THE BRITISH OFFENSIVE.

Hokitika Guardian, 30 June 1917, Page 4

THE BRITISH OFFENSIVE.

GERMANS TRAPPED

infantry strokes round

LENS

(From W- Beach Thomas)

War Correspondents’ Headquarters, France. April 18

In the deadly repulse of the Germans reported in yesterdays communique several hundred British soldiers fired at ap open target the full ;oo rounds with which each man is provided —a 'thing that has not happened in the war since Mous,

- The enemy, fighting with an amazing mixture of dash, stupidity, and panic, made himself a trap, ran into it, and at exactly the wrong moment tried to jump out of it. He attacked with strongforces on a six-mile front, but penetrated only at the village of Ragnicourt on a very narrow strip, where some fcrced their way through to about halt a mile in depth. At this moment our troops in support, backed by reserves, charged the impertinent enemy. He turned tail and fled. Supports had been rushed through by the enemy to drive farther this wedge of attack." But the counter-charge was too strong. The whole force retreated across the open, and our men, in every attitude —kneeling, lying, even standing—tired at full speed independently, and the enemy fell right and left, Nor was this the end. As the remnant passed back beyond the village and approached their own wire our field guns took their proper vengeance into their own hands and poured shrapnel over the crowd. A number of the enemy fell" while slowly attempting to cross their own wire. Such slaughter by so few troops lias scarcely been recorded even in this war. Tactical skill and nerve both deserted the enemy. ... TENS NOOSE CLOSING.

Some ot us saw to-day an unforgettable picture ot war and heard unforgettable stories of war —all concerned with the storming and siege of the outer fortifications of Lens. From a vantage point at the side I heard and watched the German shells vainly yapping at our advancing men and transport and, farther forward, heavier shells were tossing up the red dust of the Lieviu houses. You could wander along leagues of German trenches in this almost suburb of Lens and at last grow nervous merely for lonliness and wonder whether you were in the German or British lines. j Seldom did an entrenched enenfV run away more quickly than the German from this fortress' place It is piled with his valuables, big and small. There are great heaps and dumps of artillery and trench mortar ammunition, there are sidings with undamaged trucks, and a whole system of trench rail way lines and trucks remains perfect as when left. In one street a single gigantic German N.C.O. lay dead. One dug-out contains the best store of boots that ever I saw. Thgy are of thick leather, in one pipce, coming hip-liigh and worth at least a pair. And when the German with his joint commercial and destructive instincts leaves behind such valuables he is in a panic indeed.

The lino of strong places abandoned between these Lievin lines and Lens proper is more remarkable still. As soon/as onr patrols pushed np close, as they did with great hardihood, the supposed German die-hards left their machine gnns and ran before the attack began, being sniped as they went by these hardy pat rols. Our ti’oops are in such spirits that whole units whose time it was to leave the front and go into rest asked leave to stay and win their special prize. Some Irishmen who had waded to the hips to capture a is tray

place under the close fire of nine machine guns—afterwards taken by next-door troops —just said that it was “ Nothing at all, at all, and the enemy was fair seared by ’em. We don’t even trouble to take cover.” After more than herculean labours and considerable losses, they went out at night to play tricks on the enemy, and rattled tin cansjjr empty grenades in his wires, so that lie bombed them all night, and even sent up S.O.S. signals—that is, signals cf extreme need—to his artillery. They pnt up boards in his wire announcing the numbers of prisoners the French and British Jiad taken.

English troops associated with them had equal hardihood, if less ebullient wit. One group astonished even their own headquarters, who already knerv their quality, by the cool impudence pf their approach to intensely strong line strongly held,, by the enemy around -the western front of Bens.' One of their English patrols crept sq close to the Gernmus’ wire in daylight that he managed to lull by sniping two Germans standing in their own trench, which, in his advanced hiding-place, he could look down and enfilade, * ; Hill fQ Bombarded. The battle extended to-day .somewhat to the north. . Shells whistling poinf qfvobsepration were falling op thftt f&raoui Hill 70, at-'

tacked and temporarily taken by G' e Guards iti the heroic charge in the Battle of Loos in 1915. The Germans have been strengthening its fortifications ever since, and it is now

a bee-hive of marinne gnus. All this district north and slightly west of Lens is a connected fortress, as powerful as any place on the line, but we have already taken one of its most stubborn bastions, the famous Loos Crassier’, a sort of embankment made of slag and shale aud other refuse of coal mines. ( Nothing resists shell-lire so obstinately. Nevertheless the noose closes on the Germans in Lens every day. We are at closer grips with the inner , defences. I watched every quarter of the toWn to-day w tli intense interest, and a lucky burst of sunshine, following a shower, gave a quarter of an hour of limpid air and shrewd sunshine that threw into high relief red roofs and tall chimneys and .spacious churches. Just by the cathedral-church two big lives smouldered, and a number of houses had the expanded ■ 03-0-, sockets of a skeleton, but the streets are still streets, and a largo proportion ot the houses have chimneys and roofs more or less intact. I saw no more explosions.

AN INFANTRY VICTORY,

Later. The crowning triumph of our advance through the surroundings of Lons is that the infantry have pressed on with the minimum of artillery support. Our guns are hardly: so mobile as the infantry, as they have to cross a No Man’s Land altogether impassable t j all wheeled traffic. It is nearly a s x miles walk to our front trene es at most places along the front of the enemy’s retreat for all who are not mounted. So for a day or two here, as over the Somme battlefield the enemy must necessarily enjoy a certain rest from heavy gunfire.

In spite of all difficulties, our troops drove in the outer defences. This part of the victory is wholly an infantry victory, and a very tine one, due wholly to superior enterprise and skill and nerve. Guns whose shells weigh up to 1,400 lb apiece, or more than half a ton, cannot gallop after qin enemy even on national (high) roads. They cannot even crawl over a field ploughed by shell fire, but, after watching our guns on the move, I am astounded at their comparative speed over impossible courses, and the German respite will not be long. All the guns the Germans have within range were intensely active, and their aeroplanes and kite balloons were very evidently trying to find live targets for them. I. saw the discovery of one target, and for half an hour watched shells bursting round and about it. A little group of transport waggons and a platoon 01 two of men were muring up, when the sun suddenly broke throngli the morning mist and all sorts of obscure things were revealed. A German kite balloon that had been invisible appeared in full and definite bulk, and its observers doubtless marked this caval-

cade. One high shrapnel was fired to test the range. Its degree of error was, I have no doubt, reported to the artillery. Two or three minutes elapsed without sign of a sequel, then come a whine and a clap and a jet of black smoke and a cascade of earth. High explosive had to shrapnel, and for the next half

hour these shells, first from one gun and then from two, fell within the narrow circle of the target at regular intervals almost at the bull’s-eye.

There was one little barn which

bore a charmed life. It will yet,. I. trust, house prolific milch cows in times of peace,but it bad a very much

worse time than the men and lorries at which the German shells barked. It was a pretty bit of shooting. I may use the phrase because it quite failed of its deadly purpose. Why is«a story that I must not yet tell. FURTHER BOOTY FOUND.

Since telegraphing this afternoon I hear of further discoveries in Lievin. The engineers have left very precious opera glasses, and the"stores -oEswooL and boards arc enormous. The German was toommeh in a hurry even to set fire to them. One officer who bolted from his battalion beadquarters bad just time to use an engineer’s axe on the piano in bis

house, but he abandoned without destruction all that was of military value. Would any savage have acted just in this way ?