FIGHTING ON THE YSER.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13541, 20 November 1914, Page 9

FIGHTING ON THE YSER.

KIVI'. THOUSAND CKRMANS I CROSSED. - j i ALL CWIIFT AWAY BY TJ7LZ AND i MACHINE GUN LTF.E. . , •DIXMUD'E LITERALLY BEATON INTO A PULP. LONDON, October 27. The correspondent of tho Daily Mail m Northern France, telegraphing the fighting on the river Yser, says :■ — "There were 2500 German "bodies m the Ycer Canal this morning after the fighting m the night. Many of them were drowned, and others were bayonetted. The water itself was bloody, while Dixmiide's streets were strewn thick with the dead. "These ghoulish facts alone give some idea of the savageness of tho fighting, tho desperation of. the Gorman attacks and the stubbornness of the Allies' resistance. "Tho night Was a -hell from dark ia dawn. At almost every point of the line, man was opposed to man, sometimes at a few hundred yards distance, j r but more often m close .grips. Face to face men even,. "wrestled' and died; by drowning each other m the canal's waters. The Germans^ had had orders to get through. that night, cost what it may. ... ■ ' * ' ' GERMAN LOSS. 5000. : "An" officer of those who captured said that the .delay of more than v week m crossing this waterway . has incensed the autocratic military mind inj Germany. It .must be crossed to-night I if it cost, thousands of men. That In I effect wa£ the order giVen, anc * the Ger- 1 man . soldiers, all credit to them;, did their ; best. I 'Probably five' thousand ..f them' gave their 'lives last night. _ They could » not give more, yet they failed; hut; not because the 'Germans did not literally obey their orders. They crossed the waterway all right, as they were bid, but once through they could not make good. They were mowed down with jrifle sliot, torn into human fragments by shells and bayonetted back., yard by yard,, over their own dead into . the waters of the. canal; Into tho very grey of tho morning this bloody work went on so fiercely that there was hardly a trench- or bridge. guard m the whole: lino that did not imagine that he had been; singled out for special attack." AID FROM THE ALLIES. I A despatch to the Daily Telegraph from Belgium declares that the Germans* success m crossing the Yser -was only short-lived. On , Friday the Belgian entrenchments which the. Germans had captured across the. river were retaken at the point of the bayonet, ; and the enemy tumbled back pell-mell over the Yser,' losing, many men by drowning. . . '.-■'■ s I "The whole Allied line," says the despatch, "how remains intact, and unless the Germans. develop unexpected strength there seems' little chance of their breaking ' it. ' This- is owing to the fact that reinforcements of French infantry came to the support of the Belgians, as well as several batteries of heavy' howitzers-. "These were very welcome, for during the whole fighting on the Yser the Belgian artillery, had been completely outranged v by'the German guns, which had- simply pounded Dixmude and neigh- • .boring.... villages., into, .a- pulp, from a dis- j tance which prohibited any reply from, the Belgian field pieces. | "It is reported that the Germans made no :le>s than eight separate infantry attacks on Dixmude last week with fresh troops. These bayonet attacks were pressed home with great courage, but . the French massed their machine guns m groups of fours and swept away each. attacking column successively, so that no German dead or wounded were found nearer than fifty yards from the' trenches. These attacks ■cost' tho Germans dearly, and they have now ceased them." j «M— — — ss — a——*