AUSTRALIANS ATTACKED

Nelson Evening Mail, 22 September 1916, Page 3

AUSTRALIANS ATTACKED

UTTER GERMAN FAILURE.

TWO BATTAIiIONS DECIMATED

SLAUGHTER AT MOUQUET FAiRM

Mouquet Farm, near Pozieres which has now been completely captured by the British, has been the scene of many fierce struggles. One of these, m the Germans were the attackers and the Australians the defenders is thus described by Mr Philip Gibbs. The date was August 10: — . . It was a curious, vam, and tragic e - deavour, like several other counter-at-tack's launched at the command of the German staff by men recently brought up as support troops, knowing, quite obviouslv, nothing of the country in which they are called upon to fight and just b'.imdering out with a kind of desperate courage towards our lines. _ From the prisoners taken it is certain knowledge that these troops had- no familiarity with this ground .between Mouquet Farm and- the Windmill, and when thev were ordered to attache re-o-arded themselves as sheep sent to the slaughter. They knew only that the Australians were in front of them, and from what they have heard of the Australians thev did' not have much hope. What hope they had: was in the guns bemnu them, and, certainly, in spite o± all the German guus knocked out b> counter-battery work', and ail these havin"- had to shift their ground from, daj (to-day, owing to our ceaseless searchmgs tor their emplacements with the aid l ot our aerial scouts, the bombardment that preceded the German assault was intense and formidable. AUSTRALIANS ALERT. The Australians endured' it, guessing what was to follow. Tn the trenches they have dug, and the shell craters, and the old German trenches, theyi held on, and kept their bombs ready, and their machine guns handy, and watchful eyes, wherever a man could see, upon a row ot broken tree stumps appearing over the west of the irozieres ridge beyond the Windmill. . Then, below the crest on the other side of the ridge—the German side —is Mouquet Farm, called "Moo-cow Farm" by men who will still jest, whatever the conditions of li'fe. A small valley or rrully runs behind 1 the farm towards the quarries, and- it wa-s from this that the German soldiers came streaming out in open order when their guns lengthened range so that they could- set forwaid without walking into their own barrage. As it happened, they worked into our barrage. Our guns' were waiting for then*

TRENCH MORTARS 'READY. In our lines the trench mortar batteries were making ready to hurl their high explosives, and the Lewis gunners were easrer to get to work instead of standing under German ehell-fire. The enemy's infantry' came straggling forward in extended' order, and in lrrecular waves. There were two battalions of them, in the opeu —out in that TcOyds ol -No Man's Land upon which the evening sun was shining with a or olden haze—when our shells burst over them and the trench mortars made a target of them, aud our machine guns whipped into their ranks with a scourge of bullets. ... The men fell face forward in large numbers. Others came on and eil, further from their own lines. en quickly, as though to escape from all tin? bursting shells into the Australian liues, flung up their arms, and lay still. AN EXPENSIVE EFFORT. Thev were very brave. Quite a number of these German soldiers travelled a quarter of a mile over this open ground in spite of the terrifil fire upon it before some bit of shell caugh them and killed them, or left them lyiQs; there in agony. No German soldier came through aln Only a few men out of the two battalions escaped. (Men were standinsr on the parapets of the German line, palling *0 them, calling them back, trying to save something out of this senseless slanffhter that hadl been ordered. The counter-attack was an utter tailure, and one is left wondering why the enemy attempt suchi attacks predestine to end' in disaster. It is an expensive form of reconnaissance to test our strength.