WESTERN ATTACK.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 December 1916, Page 5

WESTERN ATTACK.

„ A YEAR'S RESULTS. ENEMV CASUALTIES 1,250,000, eceived Dec. 29, 10 p.m. London, Doc. 2D A headquarters correspondent, in summarising the cloinsrs on the British front during the expiring year, .ays '.be enemy advanced over a few acres in ,tno places, but we gained thrico :,s many square miles. The enemy :asualtie-. including those at Verdun, <ue well towards a million an.i a, quarter The British line is nearly twice as strong at the end oE 1015, Cannon crash in scores where a year ago they were isolated.

SIXTY NEW DIVISIONS. TO I'L'L\ ERISE THE EXT-MY. THE MILITARY SOLOMON. 'Times Service. Loudon, Dec. 2S. Colonel Repington contends that in order to gain the necessary superiority on the West front in 1917-IS every poss-1 ible white division from ,Salonika, Egyps and .Mesopotamia should be withdrawn', native armies from India and Africa replacing the men in Egypt, for which artillery could be*provided by the Dominions. The preservation of the Egypt base intact is as much to Australia's interest as to that' of England and! India. Egypt is an ideal offensive base ' of operations oif the eastern shores of j the .Mediterranean foi breaking down Turkish military power b) combined action of the Allies in Armrui:., Mesopotamia, and Egypt, and it v.onid be the best means of accomplishing the invest- ! meni of the Austro-German armies and checkmating Germany's eastern moves. Received De.\ 20, 5.5 p.m. •London, Dec. 20. Colonel Repington say- the AM';, s should place on the West front at , least sixty new divisions, with a proper complement of guns of all calibres. The divisions van be drawn partly from ' the eastern' expeditions, as soon aj the j Indian and African formations can rei place them. It is also possible to eo.iy ' the German.;, and take three infantry :battalions from the old divisions, forming them into'new divisions. Some must be new creations formed from the reserve? of manhood in Britain and the j Dominions.

Wo avf sauntering through tlio war when we 'have four millions n military am in civil life. )ur age-limit is still four years below the German standard. We have not yet answered Germany's mass levy. Our reserves of manhood are larger than Germany's.

GENERAL HAIG'S DESPATCH.} DETAILS OF OPERATIONS. ' i Received Dec. 30, 1.33 I London. Dec. 20. | General Sir Douglas Haig's lispateh j ■ills sixteen pages of the Gazette, and |'overs the period from Hay 10 to November .12. He states.—All the Allies agreed on the principle of the ofiens.ve campaign foi the summer of lfllG, and finally, with a view to the Austro-Ger-I man offensive against Verdun, Italy and , Russia, general Jofi'ro and myself agreed I that a .'ombined Franco-British often- J sive should not be postponed beyond the : end of June. General Remy's position j . consisted of several lines of deep; trenches and wire entanglements, some-' times forty yards broad, built of iron i | stakes, interlaced with barbed wire as .thick as a man's finger Numerous woods ■ and villages with deep cellars, also ! quarries, were provided with cover, machine-guns, and trench mortars. General Sir Douglas Haig reports:— Two preparations for attack were commenced on the 24th June, gas being discharged in forty places on a, frontage of fifteen miles. The infantry carried out seventy raids. An attack on July [ 1 from Maricourt to Serre was entrusted to General Rawlinson's Fourth ) Army, with five Army Corps, and , General Allenby's army carried out a s subsidiary attack on Gomniecourt. As , the result of the day's operations, I dc- ( cided to press on the front, extending our junction with the French tc a point halt-way betweeh La Boiselle and Contalmaison, in order that General Rawlinson might be free to concentrate his attention on the front where the attack i was being pushed home. I placed the . operations from La Boiselle to Serre 3 under General Hubert Gough, who was . given the two northern corps of General 5 Rawlinson's army.

THE CRAFT AT THE FRONT, London, Dec. 28. A meeting of New Zealand Freemason's serving in France was held within range of the enemy's {runs. Ninety lodges were represented and sent greetings to their brethren in New Zealand. RESISTANCE TO DEPORTATIONS. Havre, Dec. 28. The Belgian population is determined to continue passive resistance to the Germans' forcible recruiting. A Belgian circular issued at Brussels declares that "We do not yield to the requisition demands and the Germans must take us One by one from our hotnes." SUCCESSFUL AIR RAIDS. „ London, Dec. 28. A French communique states tlwt thirteen British naval aeroplanes dropped a ton of bombs on the blast furnaces at Dillingen. French aeroplanes heavily bombarded trie railway stations at Montmedy, Pierrepont. and East Longuyon, and on factories at Thionville and Joeuf in the Briey coalfield, and on blast furnaces at Rombach and Hacondangy, Two dirigibles bombed factories at Hacondangy and iron works at , Keunkireben.

CHRISTMAS IN THE TRENCHES GERMANS DID NOT SEEK TROUBLE TOMMIES INVITED "TO 'TOME j OVER!'' 1 [ Received Doc. 20, 5,50 p.m. London, Dec. 2S. Mr. Gibbs, the war correspondent, states that the Germans were anxious to spend Christmas peacefully., and did not seek trouble, apart from a few raids and artillery duels along the front from Ypres to the Sotume. The Tommies listened to the German carols and concerts, but kept their rides ready in the event of raids. The German- occasionally invited them to a truce, vainly shouting, "Won't yon come over, Tommy, dear?" Our men, from their periscopes, watched the Germans baling watei from their trenches, crawling from under the falling parapets, and struggling ii]) to their necks in the shellholes of ice-cold water.

At some points the troop? exchanged news, throwing cigar boxes containing letters. The drying rooms were warmed by charcoal stoves, the latest British preventive for trench-feet. The troops holding the trenches cheerfully waited till Boeing Day for their Christmas dinner, enabling it to be partaken of in more comfortable surroundings in the rear.