NOT UNTIL SPRING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 243, 14 October 1939, Page 3

NOT UNTIL SPRING

T BIG OFFENSIVE ON 1 WESTERN FRONT HAPPENINGS IN BALTIC I DIFFERENCES AMONG GERMAN! LEADERS | (By Telegraph - Press Association—Gopv; icht j PARIS, Oct. 12. The advancing season and heavy rain in the past two days make, it almost incredible that the Germany can launch a heavy offensive before the spring, states ' Mr. P. J. Philip, New York Times i correspondent. ■ Besides, it is reasoned, there i must be growing pressure on I Germany against a suicidal war | in the west while Russia seizes 1 all strategic positions and booty ; in the east. It is known that there I are serious differences between ! Herr Adolf Hitler’s advisers and j the High Command over happenings in the Baltic States. Sympathy in many places in Germany seems to side, with Finland. Germany has lost control of the, whole Eastern Baltic as well as the immediate hope of access to the Black Sea and those places the Fuhrer promised his countrymen. She is hemmed in in the east more firmly than at any time since Imperial Germany was beaten. FRONT-LINE ACTIONS STRONG GERMAN ATTACKS FRENCH HOLD INITIATIVE. Received Oct. 13. 7.20 p.m. PARIS, Oct. 12. Official dispatches indicate that the fighting on the Western Front is emerging from an advance guard stage into a front-line action. No Man’s Land is rapidily turning into mud, lorn by shell holes. Some close fighting is occurring a.s the Germans are attacking more strongly, hut the French still command the initiative. A further communique states: “There has been activity amongst our advance units, particularly south from Saarbrucken. Both sides have set ambushes.” The British United Press Paris correspondent. states that a chief engagement occurred in the Moselle Corridor. Using automatic guns and hand grenades, strong German detachments advanced right up’ to the French positions, but fell back in the face of a withering fire. The Germans crawled through the darkness io barbed wire defences, and the French machine gunned and attacked ihe enemy with hand grenades from a distance of a few feet. The Germans came over in successive waves, but retreated, leaving a considerable number of dead. UNCEASING RAIN

FIERCE ENEMY RAID FRENCH HOLD THEIR GROUND Received Oct. 13. 5.5 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 12. An official French commentator i on the West Front says that one ol the German raids was particularly fierce, being preceded by a heavy artillery barrage, but the results were entirely in favour ol the French. Not a single prisoner was taken by the enemy. Rain has unceasingly ucliiged the Saar region lor some hours. The Paris correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that the Germans have suffered many casualties in recent attacks. The French are well entrenched, and have . not lost an inch of ground. Their losses have been slighi. A French communique says that the activity of first-line units spread during the night to many parts of trie front between the Rhine and the Moselle. The German High Command issued a communique recording minor patroi ’ and artillery activity on the West Front and minor air reconnaissance 1 activity over the North Sea and on the 'West Front. A French plane, it was stated, was shot down south of Laui lerbuig in an aerial combat.