DETAILS OF THE ENGAGEMENT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 68, 25 February 1916, Page 5

DETAILS OF THE ENGAGEMENT.

SLIGHT GERMAN SUCCESS. EFFECTIVE FRENCH FIRE. [Unit* .. Pursn ■» : t..v (Received 8.5 a.m.) Paris, February 24. The whole region consists of wooded hills and ravines. After the heavy bombardment a series of infantry attacks commenced. On Monday afternoon the chief assault was made on the Leomer woods, Beaumont, and Herbiboris on a front of 2-i miles, and the Germans here succeeded in occupying a horseshoeshaped wood about a mile deep. Elsewhere, the Germans were unable to get started in the assaults owing to an impenetratable barrage of hr© which the artillery of the Third French Army punished the attackers.

The French losses were small during the capture of the first line as the trenches were thinly held, both sides knowing that the front trenches would he readily broken down by the bombardment. Capturing the trenches, the Germans suffered badly from the French fire, but they were promptly largely reinforced. The defences of Verdun are so strong that French experts are not anxious, indeed they are hopeful, that the Germans will continue the attack, which they attribute to the Crown Prince’s desperate desire to refresh his faded laurels. r CROWN PRINCE’S OBJECTIVE. Paris. February 24. Latest unofficial news shows that there has been a tendency re- ently to largely increase the Fifty Army. Gen eral Bonstang’s four Metz army corps have been added to the Crown Prince’s original force, which has also been specially reinforced by five divisions ahd an immense quantity of artillery for the present attack. The Crown Prince’s objective is not the forces, but the earthworks which Ge'nnal Sa •- rail constructed upon the heights of the Meuse prior to the battle of the Marne, sweeping from Vanquois acioss the Meuse,at Brabant and falling lo the plain of the Woevre, thence, jo Etayn and Fresnes and back to St. Mihiel. , GERMAN SUCCESS IN THE ARGONNE. Paris, February 22. A communique says that the tiermans. after a violent bombardment, made extremely brisk attacks between Brabant-sur-Meuse and Serbeloise and occupied the Bois d’Haumout and the salient north of Beaumont at the cost of considerable losses. FIGHTING ON THE YSER. HEAVY COST TO THE ENEMY. Rotterdam, February 23. After great losses on the Yser the Germans concentrated their troops lower down, launching attacks southward of La Bassee. Assisted by the wind the Germans directed volumes of gas over the French trenches, occupyiny portions of them at heavy cost. The French 75’s tore gaps in the advancing infantry, an Allied airman directing attention to the Germans on the road behind the Yser.