Russian Campaign

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 233, 11 March 1915, Page 5

Russian Campaign

DESPERATE FIGHTING, GREAT GERMAN RMNFOROEMENTS. AUSTRIAN'S STILL ATTACKING. Received March 10, 9.40 p.m. Petrograd, March 10. Official.—Desperate lighting occurred yesterday along the whole of the Nie-inen-Vistula front. "We captured oart of a supply column. Tlie_ fortress of Osowiee is successfully engaging the enemy's siege batteries. The enemy southward of Khorjele is bringing great forces into the fighting line. The Germans south of Drobin were repulsed with heavy loss. At Pilicia the action is alternately offensive and defensive. \ The Austrians in the region of Baligorod continue their offensive, notwithstanding crushing losses in a desperate battle on the Bth. We recaptured the greater part of hill 992, near Kozsouvka, and made prisoners of the remnants of a column near Klausse. RUSSIAN GAIN AT GRODNO. Till: LAST GERMAN EFFORT. DESPERATE STRAITS OF A RUSSIAN DIVISION. Petrograd, March 9. A communique states that during several days a battle lias been proceeding to capture a. hill comunnding a district around Grodno. The 21st German Corps lost twelve to fifteen thousand killed. The discomfiture of two other corps followed. Thenceforward the enemy's operations wre strictly defensive, and a retreat ensued under continual pressure. London, March 9. The* Times military correspondent estimates that twelve Aiistro-Gcrmaii army corps are operating on the Pilica. This is the last move in the enemy's general offensive, which has been checked in East Prussia and the central Carpathians. London, March 9. A German officer who was taken prisoner describing the struggle with a Russian division, which cut its way through the German hosts from East Prussia, said:—"We descended on the retiring division, which immediately bristled with bayonets and counter-attacked at every convenient opportunity, though struggling in dec;, mud., wracked with weariness and with no hot food. Such a struggle could not last long, the forces were so uneven. The division shrank and melted, but declared it would fight to the last. Our troops surrounded it on thve,- sides and the fourth was an impassable swamp. Tim Russians burned captured German colours, hid the Ru.,isan colour.-, and burned the guns. The survivors iWmod a solid mass anil .lashed in all directions, forcing a way with the bayonet.'' ' '