WESTERN PUSH.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7915, 7 August 1917, Page 1

WESTERN PUSH.

ST. JULIEN RECAPTURED. FURTHER PROGRESS. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. LONDON, August 4. Sir Douglas Haig reports: We recaptured the remaining trench which the enemy forced on Thursday night eastward of Monchy-le-Preux. Our positions here are completely reestablished.

The Allies further progressed eastward of Kortekeer Cabaret. Our troops have re-established themselves at St. Julien.

Our fire broke infantry massing for a counter-attack northward of the Ypres-Roulers railway., We advanced southward of Hollebeke and regained nearly the whole of the ground eastward of Monchy-le-Preux lost yesterday. . We repulsed raiders north-eastward of Gouzeaucourt and southward of Fontaine-les-Croisilles.

We successfully raided south-west-ward of Lombaertzyde. Yesterday’s prisoners now total 6122, whereof 132 are officers.

Wet and stormy weather continues. We gained further ground northwestward of St. Julien.

There was considerable hostile artillerying eastward of Messines and in the Nieuport sector.

"BLOODY WIPERS.” Ypres, “Bloody Wipers” as the Tommies call it, has witnessed some of the heaviest fighting of the war, The first battle for the town was fought in October and November, 1914, when the Allies and the Germans were racing towards the sea, each in an endeavor to outflank the other. By October 19th General French was aware that we had reach-ed-the main German front in position everywhere from Lille to the sea, and daily growing in numbers which threatened to submerge the thin and far-flung Allied, line. Sir John French made one more effort to break through towards Bruges and Ghent, but the British commander had doubts about its possibility. The First Army Corps advanced to Bixschoote and Zonnebeke, while two days later an attack was made between Zonnebeke and Becelaere. A successful advance was made till two o ’clock in the afternoon, when trouble came in the flanks. The French Territorials on the left were driven out of the forest of Houthulst, and their supports were heavily attacked. Allenby’s cavalry, east of Wystchaete, was also attacked, and the British line was halted on the line Bixschoote, Langemarck, St. Julien, Zonnebeke.' That marked the limits of the last British offensive. A strong German counter-attack then developed, and, with 100,000 men, the British faced half a million Germans, with reinforcements moving up from the south. A terrific attack was maintained, but the defence was stubborn, and though our line was badly dinted at various points it held, swaying backwards and forwards, forming salients and re-entrants, but always denying to the Germans any opportunity of breaking through towards the sea. It was a soldiers’ battle, fought with magnificent heroism, won by the dogged fighting quality of the rank and file, rather than any great tactical brilliance. The German casualties in the battle totalled. 250,000, and the British lost at least 40,000, but they held up an army five times their strength, and secured a victory which must be accounted decisive, for it achieved its purpose, the Allied line being held secure from the Oise to the sea.

In the second battle of Ypres the last rag of chivalry was stripped from the Kaiser’s shoulders, for it was then that his troops first used poison gas against their opponents. The battle was confined to the northern segment of the salient, between the Ypres Canal and the Menin Road. It began with a local counter-attack in return for our capture of Hill 60, and when this prospered it was pushed far beyond its original aim. It was fought by the British against heavy odds—a crushing artillery preponderance and the use of gas. For days our fate hung in the balance, dispositions became chaotic in the fog of war, and again the fight became a soldiers’ battle, where we won by the sheer fighting quality of our map. The bombardment of Ypres was begun on April 20th, as a means of blocking the routes of our supplies on the salient, heralding an attack on the Menin Road. On April 22nd the poison gas was first used, a greenish vapor moved over the French trenches, and back through the dusk came a stream of French soldiers, blinded and coughing and wild with terror, leaving behind them hundreds of thencomrades stricken and dead. The Canadians also felt the terror. The immediate result was a four-mile break in the Allied line. Reserves were hurried in, and they marched to the sound of the firing with the gas blowing down upon them. The Canadians stood manfully to their task, and did all that men could do to stem the tide. But all the while there was a yawning rent on our left which gave the enemy a clear road to Ypres. For some strange reason he did not take it —he broke our line, but could do nothing in the breach. Further increases in the reserves enabled the British to bridge the gap, and on April 24th came the second gas attack, this time against the British, and an attack developed against St. Julien. The remnants of the defenders were forced to retire. New battalions were rushed in as fast as they could be collected, and counter-attacks were launched, but the enemy was also reinforced, and our line was gradually forced back along the Yser Canal and to Verlorenhoek and Hooge, a more pronounced salient developing on the line, but again the line held, and the battle died away towards the end of

May. It was less critical than tlie first, for it was not fought with strategical intention, but as an episode in the war of attrition, and we lost so heavily that the balance of success may I)e said to have been with the Germans. The battle was the first event which really brought home to the British the inferiority of the war machine which handicapped our manpower, and it led to an immediate improvement in the equipment of our troops and the supply of machine guns and high explosives.