GERMAN TROOPS ADVANCE TO LUNEVILLE

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2238, 26 August 1914, Page 5

GERMAN TROOPS ADVANCE TO LUNEVILLE

POSITION ON FRONTIER OF LORRAINE T . .' ; '. ' Paris, August 24. It .is officially stated that the Germans have occupied Luneville. The French are withdrawing from the Donon and'Saabs Passes in the Vosges, as it is no longer important lliat they 'should be held as the French occupy a fortified line beginning at Grand Couronne do Nancy. " ' , ■ Later.. An olncial announcement says the Germans have occupied Luneville, Amanse, and Diealouard, in the Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, otherwise the French front has not been modified. Luneville is an industrial and garrison town in France, fifteen miles by rail from the German frontier and twenty-one miles from Nancy. It is an important caval.y station, with a large riding school, and its population, including the tooops, amounts to about 25000. The cavalry barracks aro in the Chateau of fyuneville, once.the favourite residence of Duke Leopold of Lorraine. Tjho town suffered greatly in the Thirty Years' War, and in the campaigns of Louis XIV. The Treaty of Luneville in 1801 between France and Austria confirmed the former Power m the possession of the left-bank of the llbino. ..''■'' Dieulouard is a small town on the railway between Nancy and Mctz, and is about twelve miles distant from Nancy. Some military writers consider the fields round Luneville and Nancy as the probable scene of tho first decisive action in any future war. Its result would decide whether an advance upon the-first line of defence, supported by the Upper Moselle and Metise and by tho great fortresses of Epinal, Toill and Verdun, were possible for the German Army, and whother tho French could advance npon, the Rhine towards the great places of Strassbur* and Mainz. ° ' The Grand Couronne do Nancy is not shown on any of the maps at our disposal. There is, however, a Grand Mont, about soven miles northeast of Nancy. The Donon and j Saales passes lie about fifty miles south-east •of Nancjvand it was stated yesterday that the Germans had failed to rotake the town of Schirmeck, which lies in Alsace at the foot of the Donon mss on the other side of the range. / , ■ " }•■ CAUSE OF THE RETREAT FROM LORRAINE (Bee. August 25, 11.20 p.m.) mi <rtr \- i) m n i' . . Paris. August 24. • en,-?, f crlbe !, tllc "treat from Lorraine to the fact that a divi-«™oi^Joft«rmy'-oorps - of m <™M« and Toulon contingents gave way beforo %> enemy, necessitating a retreat all along tho line.