THE BATTLE OF COULMIERS.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3103, 20 January 1871, Page 2

THE BATTLE OF COULMIERS.

♦» The " Times" correspondent at Tours supplies the following sketch by an eyewitness :— " The fighting was between Ouzouer-le Marche and Coulmiers, both places in the Department of the Loiret, north and a little west from Orleans, and at a distance of about twenty kilometres from that city. The kilometre, it may be useful here to mention, is a trifle less than two- thirds of an English mile, or, more exactly, as 22 to 85, On ' Monday last the Germans showed a disposition to take possession of the forest of Marchenoir, but theyjwere repulsed., after a slight skirmish, or, as my informant writes, they retired at the sight of the mitrailleuses, and the next day the French advanced, and their head-quar-ters were at Ouzouer-le-Marche, to the front of which place, at eight o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, the 9th, they attacked the Germans. The vie- • tory was obstinately contested, and the struggle lasted till dark. The hardest fighting was at Coulmiers, attaoked ( by the French. The village stands at the ' entrance to a wood, within, which I%h German battalion found cover, and in the houses, of which they had loop,holed the walls. In front of the wood they had batteries in a strongly in^ • trenched position; The French opened; i a heavy fire of artillery on wood and ; , village. From the top of his stack my 1: informant could plainly see roofs blown into the air and walls knocked down by. j,:; the action of the shells. Finally^ tph^e r;^f Germans were driven from their;spjte^v;):|