BRITISH DESTROYERS IN ACTION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2727, 23 March 1916, Page 5

BRITISH DESTROYERS IN ACTION

RUNNING 'SEA FIGHT

ENEMY HARRIED BY AIR CRAFT

BRITISH ARMY VOTE FOR

'4,000,000 MEN

The news from the Western front to-day details the desperate attempt on the part of the Germans to break through on the Avocourt-Melancourt sector, and also mentions some fighting in the Argonne. TII9 fight in the Avocourt wood was a dogged affair, the French falling back foot by foot before a vanguard of liquid fire fiends. The enemy were thus enabled to occupy the wood, but were prevonted from debouching, and the few hundred yards gained were unimportant to the French., The concerted strategy of the Allies is emphasised by General Cadprna. the Italian Generalissimo, who tells how the Italian offensive helped Verdun by tying down some 300,000 Austro-Gcrnians who might have turned the scale i:i the West. An Austrian communique puts a braver, not to say heroic, face on the important Russian success at the Uscioczko bridgehead fortifications on the Dniester, referred to yesterday in a mangled message from the High Commissioner. The Germans, also, have beeir compelled by the pressure of the Russians to abandon a salient on tlio northern flank. A side issue of the big .air-raid on Zeebrugge—a by-product, as it were—has been a running sea tight between British and German destroyers. The official reports fro.m each side offer a laughable study in contrasts. Apparently the Allies 1 air-craft made Zeebrugge Harbuur too warm for the German destroyers and submarines. Tlio former were "hunted through the minefield into the open, and promptly chased back by the-British, while the latter promptly submerged and "lay low." The House of Commons has passed the Army votG for four million men.