WAR NEWS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 160, 29 August 1916, Page 2

WAR NEWS.

GORMANS' SUPREME EFFORT.

A GIGANTIC STRUGGLE. THIEFVAL TO GUINCHY. GERMANS' EIGHT MILE FORTRESS. BRITISH HOLD THEIR GROUND. ENEMY LOSES TERRIBLY. •< LONDON, August 27. The "Daily Mail's" correspondent in Picardy says: An eight-mile fortress, extending from Thiepval to Guinchy, has a great bastion at either end. We stormed the outworks of both on Thursday, The Germans have concentrated, especially at Thiepval and Guillemont. enough men and guns to garrison eighty miles of trenches. The Germans have hundreds of cannon —indeed a hundred batteries of all calibres. The troops are not reckoned by hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands, but by eorps. The intensity of the German effort to prevent the bastions falling came to a focus at Guillemont on Wednesday night in vain, bloody counter attacks, but it was equally apparent the Germans were massing men and guns at certain places behind the lines.

The Germans never in the Avar period lost nearly so many men in defensive fighting, and the losses among the supports, equally with ' attaching troops, were unprecedentcdly heavy. They were forced, despite machine guns to use more men and to emplace more and more guns in vulnerable positions. When we gain, as we are doing, almost daily, some hundreds of yards of trenches at small loss to ourselves or high enemy loss, we are defeating the enemy's supreme endeavour, to which he applies all skill and energy. He cannot do more, and we win all the time.

400 YARDS OF TRENCHES TAKEN. ENEMY'S FIERCE BUT FUTILE ATTACKS. GALLANT VTILTSHIRES AND WORCESTEEES. LONDON, August 27. Sir Douglas Haig reports: The enemy bombarded our front lino trendies on the greater portion of the front south of the Ancrei. The Germans attacked in the morning. west of Guillcmont between the Quarries and the Mont Auban-Guillc-

rnont road. They "were repulsed. We further progressed east and south-west of Mouquet Farm. "We took another 400 "yards of trenches aiong the Oourcellette-Thicp-val road.

The importance the enemy attaches to th e Thiepval sector is shown by tho great effort to recover the ground in the Leipsig salient. He recently effeotod a great concentration of guns in this area, and in support of last night's attacks, delivered an attack south of Thiepval village with the Prussian Guard. The attack was pressed determinedly, but was everywhere repulsed with very great loss. The success of the defence is largely due to the gallantry of the Wiltshires and Worcesters, who, despite heavy bombardment, held on.