THE GREAT ATTACK.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 January 1916, Page 6

THE GREAT ATTACK.

30,000 FALLEN INFANTRY. Describing the Champagne fighting, which was part of the recent great Allied advance in the West, the New York American special correspondent says: "On a front of only 16 miles 30,000 German infantry fell. That the retreat was swift and costly, especially north of Beausejour, is shown by the frightful slaughter on the hill a<bove the Dormoise river. The impetuous rush of the oncoming Frenchmen, charging with the bayonet, drove the Germans from the crest of Hill 200 into the river below. "The shouts of the Victorious French, mingled with the screams of the fugitive Germans as they plunged into the swiftly-running river, and as the current swept the Germans off their feet they clutched one another in a desperate death-grip. It is no exaggeration to say that in a few minutes the rushing stream accounted for several German companies, and at certain points it could be forded on the heaped-iip bodies." Mr. W. P. Simms, the United Press correspondent, telegraphing from Paris, "Dispatches received here during the night said that the Germans are yielding ground yard by yard in Champagne, The enemy made several attempts to stop the advance by flooding the area before their trenches with clouds of asphyxiating gases. The high winds swept the vapors away as they left the German trenches."