ATTACK ON YPRES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 185, 14 January 1915, Page 3

ATTACK ON YPRES.

COVER OK A STORM. GERMANS' SHORT S.'.VCESS.

It was a real winter night with a high wind and torrents of rain. The Germans attacked Ypres, which for more than a week they had been seeking to take. The attack was made in great numbers, and with the wind against them the Germans were able to oceep close to the Allies' trendies without being heard. For a time, the allies' defence was inpenetrable, says the correspondent of the London Daily Mail, under date, November 13, The Germans hurl-

Ed man after man at the lines only to meet death, but numbers told in the end, and tho Germans broke the lines and got into Ypres for the first time. Their stay was- short. T'liev were driven out helter-skelter at the bayonet point. Hardly a man got back to the German lines. Aa daybreak the last of the invaders was being searched out and killed, or taken prisoner. A terrible battle was on November 1;;. ing from Dixmude, which was stiil under bombardment to the dust of Ait,is. Churches toppled down and factories burned with every fresh explosion of shell fire. No tower which might' be used for observation was allowed to stand; and. while explosive shells were fired at these, incendiary shells were dropped on the factories. Perhaps l,ae- ' entie suffered most in the onset It was beginning to rival Arras.

The nature of the fighting was still eriticnl, and the utter inability of aeroplanes to face the westerly gaic— following the period of mist which rendered them almost equally useless—-helped the attacking force to conceal the place of I its concentration. At the same time the | armies had in general como nearer to one another than at any period Tactically, the fighting had brought out the quite expected power of particular "points d'appui" or vantage points i a phrase now often appearing in the official reports. The chateau outside Dixinude and the, wood''outside Ypres wero the two most salient examples of the moment; but there were a quantity of small vantage points behind ta \ Bassee which served a similar purpose. J Owing to some quite small details of | the ground—some natural concealments I and protection, some quarry or wood—a battery or two may find itself al- ' most unassailable, and behind it at- i tacks can be organised indefinitely until j the place becomes strategically ' mn-ui- J able by reason of an advance' in fovee { on either side. I