ANGLO-FRENCH OFFENSIVE.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 August 1916, Page 7

ANGLO-FRENCH OFFENSIVE.

TERROR OF BRITISH ARTILLERY FIRE. RETREATING TROOPS CAUGHT BY BARRAGE, taking turns in a tiny dug-out GERMAN SOLDIER TELLS A TRAGIC •TALE. (By Phillip Gibba). With the British Army in the Field, July 10, via London, July 13. The village on Contalmaison has been taken by the British again. Whether it was ever held before by more than a handful of men, who went in and out, is doubtful. I have already told in, previous despatches how the British concentrated fire on positions in front of the village, and then upon the village itself, with terrific intensity. I saw the beginning of this bombardment and watched the men going up to the support of the attack which was to follow. It was begun by fresh troops, who had been brought up to help the tired men who had been fighting in this part of the line under heavy fire for several days, and they advanced under cover of the guns to the left and right of the village. It was already hemmed in on both sides, for British troops were in firm possession of,-Bailiff Wood, to the left, and during the evening, by a series of bombing attacks, Mainetz Wood, to the right had been almost cleared of Gfeimans. ROUT BECAME A SHAMBLES. The Germans in Contalmaison knew the position was hopeless. When the British guns lifted they heard the cheers of the British infantry on both sides of the village, and many of them streamed out of the village in a disorderly retreat, only to be caught behind by the extended barrages between Contalmaison and Pozieres and -Bazcntm-Le-Pctit, so that their rout Mcame a shambles. The British were quickly in the village, and having learned the lesson by experience of other troops at other places, made a thorough search for ma-chine-gun emplacements and dug-outs, so that there would be no further trouble with this wasps' nest. The men left in Contalmaison were in a dreadful state. They suffered to the very brink of human endurance and beyond. They were surprised to find ■themselves alive enough to be taken prisoners. A TRAGIC TALE. One of these men, with whom I talked this morning, told me a tragic tale. He spoke a little English, having been a cabinet maker in Tottenham road some, years ago, before he went back to Wiirttemburg when the war began, where, he said, he was taken and put in a uniform and told to fight. With the ether men of the 122 nd Bavarian Regiment, he went into Contalmaison five days ago. Soon the. rations they brought with tlicm were finished. Owing to the ceaseless gunfire is was impossible to get fresh supplies. They suffered great agonies of thirst, and the numbers of their dead and wounded increased speedily. "There was a hole, in the ground," said this German cabinet maker, whose head was bound with a bloody bandage, and who was' dazed and troubled when 1 talked with him. "It was a dark hole, which held twenty men; all lying in a heap together, and that was the only dug-out for my company, so there was not room for more than a few. It was necessary to take turns in this shelter, while outside the English shells were coming and bursting everywhere. Two or three men were dragged out to make room for two or three others, then those who went outside were killed or wounded. Some of them had their heads blown off; some of them had both legs torn off, and some of them their arms, but we went oh taking turns in the hole, although those when went outside knew it was their turn to die very likely. At last the most of those who came into the holes were wounded, ,sonie of them badly, so that we lay in blood.

THE DRUM-FIRE. "There \va? only .one doctor there, an linder-officer. He * bandaged some of lis till he had 110 more bandages; then last night we knew the end was coming. Our guns began to (ire altogether, the dreadful trommelfener, as we rail it, and tho shells burst and smashed up tin* ground about us. We stayed down in the hole waiting for tho end. Then we heard your soldiers. Present!}', two of them eanic into our hole, They were two hoys and had their pockets full of bombs. They had bombs "111 their hands also, and they seemed to, wonder whether tlie.v would kill us, and we cried, "Karnes aden" and now we art prisoners and I am thirsty." Other prisoners told- me in effect that the Arc was terrible in Contalmaison. and at least half tluir men holding it were killed or wounded, so that when the British entered last night they walked over the bodies of the dead. These men who escaped were in a pitiful condition. They lay 011 the ground utterly exhausted, most of them, and what was strange, with their faces to the earth. Perhaps it was to blot out the vision of the things seen. TERROR OF BRITISH RUNS. I shall remember the cabinet maker of Tottenham road. In spite of the clay which eaked his face anil clothes and the bloody rag round his head, he was a handsome, bearded fellow, with blue eyes, which once or twice lighted up with a tragic smile as when 1 asked him when he thought the war would end. i •'ln 1013," he said, "when I was wounded at Yprcs, I thought the war would end in a few months and a little while ago I thought so again." Then he muttered, something to himself, but loud )y enough for me to hear the words: "Surely we can not go 011 much longer." I left these men and further down the road 1 saw many more prisoners there, nearly 300 of them, marching down the side track. between some ripening corn, under mounted escort. Most of them were young and healthy men, who walked briskly, and it was onlv the few behind who limped as they walked and looked broken and beaten men. It was a &ood day l in prisoners, for about 000 have come down from Contalmaison, Mametz Wood and Trones Wood, as living proofs of the advanco in all these Dlaces.

All the prisoners speak of the terror of the British artillery fire, ant' the documents captured in their dugouts tell the same tale in words which reveal the full horror of the bombardment. SHUT OFI FROM THE WORLD. "We are quite shut oil' from the rest of the world," wrote a German soldier on tlit. day before out great attack. ''Nothing comes to us; no letters. The English keep such a barrage on our approaches it is terrible. Tomorrow morning it will be seven days since it began. We can not hold out much longer. Everything is shot to pieces." "Our thirst is terrible," wrote another mail. "We drink the water out of shell holes" Many men speak of the torture of thirst which they suffered during the bombardment. MADDENED r Y THIRST. "Every one of us in these .five days has become older. We hardly knew oiir- | selves. Hunger could aasily be borne, but thirst makes one mad. Luckily it rained yesterday, and the water In shell tholes, with the yellow shell sulphur, tasted as good as a bottle of beer. Today we got something to eat. It was impossible to bring food before up into the front line under the violent curtain of fire of the enemy." . One other out of hundreds tells all in a few words: — "We came into the front line ten days ago. During these ten days I suffered more than at any time during the last two years. The dug-outs are damaged m places and the trenches are completely destroyed." We do not gloat over the sufferings of our enemy, though we must make him yield. I have seen things to-day before which one's soul swooms and which, God willing, my pen shall write so that men shall remember the meaning of war,'but now, when these things are inevitable, we must look only to our progress toward the end. PUSHED FOR RESERVES. To-day, we made good progress towards it. Yesterday I wrote of a position we attacked on July 1, as the great German' fortress with a chain nf strongholds linked by underground works. In ten days, by wonderful gallantry of the mail ami the great power of the guns, the British have smashed several of the German forts as strong as any on the western front and defended as stubbornly by masses of guns and troops, and have stormed a way in so deeply that* the Gcrmnns are now forced to fa'll back upon the next line of defence. The coat has been great, but the German losses and the present position in which they find themselves prove the success of the main attacks, For the first time sinco the beginning of the war, initiative has passed to the British and the German headquarters staff is pushed for reserves.