"THE HOLE OF DEATH"

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2318, 27 November 1914, Page 5

"THE HOLE OF DEATH"

GRIM DRAMA AT A VILLAGE ("Timea" ond 'Sydney "Sun" BerricesJ (Rec. November 26, 6.45 p.m.) , London, November 25. A force of French infantry held a village near Nancy against twelve thousand Germans, who sowed tho village with fotox thousand shells in three days.' The' French batteries allowed the Germans to waste their ammunition without returning "fire, and the German commander, deceived by the silence, ordered an attack. The French . battery ] pounded tho closely-formed ranks, but did not arrest them, and tho infantry were- accordingly directed to let the assailants got within throe hundred yards. . At this range their officers shouted "Chargo with the bayonets!" but tho infantry bad been previously warned, instead of obeying the command, to remain in their trenches. Tho Germans, hearing the order, rose from their crouching position, and hurriedly fixed bayonets to repel the attack; volleys from the trenches caught them just as they' reached the entanglements, and thevfell in dense masses. The men behind them scaled the entanglements, over the bodies of their comrades, but got no further. .. Four separate assaults were repellod, and four thousand dead were left in front of the .trenches. ' At nightfall tho Germans retreated. Some lost their way in the darkness, and fell into tho River Loisy. The survivors christened the town "The Holo of Death."