VIVID FLASHES OF WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 243, 23 March 1915, Page 7

VIVID FLASHES OF WAR.

THE BATTLE OF LA BASSEE.

The battle fought in a sea of mud between La Bassee and Givenchy, waf the biggest affair in which our troop: have been engaged this year. The Germans had set themselves a particularly difficult task. Anything like a rapid advance in force over the Slough of Despond into which two months' incessant rains have turned the plain of La Bassee being practically impossible, they decided to make dash along the La lias-sce-Bethune road, which at least afford- j ed foothold.

When tlie attack (lid begin, with surprising force and rapidity against the British trendies, oui; men were unsupported and had to fall back before the enemy's rush. The Germans had entrusted the post of honor in the forefront of the attack to the 50th Prussian Infantry, a Tegimcnt composed of goodhumored Rhinelanders, which is quartered in time of peace at the fortress of Wwel. The s(ith, Judging from tlie prisoners who fell into our hands, seemed to have borne the brunt of the fighting on the German side. Detachments of tin, rth Pioneers accompanied them into action. Mob on the left saw their neighbors falling back, and reported Liieir own colonel that "something was doing" in the neighboring lines, fhoy had to fall back in turn, as the Germans in possession of the adjacent trenches would have enfiladed theirs. For the same reason the trenches further to the right seem to have been evacuated, and for a moment the Germans appeared to be having it all their own way. * Their elan carried them clean along the road up to the outskirts of Givenchy. There they occupied a trench, capturing half a dozen British soldiers, and then pushed into the town, a company (of the 56th) strong, with twenty men of the 7th Pioneers, under the command of three officers.

They left to their supports Lurrying after them, and the'r reserves —stated to have been about 5000 strong—the task of securing the ground so hastily traversed. Here they bad reckoned without their enemy's host. At about one o'clock a certain regiment, with part of another, were ordered to Retake the lost trenches. Other regiments supported them. They had to cross a sodden morass to a trench 30yds away. Tliev floundered forward almost knee-deep in mud and water, under a heavy fire. It must have been one of the queerest charges ever witnessed. The going was so bad that it was impossible to keep any kind of line, and at one. point part of the at-tnck.--s simply lay nown to dodge the bulUs while they'waited for their^ comrades to detach" themselves sufficiently from the. bog to come on. The men declare that the Germans were unable to make head or tail of their method of attack. They climbed out of the trenches to meet their assailants with the eold steel, and then, seeing them lying down in tlv mud, leaped back into .tlic trench, fearing that some kind of Britisli perfidy was to be. practised on them. The end was that the British got to the trench and held it, although; not- until many of them had fallen. The German advance along the Bethune road was an utter and expensive failure. The 50th Prussian Regiment was driven back, after leaving 400 of its men on the road. The German reserves were unable to come to the rescue; our infantry, with effective aid from the French, attended to that of the company that got into Givenchy. The survivors, mostly wounded, are prisoners of the British. Advancing into the town, they found themselves met by a heavy Britisli fire from in front. After an ineffectual attempt to stand, they decided to fall back to the trench they had occupied outside the town. But now they found that the British had got into the houses and were firing on them from the first door windows, so that ninny foil by the wayside and the proportion of wounds in the head and the upper part of the body among those who survived is unusually high. Tn the trench they tried to hold out, hoping that help would come, but as they point out in extenuation of their surrender, "The Brii'sh were firing at ns from the houses from ajravc," aiid the trench was untenable. Two of tiie officers had fallen. The third gave himself up with the remnants of his" men. In a small ward in one of the base hospitals three men wounded in this fight lay side by side. The central bed is occupied by a corporal of the 50th Prussians. On each side of liim lies an Trish soldier. One of these Irishmen was the cause of the German's undoing. On the day of the fight he marked the corporal, with a few other men, sniping at the Britisli from a clump of tree's on the T.a Bassee He warned some of our people, with the result that the corporal and his men were captured after the former had been wounded.

When he arrived ill hospital he could speak quite good English, but in the course of his first night there he forgot the language entirely, so that now lie cannot understand even the simplest questions. The reason is that he and the Irishman on his left hand have recognised each other. The- Irishman knows that he knows, that this German "unter-oflizer" is a clever sniper. The Irishman saw him well enough to recognise him some days before the battle close to the regiment's lines—so the Irishman now tells the story oi his exploit to the doctors and visitors, and the German pretends to be asleep, listens with both ears, and replies "Nein," when asked in English how he feels. He. is not quite certain what we do with snipers, poor fellow.—Reuter's Special Service.