COUNTER-ATTACKS REPULSED.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 October 1916, Page 5

COUNTER-ATTACKS REPULSED.

• FURTHER PROGRESS MADE , Received Oct. 20, 7.40 p.a Paris, Oct. 25. A communique states: We repulsed tiiree counter-attacks at Haujromont and Douaumont, and progressed eastward of Fumin Wood and northward of Cheuois. The number of unbounded prisoners hitherto counted amounts to 4500. THE GERMAN DEFEAT, DUE TO TRANSFER OF TROOPS. Received Oct. 20, 5.5 p.ih. Rome, Oct. 2a. The German defeat at Verdun is attributed to the transfer of troops to Roumania. FRENCH COMMUNIQUE.. • ALL GALNiS HELD, ! London, Oct. IH. A French communique says: T'>e Germans launched two counter-attacks on the wings of our new front north of Verdun, one against Haudromont quarries and another Hgaijist the*' Damloup battery. Both failed, and v;e maintain the conquered ground. The commandant of-'Douaumont fort was found underground and made a prisoner. ■ We broke German counter-attacks at Macukovo. The Salonika cavalry has joined up with the Italian cavalry from V'alona. HUGE FRENCH ARSENAL.' MODEL CITY FOR .WORKERS, POSTERING POST-WAR INDUSTRIES Received Oct. 20, 8.15 p.m. "" Paris, Oct. 2 1 .). Tlio Ministry of Munitions contemplates erecting a huge arsenal in the centre of France, covering nine hundred acres. The building will cost four millions sterling. 11. Thomas considers that private firms are likely to letnrn to peace work after the war. France, he says, must not slacken preparations, especially in view of the possibility of protracted peace negotiations. The firms must also enable the State to assist in the reconstruction of industries in invaded territory, by supplying tools and machinery. The Ministry contemplates building a model city for workers. THE "TANKS LEAVE A TRAIL OF DEATH. BRINGING HUMOR INTO THE WAR. The work of the now armored cars in co-operation with the British infantry in their charges in the successful attacks on September 13 is the one theme of talk throughout the Army, says- a despatch from the British front in France to-the American press. "Tlio idea was so good when it .vas offered," said a staff officer, "that we had sopie built, and the way they have gone over the German trenches and have enfiladed them with machine-gun fire is some return for the surprise the Germans gave us with their gas attacks in the first battle of Ypres." Evidently the Britisii were able to keep the building of these car 3 entirely secret, and the first that the Germans, knew of their existence was when in the misty dawn of the Friday morning they came trundling across shell craters and over tree stumps, cutting down many small trees on their way towards the. German trenches, on to the second line and even to the third line. The return to earth of ichatyosauria or dinosauria spouting bullets from their nostrils could not have been more amazing. "Tanks" is the slang word that the army staff has applied to. these strange creations of machinery, 'hut they look less like tanks than anything clss in the world. It is hard to say what they look like. They have been compared both to armadillos and measuring worms, and to many other weird creeping or crawling objects of natural history. A man-of-war's turret crossing fields, in and out of gullies and through fences, would present a --pectacle resembling their progress. 'During the days preceding the attack, as they moved up to the front and the soldiers gazed at them, the risibilities of all ranks were tickled All sorts of questions were propounded. Would the thing stand when it was hitched, and on what was it fed? Which was its tail and which its head? At all events, it was a steel-jointed incarnation of military secrecy. Spectators laughed at it, but with the true British sporting instinct hoped that it would at least have a sporting chance. Wounded men hack from the line forgot thein pain and what part their battalion played during the battle in telling what the ' tanks" did. Notes were compared between the actions of "our" and "your" tank. Co-operating with the infantry, according to prearrangement, the grotesque creatures played the part set fo r them under the control of their invisible crews, which Were their brain centres. Some soldiers said their battalions had nothing more to do than harvesters do who gather sheaves, following a reaper and binder, raked by fire. 'British Army reports never had a stranger passage than one saying that 100 Germans had surrendered to a tank unless it was the one reporting that the tank had been seen from an aeroplane making its wny through the main streets of the village of Flers, followed by cheering British soldiers. A staff officer spoke of one having stopped to "browse" at the edge of a wool bofore continuing to advance. It is spall .wonder that anybody who saw in action one of these armored motor-gar.s--ii car

be an allowable name—should hold u# their hands. They have brought a jie\K element into 'the grim, monotonourtJjßU ness of war, trenches, shells and bomba/ It was the "tank's" day and the "tank*'; made good. ' '• According to reports, trcnchfuls oi dead wore left in its wake when thef occupants of trenches tried'"to "fioM( their ground and did not surrender oil' fly from its approach. Yet destructive!; as the fire of the "tanks" wag many) German prisoners began laughing when' (recalling the first glimpse of tirom/ while the British, as a result of the iw% that these grotesque comrades went in«! to the charge, are laughing and rejoice! mg over the day's victory. The "tankV<; have added an element of humor which! ) put the Army, through all its ranks,; into a festive mood. '■'''. The "tanks" were built for the mort ' part in Peoria, Illinois, in the form oil caterpillar tractors designed many years i t|ifore the war 'began to meet some- of r the difficult problems of modern fasn<• ing. Except for their armor, their ma-i chine-guns and their crev/o, thousands { like them are in use to-day in the Unit*' ed States, in ploughing, digging ditohefc' and other labors less heroic than w«.