (Commonwealth Official-Copyright.) FRANCE, April 25. When tho Germans made their advance

in the north it was into the country between Hazebrouck and old Bailleul, that Australian troops were moved, to protect Hazebrouck. Here again, as in the south, our men found that the country where they had to face the Germans was connI try which they knew as well as their own. I Strazecle, Metereu, Morris, and tho fields i and farms about them, had been tho J scones of their training and recreation for months in intervals of rest from the old Flanders line. They roachod the Strazeele Hill wlwn their help was greatly needed, for if tho 1 Germans had got that they might have : got also Hazebrouck and Caestre, import- ; ant railway centres. At Strazeelo station and among the farms of the Mont de . Morris, between Merris and Strazeelo { ! town—they dug themselves in on tho | i right of * a famous Scottish regiment ! which, decimated as it were, fought on i for several days afterwards, and even I then refused to be relieved till it had wrought its last possible atom of revenge on the Germans. Towards their right flank on the north-eastern edge of the forest the Australians joined the British screen which was fighting to prevent tho German advance from Vieux Berquin; ' here they found a ragged company or two of a famous division tight.ng themselves to a finish aga.nst swarms of the enemy, They knew that division on Gallipoli. During that day, April 13, the Australians completed their line. The gallant rearguard of a brigade of Guards joined some of the Australians; tho last { screen of some other British battalions fell back through thern. Some field artillery had time to close up behind this defence line, but the batt'o of the next day was mostly fought without assistance from the guns. Shortly after dawn on the fourteenth the front line battalions reported that Merris and Vieux Berquin were filling with Germans. Tiro enemy also had not much artillery up; they were coming on at first in little part.es through the out-1 lying posts which the British screen had, abandoned when the Australian line was ready. The Germans spread in little i columns of files through the farms this | side of Merris and up tho railway hue j towards Strazoclo; they crept up the; . d.tches and hedges east of the Vieux < Berquin Road. Behind these files several | waves of the enemy in opening skirmish-. ing order began to appear in the distance. Behind these again infantry in column marched up the roads and farm tracks. On the Vieux Berquin side st.ff outpost fighting began by the Australians! and the Guards, who. with trench mortars and machine-guns, beat back every German effort to emerge from the town. The main pressure, however, was from the Merris sido against Strazeelo and 1 Strazeele station. |

The Battle of Strazeele.

Hare some New South Welshmen were watching the enemy coming on Mid waiting. The machine-gunners and riflemen on the left had orders to hold their fire until the Germans were within 30yds. They [ were well posted, and the grey-clad parties j made magnificent targets, and the men itched to let loose against them. But; they were told to wait. When they finally got the word to open fire the Germans reeled as if 'they had struck a rock. Every rifle and machine-gun that could be got into the line blazed out; they lashed the furrows of the fields, they cut the hedges to pieces. None of the enemy lasted in it. | Their advancing parties simply disappeared from the landscape. The guns! which had cot up behind Strazeele shot [ holes into Morris and the outlying farms | where the Germans were trying to mass, i and if there had been dozens of battalions < there would have been plenty of targets for j all of them. The machine-guns at the j station' shot straight down the railway j into files of Fritzes walking up tho southern «de of it. i Against this furious reception the morning attack entirely crumpled up. > Isolated parties of Germans tried here and there to make headway, as their method is, hut the people behind realised that they had butted into something more solid than tired rearguards. They col- j leered their strength for a full-dress attack j and tried again about two o'clock, and on \ a broader front. From Vieux Berquin, I right round to Bailleul, they came forward ! in masses, rushing from farm to farm and ] ditch to ditch across the fields, and at ; every rush the machine-guns and rifles: cut "into them. North of Bailleul they j could not advance an inch; oppusfto | Yieux Berquin some Victorians shot them ! down in bunches, and the Germans only- ! got one of our posts here after every man , in it had been knocked out. Near Morris, at the height of the attack they pressed, with sheer weight of numbers and neglect of losses into a farm which made an awkward bite into the position of an Australian company. The company commander consulted the platoon officers, and decided to counter-attack the farm at once

It was a moment in the fight such as often comes, when a bold stroke turns the balance. The farm was 100 yds away, and a young Sydney platoon officer led 50 men straight at it in extended line. At the edge of the farmyard they came upon abort fifty surprised Germans, and fired into them at 15yds range. Tho enemy became demoralised, and bunched at the gate of the yard, and here, at 40vds range, the Australians shot down all except 10, who managed to got away. Inside the house were another 30 Germans, and a platoon post of ours on tho flank shot every man of these as they attempted to flee. The advance of the little party of Australians on this farm appeared to upset the whole German line in the neighbourhood ; the enemy pushing forward in the fields on each flank! wavered and ran back, and shortly after three o'clock this attack, too, had been smashed. "Australia Will Be There." It was during this attack, too, that another Now Smith Wales subaltern did one of those mad brilliant things which in the heat of action lift men's hearts out of nil sense of death and superior numbers. At the moment of a German rush ho produced a tin whistle, mounted the parapet, and played in fhrill strains " Australia Will Be There." The machinegunners near by laughed «at the sight of him—he awoke memories of many a comic turn at concert parties—and they cheerod like mad as the tune died away in the noise of their emptying gun-bells. Having finished that tunc, he waved his whistle, and told them he would play something to line the Germans up thioker and make a better target. So lie began to whittle " Die Wnclit am Hhein,'' whereupon the annoyed Germans concentrated machine-gun fire in his direction, and he was forced to abandon his effort, for they were only 2Covds away. In the evening the German attacks revived, but died away under our artillery fire, and fftrazee'e and its railway station were firmly ours. Only some days afterwards was it discovered that the infantry force sent against the Australians that day amounted to three German divisions. They did not make a foot of ground, and their losses were very heavy—how heavy it is, as usual, only possible to guess at, One New South Wales company alone estimated that there were SCO German dead on the field in front of them. For the rest, the Germans' acceptance of the defeat tells its own story.