ALLIES MAKING PROGRESS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13493, 23 September 1914, Page 3

ALLIES MAKING PROGRESS.

and this army of dirty mudlarks, unshaven, and tottering, were still confident, and ready to joke even. The strength of the German position made it very difficult for the British to cross the marshland, which is intersected with rivers ajid canals. At present it is utterly impossible for infantry, cavalry, and heavy guns to cross the swamps. The German 11-inch guns on the surroumding hills are giving a lot of trouble to the British gunners, ' and there has been an incessant artiller}- , duel for days, covered by which both sides have been entrenching and rushing over the open ground with rifle and bayonet charges m order to obtain advantageous positions for- further entrenchments. The Rritish showed superiority m the battle of the trenches, and gained good ground, though at heavy cost. With their experience of the Boer war, the British are far better than the enemy at taking advantage of every scrap of cover, and, fighting m open formation,, on several occasions took trenches which by all the rules of war were impregnable. The British, assisted by Zouaves, who repeatedly charged under the deadliest fire, reached the enemy's positions, and the Germans fled,' though not until the trenches were filled with the corpses of the slain. The Frenchmen tossed them out of the pits as though haymaking, as one of them. said. • . ' "General You Kluck/on Friday night, ordered a general advance of •ihis infantry, from" Cnavighy arid Naizve Chateau upon the foremost British trenches round Soissons, while the German artillery again searched the positions, endeavoring, to unnerve the British. The wind was howling and the fain slashing down, and they needed all their courage. Shrapnel killed many, but the Germans were not the right Stuff to tufti out the entrenched British, and retired quicker than they came, while the. British guns pounded them and the rifle fire .laid them m heaps."