THE GRIM STRUGGLE AT AUBERS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2463, 17 May 1915, Page 5

THE GRIM STRUGGLE AT AUBERS

BRITISH GALLANTRY IN THE FIRE ZONE. (Rec. May 16, 4.10 p.m.) London, May 16. ' The "Daily Mail" publishes a spectator's account of the "s !lt on Sunday. "It was,'"he writes, "the battle of Neuvc Chnpclle on n. , scale; one long unbroken uproar of artillery. Tne Gorman linos \ by drifting clouds of white, black, and greenish-yellow puffs of Germans were forced by the hasty advance to take to tho °pen in , m ,J p ' a ' n ' d in order to reinforce tneir front lines. A whirlwind of sholls mot ■ i a bombardment for three-quarters of an hour crumpled t.ho fionl o parapet at various points. But their barricades wore stoutly bin t. "The Brinish infantry's advance was the signal for a n " u ' 1 " 0I< ""L I ' ' a, machine-gun fire, which rent the battered British lines, which ' , ,j series of disjointed links in a chain whose remnants pushed ouwaria , „ nillw i' f ,j of death. Men fell in clusters, the dead lying crumpled up, andl the vmuKicn staggering back to shelter. Some of the British reached the foot o t P ana were driven back, but tho attack had been checked. The gu « I >oth f des fired furiously till late us tho afternoon, when the British launched anornei atW 'Ae infantry again fell in struggling heaps, but tlieGerman parapet and captured the section of the trench. But thei G e( j either side was Btrong and unbroken, and apparently the priz.ai wfis not worth the cost of sending reinforcements, wlu«h wo'ild j;, m » TP d n t the pest of fire, so the line was ordered to retire. The Bnteh,. di«u«Ml • order, leapt over the parapet and towards_ the British at a fast pace and some slowly, reluctantly carrying their wo i shower of bullets and bombs," _ , , f/ , P +;ha mms The narrator*points out that the sacrifice was not- wasted, tor which had been turned on the British weakened the German defence against the French, who were enabled to break the enemy's line a few miles away.