GROUND STILL SODDEN.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14545, 25 October 1917, Page 5

GROUND STILL SODDEN.

COUNTER-ATTACKS ON YPRES-

STADEN RAILWAY.

BRITISH ADVANCE CHECKED

(Australian and N.Z. Cable Association)

London, Oct. 23

Mr Philip Gibbs writes that the attack on the 22nd inst. was not over a wide front or of great depth', but it brought the French and English to the very edge of the dense woodlands of Houthulst Forest.

The greatest deptl:! of our advance v/as near Egypt House.

The enemy made a strong resistance, and a counter-attack followed immediately, which is still in progress.

Though ihe weather has been fine, aaid there has been bright sun for eight days, the ground has not dried, and is still difficijt.

Our hurricane of fire at. dawn must have killed many Germans, but some machine- gun emplacements were not destroyed, and these held up our men for some time.

When the Germans launched counterattacks along the Ypros-Staden railway our artillery was unable to range on them owing to the thick grey mist. The attackers forced back our men a. short distance.

The progress of ~the counter-attack is not known; but the fog has cleared, and aeroplanes are now able to signal the guns, allowing us to support the infantry by smashing enemy concentrations.

Mr Pereival Phillips's latest account says we are fighting outlying fragments,' in Houthulst Forest, and along the Westwoodbeke road, where we overcame a number of German defences in difficult •marshy ground.

German counter-attacks rogained a slight portion of the gixrand lost along the Staden railway. The effect of our advance is to bring the flank closer to the high ground of Passchendaele.