DETAILS OF THE GREAT VICTORY.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 11365, 11 October 1917, Page 5

DETAILS OF THE GREAT VICTORY.

VICTORS FIGHT RAIN. MUD, AND GERMANS.'

SPEEDY CAPTURE OF OBJECTIVES Received Oct. 11, 8.35 a.m. London, Oot, 10. Percival Phillips states that the Fourth German Army has been defeated again. The battle is another unqualified success and prisoners are surrendering in large numbers. We again caught German divisions in process of relief and punished them severely. :Eain and rand made the enemy believe another enterprise impossible.’ It was a complete'surpnse. Our troops fought in swamps and pools, sometimes buried by shells, but the unquenchable spirit ot victory carried them through Some bad marched nearly "twelve hours just before going into battle, yet they fought like lions. The attack was less a great battle than a great readjustment of the battle front. There were two simultaneous advances. The larger operation was the swinging forward of our left towards Paechendaele village, thereby easing a salient, of which JBroodseinde was pronounced point. This involved the capture of the remiander of Poelcapelle village and an advance among a wilderness of ruined farms on the western spnrs of Passchendele Ridge,in the direction of Honthnlst Forest. On the right battle front we straightened an erratic line around Ronlelbeke and Polderhock Chateau.

Fighting between Pbeicapelle and Houthuist were handicapped by marshes caused by shellfire shooting away the banks of tha Broenbeek. The country here was a sheet of stagnant yellow water and there was a long irrev.ular slope of slippery ooza beyond, cut by the shattered embankment of the Thouroat railway and Langemarck road. All were liberally planted with enemy redoubts, the Thourout railway embankment giving cover for machine guns and a number of pillboxes replaced the railway station. Here" we caught two German divisions relieving each other. One had been hurried from the Argonne in motor buses and thrust into the forest during the night. The troops thpy relieved bad been lying in the rain and mud since last attacked and a graat number of men were ill. These battalions were so anxious to get away that they failed to give the necessary Information to the Argonne division and the latter knew nothing about the disposition of the British opposite. The men surviving the barrage surrendered immediately. The first and second objectives were gained on time and by eight o’clock the troops of the British Isles and another island of the Empire were breakfasting among tha vanquished redoubts. Here they rested tor a time before going for the final goal. The Germans evacuated some pillboxes as our men came up.

The Germans admitted that they had beetf badly pounded with Stoks’a mortars The French and British left suffered even more from mud, but were splendidly protected by our artillery. Stiff fighting occurred at Pcelcapelle. The Germans occupied the eastern half of the ruins and also the remains of a brewery, west on Comsbeke road, just dear of the village. The Germans had strengthened the cellars in the village since Thursday when we halted at the crossroads. This convinced the German regimental commander that 1 e had still a lighting chance of turning us out, but before dawn the Germans had been chased out of the cellars at the outskirts of the village, ran along the broken street and reassembled at the brewery. Here machine gnns tilled the apertures of the sandbgaged brewary walls. Stubborn fighting followed throughout the morning, hut the English troops early in the afternoon gained a foothold in the brewery, which was finally captured and the garrison iti.led or taken prisoner.

BRITISH FIGHTING MAN’S PAY. DEMAND FOR DOUBLING. LLOYD GEORGE SYMPATHETIC Received Oct. 11, 9 a.m. London, Oct. 10. A Joint committee of trade unions and members of Parliament urged Mr Lloyd George to immediately increase tbe pay of soldiers and sailors by a hundred per cent., with increases to other ranks below officers.

Mr Lloyd George pointed out that what bad already been done had cost fifty to sixty millions. He sympathised with the objects of the deputation and said lie would refer the matter back to Sir E. Carson's Cabinet Committee.

BRITISH STAFF CHANGES. London, Oct. 9. General Sir Archibald Murray succeeds General Sir Archibald Harter in the Aldershot command. General Hunter takes aa important appointment in the War Office.