DESERT CAMPAIGN

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2724, 20 March 1916, Page 5

DESERT CAMPAIGN

HOW THE SENUSSI WERE BEATEN By Telegraph—Preee Association—Copyright (Rec. March 19, 11.5 p.m.) London, March 19. The Press Bureau furnishes the following brisk account of the occupation of Solium on March 14: — Armoured l cars, under the Duko _of Westminster, played a very dashing part in the action. An aeroplane reconnaissance in tho morning showed the enemy's camp at Birwar to be empty, and orders wero immediately given to push forward with reasonable boldness. The cars found it bad going for eight miles until they readied the Derna Road, when they increased their speed to forty miles an hour. They passed hundreds of armed Bedouins, flying westward, but ignored' them and sighted the main camp twenty-five miles west of Solium. As the cars approached the enemy, the latter opened with a gun and two machine-guns, which were smartly handled, but tho teams were shot down from four hundred yards. The cars dashed into camp and the enemy scattered broadcast. The cars pursued, but abandoned the chase after going ten miles, fearing the petrol would give out, but they gathered in all the enemy artillery and rescued ninety members of crews shipwrecked on the coast of Cyrenaica, and' made prisoners by the Senussi. Thus a very skilful little campaign was successfully concluded. General Peyton's force, in three weeks, captured a, hostile _ commander, killed or captured half his subordinates, took all the artillery and scattered the remnants of the forces far beyond the frontier. The reported death of Nuri Bey, brother of Enver Bat.ha, cabled on February 28, was inaccurate. He was seen fleeing.on March 14.