BRITISH COUP IN MESOPOTAMIA

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2989, 29 January 1917, Page 5

BRITISH COUP IN MESOPOTAMIA

TURKS CAUGHT IN A DEATH ZONE CLOSING IN ON KUT-EL-AMARA By Telegraph—Press 'Assn.—Copyright-. (Reo. January 28, 5.5 p.m.) London, January 26. A British official dispatch from Headquarters in Mesopotamia stales:— By a determined assault] under cover of an intense bombardment, we seized and consolidated 1100 yards of the enemy's first-lino trenches on the right bank of the Tigris south-west of Kut-el-Amara, and also a considerable length of second-line trenches. Our 1 osses' were slight. The Turks westward of the Hai Biver thereupon threw four furious counter-attacks against our lines. The first and third of these were broken by artillery, infantry, and machine-gun fire. The second and fourth were momentarily successful. We resumed tho offensive, and regained much of the ground from which we had temporarily been dislodged/ _ The Turkish losses all day were extremely heavy. Seventy were taken prisoner, while 580 corpses were buried in the loop easeward of Knt-el-Amara, ands five hundred corpses were buried by the enemy.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.-Rcuter.

STORY OF THE ASSAULT

(Reo. January 28, 5.5 p.m.)

London, January 27. Mr. Candler, in a. dispatch from Mesopotamia- dated January 19, says: "This morning we occupied a triangle trench which constituted the last foothold of the Turks at the bend of the Tigris below Kut-el-Amara. The enemy resisted in.the most dogged fashion for ten days, but -as ho was cornered, we economised in casualties, and advanced to the trenches gradually. Our concentrated artillery and trencn-mortar fire mado the area held by them hardly tenable, but the enemy made desperate sorties and counter-attacks, and had to bo cleared from part of tho last trenches with tho bayonet. The Turks finally departed by a most clever ruse. They kept up a noise of digging all night, while they slipped across the Tigris in boats, pontoons, and coracles to concealed shelters beneath the banks. Hence the assault in tho morning was comparatively bloodless." —Reutcr.