HOW GOES THE FIGHT?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11805, 16 September 1916, Page 4

HOW GOES THE FIGHT?

NOTES CM THE WAR. , THE POSITION ANALYSEDCHRISTCHURCII, September 10. , According to the diary of a colonel of Bavarians, found in the course of tho great British advance in July, tno Franco-British offensive north and south of the Somnie anticipated a Gerinaii 'offensive still further south, in : the Roye region. The officer concerned was Lieutenant-Colonel Bedall, of ' the 16th Bavarian infantry regiment, ' taken prisoner on July 13. He seems ,'io have kept a fairly full record of 1 ... the operations on his own sector, and occasionally extended his observation to adjoining sectors. He records that the ' British preparations for an advance were concealed from the observers by 0 haze. This was following on "an Infernally violent bombardment," lasting eight days, in tho-course of which . trenches, second and third lines and all tillages behind the lines for a distance of nine miles were reduced to ruins. : p|l»p4aine itself had been under bombardment by the heavy guns,, He Speaks of villages of which nothing but heaps of bricks. After day or two of heavy fighting the Bavarians were ordered to counte -attack and lost heavily, and the colonel to appeal to the divisional comjr&nder to abandon the effort, because , tyis battalions were being annihilated. .Be was on the Mametz-Montauban ; ' <€Ctor, and he complains that the line *, yjjti extremely thin, and then he goes ea to say that there was a great concentration of German forces away to ■the south. "While, on the German ' Bidei, the first line, on such part of the >. 2nd Army front as was subjected to the attack, was held by only five divisions with 2-3 divisions in reserve, according to accounts he writes, "on the front iVlonchy-Roye, 22-26 divisions had been concentrated for nn attack on a narrow front, echeloned in considerable depth. The necessarv artillery and infantry reinforce'ments were to some extent concentrated towards the end uf June. Under these ~circumstances there was a very heavy task awaiting us. The position became even more critical, because it came out that the 6th Bavarian Reserve Regiment, which on the morning of July 1 was thrown into Montau'oan, had been completely ' destroyed." The battering of this reserve regimenE war; vory thorough. " Of 8500 men only 500 survivors remained," he gays, "and these are for the most ' part men who had not taken part in t ,'fhe • battle, plus two regimental offi-:*-cera and a few .stragglers who turned i- " lip on the following day. All the rest are dead, wounded or missing: only ~ » small fraction fell into the enemy's hands as prisoners. The regimental - Staff and the battalion staffs have all captured in their dug-outs. The :6th Bavarian Reserve Regiment is said 1 to have surrendered, owing to the complete shortage of ammunition, which all been expended, but maintained vmm heroic resistance until the last mo- • 'meat. These dirty English are said to have slain these brave people without mercy, although the lack of ammunition Tendered them all but defenceless, and although by signals they showed their readiness to surrender."

The fact that there was an enemy concentration in the Roye district suggests that the Germans anticipated an Allied offensive but were anxious to ■ forestall it, their plan, possibly, to couple their own break-through with "* the final effort against Verdun. They . irt)st have drawn every available man from the sector north of Chaulnes. and from other sectors farther north, but even so, it is impossible to believe . that anything like twenty-two divisions had ■ been masseil at Roye. A concentration approaching that magnitude wouM have created a very dangerous condition between Arras and Ypres, even allowing for the strength of the enemy's fortified lines. However, the colonel would not have stated that troops were massed at Roye unless he had been so informed, and the fact explains why the French had so easy &o advance immediately foufch of the Snmme and also why the enemy was able to reinforce bis broken front so rapidly .".Ths .latest . French, advance is <3e---/•tfribed as being a particTi'Jarly brilliant but it will be observed 2 .1-& it. the policy of restraint is still * JferiEng followed, and that no attempt i$ x-jn&Ae to carry the offensive boyond tho /-Tflfea ■ that had been prepared. After beating off all counter-attacks the AJiks consolidated their gains. which

| means that, they established themselves in new positions, dug new trenches and repaired the old one? and established complete control. After the victorious rush some work still remained. to lx> done on iho Hanks, and it' is reported to-day that progress has bscn made between Combles and Rancourt, where t'.ie fortifbd farm of Priez was captured. This farm is on the Combles-Rancourt read, abcut inidwny between the two places, and its capture means that the attack on Combles will shortly be opened from three sides. Isolated farm buildings are sufficiently rare to be marked on the maps in this region, for the farmers live in the villages. The holdings are generally small, often not more than twenty or thirty acres, and there is little room on tlirftn for buildings, because the cultivation is intense. The farmers therefore build their cottages in the nearest village, and that is why small hamlets are dotted over the country. It may bo only a mile or so between the villages. Rancourt is about a mile and three-quarters from Combles, and the maps mark: a couple of farms and a cemetery between the two. Bouchavesnes is more than two miles east of Le Forest, but the Hospital Farm slid the Marrieres Wocd are the only places of sufficient consequence to be named in this stretch.

The extraordinary importance of .shells in the offensive my be gathered from an official computation mentioned by Router's correspondent at the British headquarters, that in four weeks the British guns threw no fewer than five million shells inio the German lines or into villages occupied by the enemy. Tho bombardment did not cease during that period. The guns were firing at some place or other day and night. Smoke and dust hung over the country, and though a shower of rain would brighten the landscape in a little while tho exploding shells would raise another pall. This correspondent report,3 a brief statement by a. prisonered Bavarian lieutenant, which is worth quoting because it shows that the enemy could never get away from tho British guns. "We detrained at Bapaume," said he, "into which place the English were throwing 12in shells. It wa3 not a nice reception. so we- began to march down the main Albert road as soon as possible. But this was being regularly dusted by what wo took to bo Gin naval projectiles, and our men began to drop. By the time these had ceased we found ourselves in the zone of your heavy field guns, which crumped the road more rapidly. Then we had to pass through the curtain fire of your eighteen-pounders, and a 'hurricane bombardment of your trench mortars, so that bv tho time we had reached our destination, the battalion had casualties amounting to about one-third of its strength."