BREAKING THE GERMANS' LINES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13803, 1 October 1915, Page 3

BREAKING THE GERMANS' LINES.

OXE OP. THE. HARDEST ENCOUN-' TER& EVEfR FOUGHT. LONDON, Sept. 50. Mr lhilip Gibbs, Avar correspondent on the Western front for the Daily Chronicle, roports to his paper as follows: — It is now possible to give a clear story of the lighting. The brigades disappeared into the smoke on .Saturday and were only able to send back : brief messages of the severity of the ordeal and the greatness of their success. The details now available prove that it was one of the greatest British achievements of the war. Many • battalions of the new Army were engaged, and acted splendidly. Ihe boys had recently landed, and had their first tremendous nerve-test listening to the intense bombardment on Friday night. These new recruits, associated with battle-scarred veterans, leapt out of the trenches with a wild "hurrah !" on Saturday morning to attack Loos, which Lay 3£ miles to the eastward. They reached the German trenches with slight casualties, and found that two lines of entanglements had disappeared under the bombardment, while tho third line remained uncut. It was constructed of the strongest wire, with great barbs, and presented the first formidable obstacle. Having tasted battle and bayoneted Germans m two trenches, the British, reckless of their lives, attacked the obstacle desperately, stood up under deadly machine guns, and forced their way through the entanglements. One of the most extraordinary incidents of this grim scene was when a company of Higjhlar.diers, charging through the smoke-laden mists, encountered an unusually tall German, stone dead, with a millet m his brain and his face blackened wjth battle grime, standing erect mysteriously without any prop. The sight was \so startling and uncanny that the Highlanders parted on either side as though they had" seen a. spectre. A great tide of soldiers poured into the breach, and swarmed forward threequarters of a mile, and entered the village of Loos, shouting hoarsely. They encountered an enormous number of 'machine-guns, pouring out streams of lead from, every part of the village. Machine-gums were posted m the windows of. the houses ajid trenches were dug across the streets. Germans were crowded m the- cellars firing through apertures opening on to the streets. ; There wene hundreds of little sieges where small parties of Germans with machine-guns m the gar rot defended houses with the courage ot' despair, and did not yield until the last of them was killed. Our attack was also hampered by machine-gums situated on top of m : neTanes at a height of 300 feet, while another hundred machine-guns were posted m a ■cemetery m the sonth-wes-Sern suburbs. , Undoubtedly • the C.evmnns were purprised and demoralised . at the rapidlysweeping strength of the attack, as they surrendered wholesale. A midget Highlander appeared m a doorway and shot down three Germans. The remaining 30 cried for mercy. In some places the resistance was prolonged, the rapid-fire guns m. the cellars causing heavy losses. The besiegers' cellars were now full r>f dead as a result of bombing parties flinging grenades from the heads of the stairways. , The colonel of one of the first bat talions to enter Loos established n signal station m «% convenient ' house, and soon forgot the German guns. Suspecting treachery, however, he searched the cellars and. found three Germans, and later discovered an officer deeper; m the cellar, telephoning and direct'iip gunfire. The incident reveals the highest form of courage. A lucky German shot would have meant the; Germans' death as well as the British. The German officer died bravely — the supremo sacrifice of courage. The battalions, having fought through ( Loos, struggled ahead towards Hill 70. a mile distant, on rising ground, from which the Germans swept the road with machine-guns and shrapnel. : An incessant storm of fire- from the windows of v. .cottage at St. Augusta ! raked our approach. The first British troops reached Hill 70 at 10 o'clock, and clung 1 to the position, all day long with heroic endurance, fresh troops ■ relieving them at 11 o'clock iiii the evening, and carrying on the struggle on- Sunday, when the position was organised, and the advance \va-i continued, with varying success. The attack on (Saturday northward towards llulluch was another triumph; for Kitohcuef's Army, ■ who ■formed a good proportion of the troops engaged m the struggle, which here Mas fierce. . We advanced ' under a terrible fire after the fh'st assault, which was carried out swiftly, «nd then our machine-guns were brought forward rapidly m considerable numbers, and inflicted heavy losses, the bayonets finishing the work. Tlie British troops stormed forward three miles, and reached the outskirts of Hulluch, which was bristling with machine-guns, - \ - During the fiercest of hand-to-hand fighting the Germans yielded ground wherever wo engaged them closely, but the British were repeatedly swept back ' by a tempest of bullets This continued for two whole days. ' The mud -caked lads resting- m the rear after tramping over the shambles of the battlefields, looked proud and exultant because they had led the great assault which broke the Germans' line. It was one of the hardest. encounters ever fought, and resulted m a. victory for the British arms. Sir John French rode about these mining villages, leaning over his horse j and speaking to groups of men, and personally thanking them for their gal- ' lant work. ]