THE CORRESPONDENTS' DESPATCHES.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14894, 17 October 1918, Page 5

THE CORRESPONDENTS' DESPATCHES.

LITTLE SHELLFIRE IN FLANDERS.

THE RESISTANCE PATCHY,

(Australiau and N.Z, Cable Association)

London, Oct. 15

Mr Philip Gibbs writes.-—After the first bombardment there .was astonishingly little shellfire in to-day's Flanders battle. The quietu.de strikingly contrasted with the tumult of gunfire during the battles thereabouts in 1917.

Wounded men returning all brought the same tale—that the enemy put up a fight with machine-guns and then surrendered.

The chief characteristic of the fighting was the strength with which the enemy held the front line. Some fought with extreme courage, sometimes rushing out machine-guns through our barrage, and getting our men in the open. Elsewhere they put up a poor resistance. One of their officers remarked, "What can you expect when an armistice is probable in two or three days?"