TRENCH SPIRIT TRIUMPHS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 7 September 1917, Page 6

TRENCH SPIRIT TRIUMPHS.

CHEMIN DES DAMES EIDGE. ATTACK BY'PICKED TKOOPS. Th e frantic German attacks along the Chemin des Dames suggest that the enemy feels that the sword of Damocles is hanging above his head, -wrote Mr. H. Warner Allen from the French front, on July 8. He is afraid of the impending offensive on the Western front, and though he is well aware that he has no hope of recovering the general initiative of the operations, he ""has set himself to score at least a moral success against the French. I have just returned from an observation post commanding, at a distance of a few hundred yaris, a view over yesterday's battlefield on the Chemis des Dames between the fort of La Malmaison and Les Bovettes. To reach this point we passed through a green ravine, in which hundreds of fresh, gaping, brown shell holes proved the violence of yesterday's bombardment. Then, after struggling over a shelltorn desert, where German shells continued to fall fitfully we plunged into the bowels of the earth into one of the countless {quarries Witjh (whijfch e<the Chemin des Dames ridge and its spurs are Tiddled. For many hundred yards we stumbled along underground with 40ft. of rock above us and in an absolute silence that made it impossible to realise that shells were bursting on the slopes above us. The quarry was just as it had been when the workmen left it at the outbreak of war. After a long journey we reached a shaft that opened on the outer world with a crazy ladder. RUINNED FORT OF LA MALMAISON. At 1 the top one was at once in a world of noise and Avar. Shells wore "bursting on the slopes all round and the ground was a wilderness of shell craters. It was. almost as desolate as the slopes of Douaumont. The fort of ■La Malmaison is a ruin. It has been shelled by the French for months, and great breaches are visible in its walls. Yet, it still commands all this part of the Chemin des Dames, and from its ruined pile the enemy can overlook every movement of the French except ■ on the slopes away from it, at the edge •of tne ridge. The attack wrs admirably planned. ; Saturday night had been comparatively calm. Suddenly, at 3.30 a.m., the ' Germans opened a terrific bombardment with every gun and trench mortar at their disposal. They had used the same manoeuvre a few days back at Craonne, and on that occasion the infatry did not go over the parapet until a quarter of an hour after the be--ginning of the bombardment, and the French seventy-fives had opened a barrage fire that shattered the attack. On this occasion there was no waiting. The German infantry rushed forward ■with the German barrage, and reached the first French trench before a warning had been given. Everything seemed to be on . their side. The picked and specially trained shock troops of the army engaged had been reinforced by shock battalions from a neighbouring army, and behind them came the regular infantry, pro- < vided with trench mortars, machineguns, entrenching tools, barbed wire and everything required to organise the conquered ground against a counter-at-tack. They knew that a considerable proportion of the men opposed to them had been considerably reduced. Moreover, they were certain, with something between ten and twelve battalions of fresh troops to out-number the men opposed to them. FRENCH INFANTRYMEN'S DASH. But they reckoned without the dash and tenacity of the French line and chasseur battalions. The artillery came to the rescue immediately with a heavy barrage, and an instant later the Trench returned to their front-line trenches in a splendid counter-attack. The Germans had attacked between two storms, and the rain that had fallen had made the trenches, which had suffered heavily, from enemy guns, almost impassable. Yet the French returned to the charge, and the enemy bad no time to get into position his trench, guns and mortars. There followed a hand-to-hand, struggle with bayonet, trench-knife and grenade. The shock troops had met their match. In vain they tried to carry back the trench guns and mitrailleuses that they were bringing into position. A French sergeant seized the muzzle of a small -swivel-gun that a German was bearing off. Another German shot him down point blank, but his comrades captured the gun. With intervals the battle Irvstcd «11 day long, and by nightfall ti'-e French had recovered all the ground they took no count of them when they saw th e trenches blocked with the bodies of the German shock troops, half-buried in mud.