CHARNEL-HOUSE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9622, 30 March 1917, Page 6

CHARNEL-HOUSE

TERRIBLE BRITISH FIRE SCENES NEAR BAPADME. LONDON, March 20. Descriptions of tho Ancre battlefield testify to the torments undergone by the Germans. For instance, the ground below the Loupart Wood is strewn with dead. There is one shambles where the whole garrison was cut to pieces by the British guns, and tho water about tho tragic spot is coloured a vivid green or blood rod by the gases of the high explosives. At least 700 German bodies were counted hero. Elsewhere the ground is not so thickly clustered with dead, but tor miles it is pitted with 10ft craters, which intermingle without a yard ot earth between them. This is the secret of the German retreat. It was to save themselves from another such shambles, but the guufiro follows them remorselessly. Ino British fired 30,000 shells, mostly of largo calibre, at one narrow sector on Sunday and Monday alone. The condition of tho villages testifies to the hurry of the enemy’s departure. Grevillers is largely intact, and in Miraumont many houses are not destroyed. The most amazing spectacle of tno advance is tho manner in which roads and railways creep up under the hands of myriads of workers, and the promptitude with which guns and munitions are brought up. It is most disconcerting to tho Germans. The latter have abandoned much munitions and supplies, but the wines and cigars found in the dug-outs are regarded with suspicion after long experience of tho Huns' dark ways. Wo found one philosophic German awaiting us in a deep dug-out. Ho said: “I know you would soon iba here.” Mr Beach Thomas, the “Daily Mail” correspondent, says that it is difficult to avoid trampling the bodies and limbs of the dead Gormans in Loupart Wood and its environs. The heavy rain is uncovering numerous dead which the enemy lightly and hurriedly buried in order to conceal bis losses. Our padres laboured incessantly a few hundred yards from the German lines reading burial prayers for friends and foes alike.

The enemy now holds a line about as strong as the one just desertedA gunner getting ready to fire on the Bapaumo railway said: “We’ll soon force his bloomin' Bapaume-Bagh-dad line.” (Australian officers on tho front state that the difficulty of bringing up guns is immense, the smallest requiring twenty horses; but tho ‘“Petit Parisien’s” correspondent characterises the pursuit as a pursuit of gunfire. The infantry is used most economically, whilst the cavalry is reserved for the surer work hereafter.