STORIES OF THE DRIVE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11764, 31 July 1916, Page 2

STORIES OF THE DRIVE.

WHAT THE CORRESPONDENTS SAW. LONDON, July 5. "The Times" correspondent in the Press Camp says:— " I visited tho Fricourt battleground. It was a dreadful sight. I xvent through remnants of rusted and torn barbed-wire, and twisted railway lines, to tho German front line. It was all ridge and pit and hummock. There was no vestige of the true surface of tho ground. The obliterated trenches were pitted with huge shell holes. The village was a shapeless heap of brick' and. masonry, with no streets apparent and no houses. WAR'S AFTERMATH. " It was easy to see where the British wont. Parties were still gathering up the dead and preparing the bodies for burial. Some lay where they had fallen with their heads towards the German trenches. Others wero being gently and reverently laid in rows on the open ground. . A service was read, at five o'clock in the afternoon. "Beyond the front line tho German dead, dressed in grey, wero mostly in the trenches and dug-outs. They had tied when the British broke in. Some were killed by shell-fire, some bombed and others bayoneted. Apparently numbers of the wounded had crawled into the dug-outs to die. One man was killed in tho mouth of a burrow, and had fallen down the stops, blocking tho entrance. Armless and legless corpses were everywhere. Ono dug-out was used as a dressing-station, and in it were five who had seemingly died while awaiting attention. " The German trenches here were deeper and wider than ours, and more open to shells, but the troops kept as much as possible in the dug-outs, which wero also more extensive and better and deeper than ours. In those that were not smashed were found immerisa quantities of unused cartridges, bombs and hand grenades, together with the dea<3 men's helmets and personal possessions.

"The immense strength of the German defences makes the capture the most heroic feat of all. Villages, woods, eminences and hollows wero converted into veritable fortresses, on which the Germans had laboured for eighteen months, omitting no protectable device."

TALES OF MONTAUBAN. ' LONDON, July 6. Mr Beach Thomas, the "Daily Mail's" representative at British headquarters on the western front, writes:— " The first phase of the battle is ended. The Germans are firmer on their legs, bat are too exhausted to reattack.

"The capture of a whole battalion was a brilliant tactical strotfo. A weak-ly-held German line was ordered to await reinforcements, and the _lß6th Prussian Regiment arrived, but it was too late. The British infantry was advancing on both sides, and shrapnel was bursting just over the point of debouchment from the . communication trenches. Tho Germans held out for a quarter of an hour, and then the remnant cam<& out with its hands held skywards. The men were despatched to the rear ao quickly that scarcely another life was lost. TWO CAPTURE TWENTY. "The capturo of prisoners continues. Two of our soldiers at Mametz brought in twenty from one dug-ou*, and another seventy wero captured in a corridor

'•' I saw a straige scene at Montauban. A handful of German snipers held an isolated dug-out after the British had swept on. . They were firing rapidlv, and a few British' Tommies advanced to their nest.. The inmates refused to surrender. Bombs were thrown in, but the Germans, hid in niches, continued to fire at their assailants. Then the Tommies plajed their master-stroke They dug a_ hole through the top of the dug-out, inserted a strong charge of ammel (concentrated melinite —one of the tri-nitro compounds), and ' exploded it successfully. " The Montauban front was completely undermined with a complicated system of caves, but the British artillery practically demolished this. British and French officers say that they have never seen a more complete ruin. "While the appalling work of salvage from the battlefield was going on a solitary enemy gUn spat fire spitefully, but the British soldiers destroyed it. They called it * The Spinster.' MUDDLE OF BBITREAT.

"The enemy's later quietness was due to the muddle of retreat. He lacked targets since his aeroplanes were driven back and his kite-balloons destroyed. He was temporarily blind and cut of breath. Many tales of British heroism and eagerness and self-sacrifice are told. \siiq man, unable to bear any longer the constant cry for the stretcherbearers, repeatedly went out into No Man's Land himself. He saved twenty lives."

CIVILIANS DRIVEN OUT. LONDON, July 5. The Paris correspondent of "The Times" says that a French officer who accompanied the British describes the capture of La Boisello as a wonderful feat. The night's bombardment smashed houses and walls, tore down trees, turned the trenches into chaotic furrows, and half flattened out the communication trenches, which were -left littered with corpses, rifles, ammumtion_and clothing. Montauban was practically destroyed, the Germans heavily shelling it after they lost it. But this did not prevent the intrepid British engineers going on with their work. Counter-at-tacks were beaten off everywhere. The Germans drove out the inhabitants, and not a single Frenchman was to bo found when the British entered. The only thing that had grown since the German occupation commenced was the great military cemetery. It was impossible to piok out the locations of streets or houses, and numerous corpses were seen, those of Germans being by far the most frequent. The troops rushed Montauban in a mad race, irresistibly carrying away the enemy, who took to his heels, only the deeply entrenched garrison holding out and firing machine-guns from every cellar dug-out. The persistenco of the hand grenadiers finally overcame the foe.