In the West

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 58, 11 March 1915, Page 5

In the West

"DAMNABLE" COUNTRY.

THE MOST INTERESTING POR-

TION OF FLANDERS.

VORACITY OF THE TRENCHES' Times and Sydney Sun Service. (Received 8 a.m.) London, March 10. A correspondent with the British says: "The country where the British ,are entrenched is the most interesting portion of Flanders, and it is also .'the most disheartening, monotonous, muddy, damnable country imaginable for the operations of an army accustomed to sanitation and cleanliness. . The whole place is a warren of old and I now trenches, which have been made by the French, Germans, and British, abandoned, re-occupied, blown to pieces, and mined, with mazes of entanglements completing the panorama. The British line has been hammered out into a number of curves. The capers played by the trenches swallow up timber with the voracity of a speculative gold mine."

FRENCH PROGRESS REPORT.

Paris, March 10

Official.—We repulsed an attack east of Steenstraste, Belgium. Fighting at Notre Dame de Lorette lasted all day hut the positions remain unchanged. Further progress was made at Perthes, and another two hundred metres of trenches captured. North-east of Mesnil a German redoubt was taken, with some prisoners and three machine-guns. The enemy's works were very strong, and included armored shelters supplied with revolving guns and deep subterranean chambers.

We attacked and mastered the first German lines between Four de Paris and Boleute.

OBSTINATE TRENCH FIGHTING. (Received 11.45 a.m.) Paris, March 10. A communique states: We further progressed north of Mesnil. There has been obstinate fighting between Tour de Paris and Bolante, and is undecided, the 1 trenches having been taken and re-taken.

CLEARINC THE ROADS.

USE OF ELEPHANTS AND CREEN-

LAND DOCS.

(Received 11.45 a.m.) Copenhagen, March 10

The Germans are employing Hagenbeck and his elephants to clear the roads behind the firing line in France.

Koenig (the explorer) is using 57 Greenland dogs in the war service* though he signed an agreement with the Greenland administration that they would be only used in the South Pole expedition.

MISCELLANEOUS.

London, March 10

"Eye-witness" states that the British line is divided into two equal portions by the river Lys. North of the river the ground is broken by several commanding heights. To the south is a flat, water-logged plain. The line runs from the river a little south of Frelingham, through Letquet, Leyheer, and St. Yves, and turns sharp to the westward' round the foot of hill 631, then about a mile northward, again circling Wystchake Messine—a position which represents a great wedge driven into the centre of outline, whereby the enemy has placed himself astride tho direct road from Ypres to Armentieres. The Chronicle's Dunkirk correspondent reports that, recognising that it is impossible to force the Anglo-French lines at La Bassee and Bethune, the Germans arc bombarding factories without military justification, and are similarly bombarding the collieries at the Novxles mines.