ATTEMPT TO RETAKE ROEUX.

Colonist, Volume LVIII, Issue 14409, 21 May 1917, Page 5

ATTEMPT TO RETAKE ROEUX.

FURIOUS GERMAN BOMBARD-

MENT.

COUNTER ATTACKERS' DECI-

MATED.

A VERITABLE BUTCHERY

(Australian and N.Z. Cable Association)

Paris, May 18

In attempting to retake Roeux on Tuesday German batteries showered shells at the rate of sixty «a minute for sixteen hours.

A British officer, describing it, says: "'What butchery it was at the chemical works! Atfcough the bombardment was lengthy, the actual fighting was short and fierce. The Germans poured shells on our lines as if they han concentrated every gun they possessed on this small sector. The number of gas shells was greater than ever. Our men lived in their gaa masks for twelve hours.

"Yv'hen a German division, mostly Bavarians, came against us marching shoulder to shoulder, our machino guns mowed them down. The first rank was accounted for and the second and third but the remainder swept over like an avalanche, leaving many of us safe and unbounded in the rear. We counterattacked with a. characteristic and irresistible series of charges'. Our field guns swept; the German columns in the open ground, while our men in the enemy's rear attacked and the Germans were surrounded with a circle of fire ■until it became a veritable butchery.