WAR NEWS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 160, 16 August 1916, Page 3

WAR NEWS.

VIGOROUS AERIAL WORK. BY BRITISH AIRMEN. AMSTERDAM,. July 14. The Telegraaf states that Allied British airmen bombed the station at Mons twice in a fortnight, each time crowded with military trains, which received great damage. They are also hampering the arrival of ammunition for the front. Germans are searching supposed spies. Repatcd air raids at Ghent, Zeebrugge, Esterre, and Mons have led to more vigorous limitations of traffic.

RUSSIAN OFFICIAL REPORT,

HOLDING ON THE STOKHOD

ADVANCE AT OTHER POINTS.

PETROGRAD, July 14

A Russian communique states: We drove back au encmj r attack on the west bank of the Stokhod. Our advance on the Upper Sereth continues. The enemy retired to the westward. Fierce artillery fire from behind a fortified position is checking our advance. We have arrive defor e the Zlota Lipa, and continued the pursuit till reaching the north bank of the Dneister. before Moriampol. We repulsed local attacks everywhere. We. have captured some positions in Persia, northward of Sakhak. The Turkish offensive north of Hamadam continues; our armoured cars inflicted great losses.,

THE POZIERES EATTLE

SHEEP TO THE SLAUGHTER

GERMAN TROOPS ANNIHILATED.

DEADLY WORK BY AUSTRALIANS

LONDON, July 14

Mr. Philip Gibbs writes: The Germans made several attempts to regain the high ground northward of Pozieres. A strong body of infantry on

Thursday evening attacked. It was a curious, vain, tragic endeavour, like several other counter-attacks by units

recently brought up as supports, knowing nothing of the country, but just blundering out with a kind of desperate courage.

Prisoners admit that when they were ordered to attack they regarded themselves as sheep going to slaughter. They only know that the Australians were in front, and from what they had heard about the Australians they had not much hope. The only hope lay in the guns behind them, which preceded the assault by a formidable bom-= bardment. The attack was between the Windmill and th e Montague farm. The Germans streamed in open order from quarries behind the farm and came straggling forward in irregular waves at a distance of 750 yards. When our guns and mortars burst over them ;;*nd our machine guns whipped them with a scourge of* bullets, the attackers

fell in large numbers. • Others ran quickly into the Australian linos with arms up and lay still. Many traversed a full quarter of a mile under this terrible concentrated fire. The Australians shot straight. They had no notion how many waves would advance. They had to kill them very quickly lest they overwhelm the trenches, and the ground whereon they could find cover. The Australian machine gunners sent sheets of bullets, British gunners from distant unknown places sending a fierce storm of shell—a curtain of fire through which men could hardly pass alive: None did_ Out of two battalions only five men escaped. Men were standing on the German parapets calling them back, tiying to save something out of the senseless slaughter ordered by the high command. A few stragglers ran back and a few others crouched in shell holes. The Australians collected fifty.

It is a matter for wonderment why the enemy attempts such counterattacks, which are bound to end in disaster. The German soldiers might justly call it murder. Such operations as the last seem to show that the eneniys staff is disorgaised, perhaps a little demoralised, by the continuous bombardment which cuts the signal lines and prevents the sending of supports and supplies.

The Australians are still fighting in a way which wins the admiration of the generals, th e Staff, and all the army. A FRENCH COMMUNIQUE SOME MINOR SUCCESS. PARIS, July 4. A communique states that there was some lively bombardmnet at Maurepas. We enlarged our positions southwest of Estrces, taking many portions of trenches ufto'n th e left of Faydencourt Road.