A RUSSIAN ONSLAUGHT.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 August 1916, Page 9

A RUSSIAN ONSLAUGHT.

TERRIFIC CLASH WITH AUSTRIANS. CHARGING INTO MACHINE-GUNS. The Exchange Telegraph Company's Petrograd correspondent writes: From wounded officers and others back from the front I have obtained striking details of the great offensive, still pending, of General Ivanoff's southern group of armies. One of my authorities, who went through the battles of Bzura last winter, declares that the present fighting far exceeds these for desperation, ferocity, and the percentage of losses which both sides bear without flinching .

First in importance is the fighting east of Czernokwitz, sucoess in which will roll up the whole Austro-German line. The Austrians here have been entirely beaten by a superior artillery, and only a reckless waste of infantry has saved them from a debacle. The enemy here was not surprised. During the past the Austrians have been concentrating, infantry reserves around Kolomea, apparently suspecting that Ivanoff's concentration in Bessarabia would bemused for a break through in Galicia instead of for the advertised march through Roumania.

The Austrian artillery concentration has proved far inferior te ours,/ and a complete Russian victory in the gun duel is the result. The Austrian positions at Toporoutz and Ravancze were totally destroyed. In eighteen hours' fire the woods were razed, so that not one tree stood upright—the trenches were entirely levelled, and the smaller hillocks used by the Austrians to protect their jaegar outposts were blown away. The Austrians tried, and in part succeeded, to save the situation by concentrated machine-gun fire.

GREAT FEATS. The charges of our troops in close formation against hundreds of machineguns, all firing without a break, are among the greatest feats of the war. The captured trenches, being entirely destroyed and full of earth and corpses, were extraordinarily hard to hold. The Austrians, spending their infantry without shrinking, sent wave after wave of men into the lost earthworks, with the result of prolonged bayonet combats, some of which ended only after few on either side were left alive.

The Ravanczc attacks produced many dramatic incidents. The Russians, sheltering behind their rolling shields, advanced on the first Austrian trench. Before the trench, as was expected, was a mine, so that it might be exploded, ensuring safety for the men to follow. The Russian shields stuck in the deep snow, Austrian bombers, seeing their chance, rushed out. As they crossed their own minefield an explosion killed all, and one of their bombs, guided by a freak, fell and exploded behind the attackers' shield. More Austrians again with bombs advanced, and a hand-to-hand fight followed. East of Toporoutz was some of the bloodiest fighting on record. Attacks were made in thick masses, and the Austrians counter-attacking in equally thick masses in the hope of taking the battered trenches were cut to bits. Over large, snow-covered areas bodies lay touching. After two days' unbroken fighting the Austrians were too ex>ihausted to bury their dead. They made holes in thes now, laid the bodies in the holes, and covered them again with show. Next day hand-to-hand fighting raged bVer the same area, and the bodies were kicked and pushed out of the snow, and mixed with them lay the newly killed. This gruesome event made such a deep impression on both sides that a truce was arranged, and the dead were decently buried. The assaults on Pflanzer-Baltin's left, on the Strypa, are being carried on with equal vigor. These are the strongest enemy positions on the south front, and during the present attacks parts are unapproachable owing to numerous lakelets and streams which are only partly frozen over. On deleft, where the natural defences are weaker, PflanzerBaltin's line is defended with a wire entanglement 40 yards deep, in front electrically charged. AUSTRIANS ANNIHILATED.

At Buczacz, the key to the position, the Strypa runs through a ravine, and the east slope of the hillocks which form it are mined. North of here only after three charges, in one of which they met, and annihilated an Austrian counter-attacking force, did the Russians reach the river. Our men found the entanglements, which had been shelled all the preceding day, only half destroyed. The enemy has other defensive devices, one being the blowing of poisonous gas out of the mouth of a tunnel dug through a hill. Only such of our men as were collected behind the rolling shields could stand the gas. They did this by bending close to the shields and letting the gas drift overhead. Austrian bombers advanced on the shields. All were killed. The enemy brought field artillery to within 300 yards and fired shell direct into the shields. The. exposed Austrian artillerymen were shot down, and a respite was gained. Russian supports came up, and, with the exception of a short section, all of two Austrian divisions were taken.

In this fighting the enemy refused to give way. They poured infantrymen without cartridges into their lost trench. Our men had expended all their ammunition on the Austrian gunners. The result was a trench fight with bayonets which lasted half an hour. Hundreds of men on both sides were bayoneted, and the survivors fought standing on their bodies. Russian supports with cartridges arrived first, and on the way picked -,off the struggling enemy. The trench remained in the Russians' hands. At one pcfnt the Austrians lost in bayoneted 1100 men killed and several hundred wounded, mostly badly. At present the Buczacz bridgehead is still held by the enemy, the redoubt in front being defended by a Prussian Hanover regiment, but the field fortifications just to the north of it have been battered to bits, and a hard frost making the country passable will give them into our hands. MAN v. MECHANISM.

The Germans farther north on the Strypa under Bothmer are being similarly hard pressed. Here, too, at Burkakov, is a strongly defended bridgehead. The taking of the front trenches is a remarkable instance of man versus mechanism. The Germans had machineguns every five yards. In a captured second trench half a mile long were counted 140 cemented machine-gun emplacements. The first trenches Were lightly held, and, after volunteers had bombed to bits the obstacles in front, it was taken with a rush.

While our men fought the thin German defensive line with the bayonet, the machine-guns played on the struggling mass, killing indiscriminately foe and friend. Before the Russians had set the first trench in order the enemy removed all machine-guns from, the seebnd trench, but left it strongly manned by riflemen. A series of attacks

| and counter-attacks were made, and the Germans were badly cut up. In the second stage of this fight the Germans were replaced by Austrians. One counter-attack carried out by a battalion of Austrians and some Hungarian companies persisted as far as a captured trench held by us, and a few men leaped into the trench. The rest were shot down, not one getting back unwouuded. The Austrians in physical fighting are doing better than the Germans, most of whom here are elderly Landstrum men or indifferently trained men from the replacement reserve who have had no peace training.

Attacks which have so far been feints have been made on the Archduke Josef Ferdinand's positions on the Styr-Cho-min front. The Austrians here were surprised and nearly lost their, archducal commander. Our men crossed snow-covered marsh country which had not borne traffic the day' before. An increase in the frost made it passable. Austrian outposts were overpowered, and a dash was made into a thinly-manned advance trench behind which was seen t> group of staff officers riding along the front of a second trench. From prisoners it was later learned that this was the arch-duke and his staff. The archduke and his suite galloped away, leaving a dead orderly.