LATEST WAR NEWS

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 12 July 1917, Page 4

LATEST WAR NEWS

RUSSIA'S PRISONERS. Received 11.55. PETROGRAD, July 11. Twenty-six thousand Austrian and GermM prisoners have been taken since July Ist. Between the 19th and 20th June Borniloff also put out of action over eighty thousand Austrians and Germans. Heavy bombardment is proceeding before B"rzezany, also on the whole line in the Dvinsk and Riga sector, preventing the Germans transferring reinforcements to Galicia, and are hurrying up the Bulgarians. Eighty thousand Transylvanian Rumanes, formerly in the Austrd-Hungarian army, now Russian prisoners of war, have expressed a desire to join the Roumanian army. The finest battalion of Rumanes have reached Jassy.

The Death's Head Battalion of women left Petrograd for the front nnder Madame Bolchkarera, Admiral Skrydloff's daughter, who fought beside her husband until he was killed, while"Brusiloff was scoring his brilliant success on the front. United States' aid is greatly assisting the Provisional Government, America lending Russia money at 3£ per cent towards building the second line of, the Serbian railway, and giving ten thousand wagons to assist the d\fective Russian transport. The Provisional Government is also facing a task of overwhelming magnitude in organising sixty million voters ,half of whom are illiterate, for election of a Constituent Assembly.

BITTER FIGHTING- ON FRENCH FRONT. Received 11.35. LONDON, July 11. The Daily Chronicle's correspondent at French headquarters says the Chemin.des Dames ridge continues the scene of fighting of desperate obstinacy, which recalls the fighting before Verdun: The Crown Prince has launched' troops against the narrow crests of hills, endeavouring to win back the lost observatories and caverns where the Germans hid safely for two years. There was particularly fierce fighting on Sunday between Pantheon farm and Froidmont farm, the German infantry charging behind a storm of shells. Twelve fresh battalions reinforced the attackers, and detachments, of engineers with flame projectors participated in tlie attacks, which the French plied to with difficulty, as thus far* they were unable to establish a proper system of defence upon the bare slopes. The French were far outumbered upon the threatened sector, bufcdtf fought from shellholes to shellholes when driven out of the trenches. The bombardment during. Sunday brought relief £b the sorelypressed foot chasseurs, enabling the French to regain nearly of the lost ground. The artillery barrage meanwhile caused the German losses exceeding the French. The fighting has obliterated Chemin desDames, which is only traceable by a few trees and stumps. The position: gives such a splendid view over the enemy lines fne platform vas bound to be bitterly contested. However, the French possess a first-class observatory in the French fort on the plateau Mai Maison, *•