SIR DOUGLAS HAIG'S REPORTS.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14859, 5 September 1918, Page 5

SIR DOUGLAS HAIG'S REPORTS.

COMPLETE SUCCESS' ON MONDAY.

ENEMY HEAVILY DEFEATED.

I GALLANTRY OF THE TROOPS.

| - FALL OF QUEANT.

(Australian and N.Z. Cable Association I and Reuter.)

London, Sept. 3. Sir Douglas Haig reports:— 1 Monday's operations south of the Scarpe were completely successful. Th« ; enemy were heavily defeated in their prepared defences in the DrocourtQueant system, with the result that ! they are retiring this morning along practically the whole battle-front.

In Monday's battle, besides inflicting heavy losses, wo took about 10,000 prisoners. Our troops are now adr vancing, and it is reported that they have entered Pronville, Doignies, and Bertincourt.

The Canadians showed the greatest skill and courage on Monday in storming the Drocourt-Queant lines, which had been perfected during the last eighteen months and provided a most formidablo obstacle, being furnished with every device of modern engineer- | ing defences. Here the enemy were reinforced to such a degree that on a front of eight thousand yards eleven German divisions were identified. Undeterred by the strength of the enemy's defensive organisation, the Canadians, assisted admirably by the English troops on the left,' carried all before them. Soutlrw ard of the- Canadian Corps, the English, Scottish and naval troops of the Seventeenth Corps, Tinder Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Ferguson, performed a no less gallant and arduous task in storming the junction of the Drocourt-Queant and Hindenburg systems. These vjcre of the most formidablecharacter, but the troops' swept over and around them, encircling Queant from the north. As a result, this important pivot fell into ou,r hands by nightfall. The Tanks Corps again assisted materially in the success of the opera- [ , tions. . ■