ALLIES REPEL DESPERATE

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2261, 22 September 1914, Page 5

ALLIES REPEL DESPERATE

BOMBARDMENT OF - : REIMS . WANTON DESTRUCTION OF FAMOUS '• ENEMY'S LEFT EVACUATES ■■.', "• FRANCE" BRffISH CRUISER ATTACKED AT •: : - .ZANZIBAR •; PEGASUS BADLY BATTERED ■ •'. % ■' ■ ' : . ■' ■'■■ To-day's news from the Franco-German theatre of the war dis> ioloses a desperate and' most stubbornly contested battle between the Centre Annies of the Germans and tie Allies' for the command of the Upper Aisne, clearly the key to the German position. The enemy is strongly entrenched, his heavy guns are fixed in concrete emplacements,, and the Germans are confident that the line can be held for ", three months; A'terrific artillery duel is in progresSj and already the enemy's heavy armament has suffered badly, while French- siege artillery is being rapidly brought up to engage the position. The German Right has been desperately weakened; and its half-hearted coun-ter-attaoke have failed signally, while on the enemy's left, the Allied ' attack has been pushed forward with suoh vigour that the Germans on that wing have been compelled to evacuate France. The heaviest fighting appears to be raging just north' of Reims, which has been furiously bombarded by tlhe Germans, who have destroyfed the famous cathedral, an act of wanton destruction that ■ las evoked most bitter.indignation. Meanwhile, the "Times" military ;oorrespondeht''thinks that' General Joffre, Commander-iii-Ohief ~i of ■>;theu>! i •'■ . Allied Armies,.should take a.bold and decisive step to determine the _ -ipresent phaee of the operations, and even at the risk of weakening "■■'. . his; centre, deliver a crushing. 6troke on'one or other'of the enemy'd' wings. There is no news from the Belgian theatre of the war, nor of • the Russian operations in Galicia and East Prussia, beyond a record of steady advance. From Zanzibar, on. the East African Coast, comes news of ■an attack en the old British third-class cruiser; Pegasus (formerly on the New Zealand station), by ■'■■■ the German cruiser Konigeberg, a faster fighting ship, ten years younger than, the Pegasus, which was engaged at the time in repairing her boilers, and taken at a disadvantage while'at anchor, was badly, battered. The British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Lloyd George, has delivered his first war speech, in characteristic vein, but from a Btatesman of radical, anti-militariet views, quite inspiring in. its mili- ' ' tantchallenge -to the "Bully of Europe." .