GERMANS AND AUSTRALIANS

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13464, 19 April 1917, Page 5

GERMANS AND AUSTRALIANS

ANXIETY TO CREATE DISCORD. REASON OF THE RECENT ATTACK. (United Press Association.) Received April J9, 12.25 p.m. SYDNEY, April 19. Captain C. W. Bean, referring to tin: Germans' extravauanl claims of cup lures at Lagnicourt, >;i>s the Germans for some reason are intensely anxious to affect opinion in Australia a) this juncture, and are expressing clumsy sympathy with the Australians. They eagerly seize and publish letters written during the Somme winter in order to make it appear that the Australians are anxious to desert the Allies. Captain Bean says that the Prussian Guards were ordered to cut through the Australians, reach the guns, seize the village of Noreuil, ami hold it for 2-i hours, until special parlies had destroyed the puns and ransacked the headquarters for papers and then withdraw. Large picked forces by sheer weighl broke through the village : ,t Lagnicourt, and reached some of tile advanced field guns which the crews had dismantled. The Germans were actually placing charges under the guns when the local commanders, without awaiting orders, counter-attacked, and by the middle of the morning all the guns had not only been recaptured but, with the exception of five which the Germans had managed to destroy, were firing on the retreating enemy.