IMPORTANT BRITISH SUCCESS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3239, 12 April 1916, Page 23

IMPORTANT BRITISH SUCCESS.

ADVANCING TOWARDS KUT. LONDON, April 6.

General Sir Percy Lake reports: The STigris Corps, under General Gorringe /General Aylmer's successor), attacked (ym-el-Hanah at 5 o'clock on the morning Of April 5. Our trenches had been pushed forward by means of saps to within 100 Vards of the enemy's position. From these Japs the leading battalions of the Thirteenth Division rushed the enemy's first &nd second lines in quick succession, and their third line was captured by 6 o'clock. Supported by our concentrated artillery jfcnd machine gun fire, the Thirteenth Divijjfjon continued its victorious advance, and in hour later it drove the enemy out of its fourth and fifth lines.

Aeroplane reconnaissances reported trat the enemy were strongly reinforcing their Jfalmhiyah and Sannayat positions, which ire respectively 6000 and 12,000 yards from their front trenches at Um-el-Hanah. \ks these positions are only approachable over open ground. General Comnge deferred a further attack till the evening. Meanwhile on the right bank of the

Tigris the Third Division, under General Gary, captured the enemy's trenches opposite Falmhiyah. The enemy that afternoon on this bank strongly counterattacked with infantry and cavalry supported by guns. We successfully repulsed them, and consolidated the positions we had won.

General Gorringe, at 8 o'clock in the evening, resumed his advance, and carried the Falmhiyah positions. Reports state that the TJm-el-Hanah position was strongly entrenched. Its left flank was resting on the Suwaichi marsh, and its right flank on the river front. The trenches were 9ft deep, and the system extended in successive lines to a depth of 2500 yards.

IMPORTANCE OF OPERATIONS

LONDON, April 6.

The newspapers are giving prominence to the news from Kut-el-Amara, the report of Sir Percy Lake's success at Urn-el-Hanah coinciding with the publication of General Nixon's despatch concerning the early operations. The absence of recent news from General Townshend in Kut caused increasing public anxiety, and Sir Percy Lake's success gives both the long-suffering force in Kut and the longsuffering public at Home a ray of hope, though the main Turkish position remains to be attacked.

Sir Percy Lake has apparently been lucky in that inundations from the Armenian highlands have not made operations on the Tigris impossible, as many military experts had feared. Um-el-Hanah, on the left bank of the Tigris, constitutes the first line of the enemy's formidable position. There is no room for manoeuvring our forces, having a front of a mile and a-half only. We tried to force this bottle-neck on January 21, but General Aylmer was unable to hold the ground he had won.

THE IRON DIVISION

LONDON, April 7.

The newspapers recall the fact that the Thirteenth Division, mentioned in General Lake's report, belongs to the new army and earned the title of " The Iron Division" on Gallipoli. It went through the fiercest fighting in August, and Sir lan Hamilton mentioned in his despatches that the division lost 6000 out of 10,000 men.

MR CHURCHILL BLAMED

LONDON, April 6

The Morning Post attacks the Government, alleging that, acting on General Nixon's advice, it overruled the India Office, and directed General Townshend to make a dash for Bagdad, although General Townshend protested that he had an inadequate force. Major Churchill's restless brain was responsible, his probable motive being to divert the Turks from Gallipoli, and thus retrieve his ghastly blunder at the Dardanelles.