BRITISH GUNNERS' HEROIC STAND
IN A CRITICAL POSITION WALL OF GERMANS LEFT AROUND THE GUNS (R«c. 'August 30, 5.5 p.m.) Boulogne, August 29, morning. Seven hundred British, with two guns, took up a position behind Cam- ■ brai on Wednesday morning. The guns at first got a splendid fange, and did wholesale execution, but they lost the range under the steady German advance. The position ivas critical at one o'clock in the afternoon, but the. British held their own, expecting assistance. Suddenly a force of Uhlans, estimated to number five thousand, galloped upon the gun 3. _ _ The last British officer remaining stood by his gun and fired with' his revolver at a dozen Uhlans. The infa'n try resisted for an hour, when the three hundred survivors/ the majority of wh oni were wounded, began to fall back on Cambrai, which they reached in good order at nightfall. _ _ Elsewhere three thousand British had bivouacked early in the morning in a 6trong position, after a forced march of seventeen miles. Through the lack of air-scouts they misjudged the position, and a superior force of Germans an hour later, with Uhlans leading, swarmed upon the British, reaching to within fifty yards of the machine guns. The British readily repulsed numerous attacks, the Germans leaving a wall of dead. The British reached a safe base five miles distant. The losses were inconsiderable. Eye-witnesses liken the last stand of the British gunners to that at Rorke!s Drift in the Zulu War. Seven hundred British gunners took up a position on high ground near Tournai (? Cambrai), with twenty-two field pieces, and two Garrison Artillery guns end one light infantry regiment entrenched. ' The German shrapnel made good practice from the north-west of Tournai, and the British effectively returned the fire, meanwhile awaiting the arrival of a French Army Corps. , The situation became critical when the Uhlans were reinforced, and charged down the streets leading to the British position. They swept ronnd the Hanks of the British position with desperate' bravery, and charged up to the very muzzles of the British guns. ' . The survivors state the Germans mounted quick-firers in Red Cross wagons and so were able to get close. , A gunner who was shot in both legs summed up the episode. The Germans won't be so- cocksure the next time. We give them hell." Tournai is a .town in Belgium, twenty-two miles east of Lille. Cambrai is a totally different place thirty miles south of it. • Fighting has occurred at I both towns, but the British have not p reviously been mentioned ae being at Tournai. . ' I ATTACKED BY FIVE GERMAN CORPS. • ' London, August 28. Mr. 'Asquifh, speaking in the House of Commons, that Field-Marshal Sir John French reported that in Wednesday's fighting the British were exposed to the attack of five German corps, two cavalry divisions, and a reserve corps.' Our second corps bore the brunt of the cavalry attack, and our nrst corps inflicted very heavy, loss on the enemy.
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Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2242, 31 August 1914, Page 5
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494BRITISH GUNNERS' HEROIC STAND Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2242, 31 August 1914, Page 5
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