BATTLE OF TOURNAI.

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13594, 8 October 1914, Page 2

BATTLE OF TOURNAI.

London, August 29. • A correspondent telegraphs as. follows :—

"On Wednesday morning our troops had taken position slightly to the reax of the town, of Tournai, on high ground. Our artillery fired effectively at first on th© German advance, but later lost the range. Towards 1 o'clock our position became critcal.

"As every vital moment slipped by anxious eyes looked back for the promised help that was never to come; Even at the terrible disadvantage of more than ten to one, the infantry and artillery were holding their own, when hordes of Uhlans seemed suddenly to swoop down from nowhere. -

"Through the town they galloped with an amazing disregard for them; selves and up to the .very muzzles of our field guns. Their losses were appalling, but survivors insist that the British stood their ground until ambulances, at least three in number, made their appearance with rapid-fire guns mounted on them. Towards 2 "o'clock the 300 survivors began to retire."

The • "Chronicle's" Boulogne correspondent sends the personal story of a wounded soldier, who has arrived there, and who declared he was one of the thirty survivors of a British force of 2000 troops who were practically wiped out by the German artillery. His story was as follows: —

"We were five solid days in the trenches and moved backward and forward all that time with the varying tide of battle.

"It was about 2 o'clock in the morning when the end cam©. Things had got quieter and our officers came along the line and told us to get some sleep. We were preparing to obey when a lidht or something else gave us away and we found ourselves in an inferno of bullets.

We could do nothing. Down on us the shrapnel hailed and we fell by the score.. At the same time the enemy's Maxims opened fire. We wore almcyt without •shelter when we were caught and. .'we crawled aloiia in front to find cover. .

" 'Leave everything and retire,' was the order, and we did Avhat we could to obey. I don't know how long it lasted, but when dawn came I could see not more than thirty men left in the various sections of the field. Thirty at the most wore loft out of about 2000. ."I wandered away from toe others and eventually ..found myself at with a, single companion, '-^at was the first time the G^rn-an artillery really got at us. As a rule their gunfire was mighty poor." . Chi the above story the. censor has eliminated the name of the town near which the fighting occurrecd.) A private letter received here from a British officer at the front tells how a British cavalry .regiment suffered severe loss through a ruse of the enemy The regiment, it seems, sighted a German battery not far off firing in a rovcrse direction, and tho British officer decided that the battery was unaware of their presence, whereupon he ordered a cavalry charge down into the valley which lay between them and the battery. Unfortunately the bottom of the'valley had been ' very cleverly studded with concealed barb wire, into which a portion of th© regiment rushed before the front rank could give warning. Immediately the German battery turned its gun around, inflicting heavy loss. . . "They were on us like peas emptied from a sack." This was the phrase used by a British officer who arrived at Folkestone from the front, in describing the overwhelming force of the German attack in the recent fighting. Further, he refused to discuss the battle. "We have been pledged, ' he said, "not to recount even our own personal experiences to our our own friends until fourteen days have elapsed." A Belgian civic guard-named Duquet, who left Namnr shortly before the Germans reached that fortress, has arrived in London. He heard the story of the fall of that fortress from French officers after their retreat, and tells the story as follows r — | "At last accounts five forts were still holding out, though they are bound to succumb ■to ■ the improved engines of war with which tho Germans, are now equipped. "These new style siege guns have, been -posted out of the range of the, forts and they played enormous \shells over the defences. The .shells burst with such force that they tore gaps ten yards deep in the cupolaß, and speedily put tho forts' guns out of ac"As soon-as the first forts fell an army of Germans swarmed in, overwhelming the small French and Belcian force, which was compelled to re"Five thousand Belgians from Namur were subsequently surrounded, by Germans, at Denee. The Belgians tried to force their way through tho German cordon with the bayonet, out only seventeen got through. Ihe *emalnder wore either killed or made prisoners."