MESOPOTAMIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 January 1917, Page 5

MESOPOTAMIA.

COOD PROGRESS MADE. TI'RK.S SVFFER HEAVILY Received *iß, 5.5 p.m. London, January . 20. Mesopotamia, Official. —By a determined assault, under cover of an intense I bombardment, wo seized and consolidated 1100 yards of the, first line of trenches on the right- Ijauk of the Tigris, soutli-we.stv.ard of Kut-el-Amara, also a considerable length of the second line. ■Our losses were slight. The Turks, westward ot tbe llai river, thereupon made four furious counterattacks. The first and third were broken by artillery, infantry a,nd machinogmi lire. The, "second and fourth were momentarily successful, but wo resumed t'ho offensive and regained much of the ground from which we had been temporarily dislodged. The Turkish losses nil day were extremely heavy. Seventy, prisoners were taken and 'jSfl corpses were buried in the loop eastward of Kul-01-Amava besides 500 buried by t'ho enemy. THE TURKS DRIVEN OUT. OF LAST FOOTHOLD. AFTER STUBBORN DEFENCE. Received £B, 11.30 p.m. London, January 28. ■ Mr... Candler, writing from Mesopotamia on January ID, said:—This mornincf we occupied a triangle of trenches, the last foothold of the Turks -at the bofod of the Tigris, below Kut. The enemy resisted in a most doggrtl manner for ten days, but. at last 3ie was cornered. We economised our casualties, and advanced our trenches gradually. Our concentrated artillery and trench mortar fire innde the area hardly tenable, but tbe enemy made desperate sorties and counter-attacks. 'We had cleared part of the last trenches with the bayonet, and the enemy finally de parted, but cleverly kept up t'lie "noise o£ digging all night while he slipped across the Tigris in boats, pontoons ami coracles which were concealed in shelters beneath the banks, lience the assault in the,morning was comparatively bloodless. '