NEW FRENCH AND BRITISH ARMIES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14609, 20 May 1918, Page 7

NEW FRENCH AND BRITISH ARMIES.

«•»■■ AT "ENEMY'S THROAT. j AWAITING HUNS' FINAL BLOW. : AUSTRALIANS AND NEW ZKA- i LANDERS HURRY TO TAKI4 i PLACES ON JUTTLE- ! FRONT j (By Philip Gibbs. —Received by Mail.) War Correspondents* Headquarters, April 3. — Our respite- from massed at* | tacks since tho last battle of Arras does not mean that the enemy has abandoned ,his ambitions and plans to cjrive a wedge I .between thei British and French armies by making a breach in the lines between I Amiens and Mont Didier, and straighten- j ing the line of his advance to avoid a ! .dangerous saHemt by overwhelming oitr ! left flank north of Arras. It is pi*ob- j able he is pausing only to drag his guns across the wild Waste pf tho Somme battlefield* where there is slow progress, i to bring new reserves of men into the j battle-Hut*, and to prepare another bio* j. equal in fui-V to the first effort as his j inea:m now allow, a tyer his bloody losses and heavy engagements with the .French armies on his leftfTvvihg. -I doubt whether , his next effort w4ir **reach anything like the strength of that "battering-ram which j shocked our linefc* on March 21. Foi* twelve-days since theh'his wastage of man-power has been incalculable, and every mile of his gain is strewn with his dead — here and. there a few men, jj here and "there heaps of mortalities. 1 1 Backwards? ior these twelve days there ' has flowed a tide of mangled men, filling j his hospitals and Red Cross trains. | i Forty at least of his assault divisions had to be withdrawn .from .'our front after i caualties- amounting ih some' cases, as we know certainly, to be 40 to 50 per cent. „ Many of his* Companies and -battalions ft have bean ' almost annihilated, only a * score or so of ftteri going back to tell \ the froghtfttl tale to their people. Our heroic rear-guards foiled his plans, and smashed his time-table, and broke the spearheads of his armies', so that they had to turn aside ih a manner not helonging to tlie great strategical plan of the Qerman high command. Arras is not his. Amiens is not his. Tlie British armies are still intact, in spite of all losses of men and ground, and new French and British armies are at his throat, ready to- rend him to death if he is for a momemt at their mercy. j WILL NOT STOP NOW. I The enemy knows all this, but is playing for big stakes, and their gamblers ■ are ready to throw in all their human counters in orderto win or. lose thelast hazard. So they will not stop now, because if they stop they have already lost and they are waiting only to gather their forces for the final throw. This delay is our enormous gain. 'We, too, have had time to bring our fresh men to replace those who fought until they were spent, and who 'barred the way of the German advance with their bodies and souls. The enemy now in his next battle . will meet* men who are not tired, and -. .whose resolution is as great as those who • met the first .onslaught. * JOB FOR AUSTRALIANS. Australians and New Zealanders have . come into the line, — fresh, keen, uplifted ..; by fierce enthusiasm, stirred by emotions which make these fellows very dangerous to their enemy. I saw, them . coming to the relief of our hard-pressed troops, and it was a sight which made one's pulse beat, and gave one a sense of new security., When the full menace was upon us the Australians came swinging down towards the old Spmme battle- I fields with the spirit of men to the | rescue of a great cause. . It was their ' -business along tlie line of the Somme, for did they not take Pozieres, and is ■ hot that bruised town hallowed for them by memorials of their own dead, and by ' the graves of many comrade**? "Wo will ■ tajce Pozieres back," they *-aid. '"It's our jo"-" • •■ HEARD A CHALLENGE. To those who fought there under the I nibuths of furious fire which broke the earth lo fine powder, who went up from Le Sars and into Bapaume on that fam*ous day a year ago,' news that the enemy had come pouring back over that ground was a shock and a challenge. They waited patiently for the call to' come to their lines. Elsewhere every hour their impatience grew. "When are we going down? It's a darned shame we are not oil our way !" they said. At last the call came and down the roads the Australians came marching along with their easy, slouching step, with their guns and a transport and cookers. It was like men coming back after foreign travels to their old home threatened by 'invasion. In all the villages behind the -Somme battlefields they were known at the sight of their-slouch hats and their long, clean-shaven mugs. The villagers came out shouting and cheering, "Les Australiens! Vive L?s Australiens !" Women came running^ to them plucking their loose sleeves, patting their brawny shoulders. Girls waved to them, cheering >vith shrill voices, and these fellows grinned and said : "That's 1 all right! Don't you be afraid, kid; we will give 'em hell !" i On thei transport waggons the gypsy- j looking fellows sat looking down on these scenes with their arms .around their dogs ; and Australian gunners, hard ; as the steel of their 18-poundcrs, rode their mules through the market towns. They • were eager to begin thejr work. Long columns of Australian infantry parched day and night to get to the fighting lines and when I looked .-down these lines of clean-cut hatchet-faces, the splendor of these men and of the grim spirit of them stirred me with a sense of history drama. THEY "STARTED SOMETHING.'; The New Zealanders followed, spick and span, debonnair lad§ witl} ribbon around their hat's, ruddier than the Australians, like country boys from English orchards. It was glory on the roads as they passed. Very soon after they went into the battle line* there were things Goiiig. They sent out patrols and cleared "No Man's Land" • of Germans. They caught the enemy in ambushes arnjl raked him with bullets and brought in prisoners and machine guns. They slaughtered him in several small attacks and drove him out of villages and woods and scared him horribly by day and night. Australians who came out since the Somme battles, who have heard endless stories of Pozieres and Bapaume with envy, because they were not in that epic of their brothers, ' scouted around and said, "Well, nobody can say now wc have not seen the Somme, and when are we going up .to Po?lei*es?" Tlie New Zealand boys have gone out on perilous adventures and rounded up many -Germans. The day after the arrival of the forces, I met several of their lads slightly wounded by machine guns. "We were a bit rash," said one of them. "We put our heads into it," but they were sure the enemy would get no further. English, Irish, and Scottish troops who 'bo-re the -terrific shock bf the German assault on the first day of the battles and fought ten days back to our present lines, deserve what rest thoy can • now gei.' like Ulysses and his men after their long voyage. I A WONDERFUL HISTORY. I It is impossible for me to narrate all I havo heard and know about _ theso rearguard fights because the historic episodes are so crowded that one's pen cannot write them quick enough. On that great stretch .ol battlefields eixty miles long and twenty miles deep there were crowds of our men all fighting backwards, with tho enemy pressing them close and leaving lines of the dead in their wake, and oachlbrigade of ours and each battalion has its own crowded history. ■ <•■,-. Among these men wero Ulster soldiers lnniskillings, Royal Irish Rifles, and others, and their history is typical of all that happened. Tlie enemy broke" through on their right on March 21 below St. Quentin and in fog so thick that I our machine-gunners could not see fifty yards ahead- tliey- streamed through in columns. Tlie Iniskilling Fusiliers hold on to their forward, redopbts until almost surrounded and then with other Ulster comrades fell back beyond the mmm.mmmm^mm.m.mm^mm^^m.^.mmmm.^^m^mmmmmm^mmmmmmmmm

canal, blowing up bridges and lighting) desperately t6 defeiill the bridge-heads' against incessant attacks. The enemy* struck in between these U'lstei* troops' and battalions of Manchesters, Bedfords,^ Yorkshires and Scottish Fusilier.« ori their loft, and it avhs necessary to draw back towards Ham to fill . up live gup. Two ''hundred men from the headquarters ; staff, ; clerks, ; servants and signallers assembled and with great gallantry these men held their ground. Pioneer "battalions, among them young citizens of Belfast, were given rifles and became a fighting force which beat, off heavy attacks. Tlie enemv- was always trying to. surround these Ulstermen, tind once two hundred Gel-mans . got behind a divisional headquarters and were tluup out after sharp' fighting, bv the staff officers and men. An officer sent. through a m<3sage saying: "I am writing this with one hand and firing a rifle with the other." HELD OUT TILL THE LAST. After, continual rearguard action for five days the Ulster troops were support-ad by French battalions, but were- still called upon to fight while the French relief was in progress during the last days of the withdrawal. A staff officer of the division and an officer .'.of the Royal Irish Rifles were captured in a motor car by a* Oerjnan cavalry patrol. The German officer took them prisoners, but left the car. - Later another German patrol captured an Ulster ambulance driver, but. on the. way met a French patrol 7 advancing in the darkness cf night. The ambulance man shouted out, "An English prisoner," and when the French soldiers fired some shots, tlie Germans took to flight and an Irish ambulance driver* went hack aud salved, the derelict motor . car, which was ounctured -withbullet holes, and brought it back safely. Afterwards this gallant man spent all -.night rescuing wounded. This is but an. outline of a narrative full of strange and thrilling episodes in which, the men, 'of Ulster:- fought as heroes, as also did many otheir brave men in those days of the Crisis a 'week. ago. Nothing is pobler^or-.nipre t,ragic in its nobility thari thfe^last stand ' of the Manchesters in a redoubt called after their own name, near St. -Quentin When the enemy was all around them they held on hers; *■ serving-their— nitcchine' 'galls. By means of a buried, .cable th<jy..were able to get messages 'through for' sonie time. The last words came'"from the commanding officer 'about 3.20 o'clock in the afternoon, when he was, slightly wounded. He spoke calmly, even cheerfully, but said they could not hold ou,t much longer, as • practically eVery man was hit' and the Germans' were swarming around. . "The .Manchesters defend this redoubt to the last moment," said this gallant officer. These were his last wordE, and the redoubt, was; over whelmed. The Scottish Fusiliers, Bedfords, Yorkshires. Kings, Liverpools, and South Lancashire Pioneers ' fought an astounding number *Tßf rear ''actions and Vkilled a great number of the enemy. Thirty of the Scottish Fusiliers who failed- to get J(!|fr order to withdraw stayed' on till it^e officer felt very lonely and discovered that the enemy was two miles to, the rear of him. He led his men out and they marched down the road -at night J'pjth the) -Germans »H round them. Twice hey were challenged' in the , darkness, but no attack was. made on them, and they reached our lines safely after their extraordinary adventure.' :, FIRING' AT. TWENTY YARDS. , ! Again; and again, after reaching places Inhere they ihoped to rest a while, the men were called ' oii to fight again at once, and had to* rush out of billets to throw themselves across the road to bar the enemy's way. AVhile n-?m* tho vil- J hvge of' Bouchoir, near the '■ l.lpyo road, J they saw, it column of German transports I crossing this road and turning down m j the direction where they were in am- j bush. Tho Scottish Fusiliers waflted to let this t,i'aitspc-rt pass, them 1 so that they could bag the lot, t>ut .co\ild not.; bo re- { strained from firing 7 too soon." They! emptied *bhe German satddles at 20 yards j and captured some waggons, a water cart and a field cooker. The rest of tho transport -'galloped awayvwidely and caused confusion in tlie Qerman, slines; So at. last the men ware.. Believed, and >they staggered with fatigue and lack bf sleep, like thousands of : other men '. who had been fighting for- a week or more across tliesei same fields of- war.