IN WAKE OF RETREAT.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 704, 16 September 1914, Page 5

IN WAKE OF RETREAT.

GERMANS CEASELESSLY HARRIED. SCENE OF DESOLATION. Received this day, 12.35 a.m. Paris, Tuesday. Correspondents following in the wake of the advancing British and French, state that half a million Germans are retreating and are already half-way up the Aisne Valley. The French 7.5 batteries have a wonderjal mobility, giving the GermT„ tJ«e Bt da,B they have driven over three rivers and a dozen railway hl The roads are littered with ammunition carts and convoys. Germans in Northern France have not destroyed towns for the mere "«i of cruelty, but many villages are only charred and broken walls, and farm cottages shapeless rums owing to shell fire. Very hot fighting Xk place at Vareddas, three miles „orth east of Meaux, on Thursday Semi-permanent entrenchments had beTn erected with a view to a definite stand, but three inch and five inch guns were badly placed. The French were able to blow the batteries to pieces from the opposing ridge leaving the German infantry in front'of the batteries an easy prey. A few of the infantry escaped to the fields. Both- sideß of the village were heaped with German dea*. Piles of unexploded shells in wicker baskets were abandoned. Near the batteries were trees which the Germans hoped would serve as shelter torn to pieces by the French artillery.