THE BRITISH ADVANCE.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 March 1917, Page 1

THE BRITISH ADVANCE.

Germans Retiring Great Push Forward. (Australian & N.Z. Cable Association and Keat.tr). LONDON, March 19. Mr Phillip Gibbs writing on Sunday said:—The (British entered Peronno to-day. “That statement alone is sensational enough, hut it, docs not stand alone. “The whole of the old German mw south of Arras, strong as one vatft fortress, and built up by the labour of millions of men with thousands of machine guns, redoubts and forests of barbed wire, lias now slipped away, and the enemy is now in rapid retreat to new lines many miles away, laying waste the countryside as he goes.

“'Scores of villages north-east of Bapaumo and east of Peromnc are burning and the town of Athens is like a flaming torch, and is visible, for miles.

“Others.are smouldering ruins, from which volumes of smoke roll. “No homsteads or farms remain, only black ruins and devastation.

“The enemy is adopting all of war’s maligoncy to the utmost. “Bridges over waterways have been burnt and there are mines beneath the cross-roads.

“He has opened enormous (craters with high explosives as traps scattered in the path of our patrols. “It is. impossible to give our exace line hut at the present moment our cav airy patrols are over hills far away, and our infantry patrols pushing forward.

“Only file aeroplanes know our exact whereabouts.

“AVe have gone, beyond Rosqucns, Banco art., Favierul and Sapegnies, and our cavalry has worked beyond Loseautwood and penetrated east of Achietlegrand turning, the German line .

“Our cavalry also reconnoitred crossing the canal dug about Peronno. “The Anglo-French cavalry patrols are far south near Pesle, and the v»cimans arc employing their cavalry as a screen behind their rearguards. “They were seen on Saturday north of Bapaume and South of Itoye.

“Oujr troops this morning passed Eterpigmy and we also reached Misery and Marchelepot.

There was some fighting on Saturday night arornl Peronne, and our patrols, despite snipers and machine-guns and some shelling penetrated Montsogucnt the" chief defence of Peronno." “We entered other neighbourhoods and villages in the morning, and later in the day our mounteds entered Feronne. Wo entered cither neighbourhoods and villages in tlio morning, ancl later in the day our mounteds entered Perronne. The enemy had gone, and their dugouts wore burning, and a portion of the town was smouldering,; but Peronne was not utterly! destroyed, as many houses still stand. The enemy scorns to have quitted portions on Saturday night at an appointed time. The whole line was firing heavily un:till ten o’clock, thereafter not a shot was heard and the enemy had abandoned .their great, defensive works on the famous Bapaume riclge.”