BRITISH SWEEP FORWARD

Southland Times, Issue 17756, 6 September 1917, Page 5

BRITISH SWEEP FORWARD

GERMANS FIGHT TO DEATH. LONDON, August 3. The first batch of English,- Scottish, and Welsh wounded on July 31 reached London from the Flanders front. They say that the battle was waged by both sides with unprecedented ferocity, the German positions being stormed and carried in the teeth of the most determined opposition. Countless masses of Germans, including many youths, were flung into the conflict, which swiftly became carnage. One sergeant said; —I have been 32 months at the front, and have never seen anything like such a battle. The guns blasted the German defences to smithereens.” When the signal was given the British swept across the open in thousands. The ground trembled beneath them. Neither friend nor foe knew where to go for security. Every inch of earth before us was battered into shapeless heaps, and the area ahead was littered with corpses—heaps of German officers and men huddled in all positions. This explains the few prisoners taken. 'lnstead of bringing back thousands to our prisoner cages we left many of the enemy strewn over the battlefield. The few who survived our guns, advanced with agonising screams of "Kamerad.” Even the Prussians were mightily glad to be rescued from the furnace. Some of the enemy regiments fought to the death. They used their weapons like madmen. The blood in our lads was up, too, and one or two county regiments can claim to have beaten the Kaiser’s best in hand-to-hand fighting.