THE YPRES ADVANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 September 1917, Page 8

THE YPRES ADVANCE.

MAGNIFICENT BRITISH INFANTRY. SLAUGHTER OF PRUSSIAN GUARDS. ■ DOGGED ADVANCE THROUGH SWAMPED FIELDS.

London, August 17. Mr. Beach Thomas (Daily Mail correspondent) says:— ••From Lens to Langcmarck is a far cry. To-day the centre of the fighting shifted from the chalk hills, whence the prisoners came back as white as a miller, to the old cockpit of Europe, where the returning men took off chunks of mud iis solid as plaster of Paris. But one thing was common to both battlehelds. After our victorious advance the Prussian Guards counter-attacked almost in the old style, and with as deadly results to themselves as when, with locked arms, they advanced across the turnip-fields against the thin line of cooks and orderlies in the first battle of Ypres, three years ago, on the same battleground. "Their Lens endeavor was magnificent, but it was not war. The Guards swung out in columns of four from their sung line behind the town and advanced to the counter-attack against the victorious Canadians. But from the northward our guns prevented them extending towards the crest. To the southward an area of swampy ground paled them in. They perforce marched on along the road, and wore compelled to march for three miles under the direct fire of our converging machine-guns and field-guns. It was gallant, but suicidal. The .whole body of several thousand men was shot down. '•The other Guards, 50 miles further north, at Langemarck, failed almost as signally, though with less losses. OPENING THE PILL-BOXES. The closest and hottest fighting was further south, in the Glencorse and Polygon woods and at the famous Zonnebeke Redoubt. Opposite, Langemarck was a big concrete ''pill-box." The guns bombarded it till "20 Germans crawled out of the small doorway all on fours. Another "pill box" was two-storied. The up'per floor was crowded with machine guns and the lower full of men and ammunition. A bombing party rushed this formidable redoubt, where the machineguns were constantly spitting, and pushed smoke-bombs explosives through the machine-gun slits, till the machine guns ceased and the inmates surrendered.

"At the 'beginning of the northed advance our guns pealed as suddenly as a thunder clap. The Germans went up every variety of signal alarms over an area of many miles, from north of Langemarck to Hollebeke. '•The enemy had been full of alarms all night, frequently shelling our lines, and revealing his dread of the coming attack. Xo other troops have advanced so quickly. It was a long wade through slush. The men were soon stones overweight with the adhering mud. The battleground was practically swamped. Even the Steenbeke river ceased to be a continuous stream. The roads, chateaus, villages and trenches were all more or less conjectural, mere topographical terms. Only the airmen could view with drv eyes the prospect of crossing the battlefield. ''The Germans before us were holding chell-holes, concrete and iron boxes, old gun emplacements, farmhouses, cellars and rubbish heap.?'. Our infantry advanced, contemptuous of their defence, even of the machine guns.

"The German infantry soon wilt id over the whole battlefront from north of Langemarck to south of St. Julien, but, fought skilfully and obstinately below this point, delivering frequent countertittacks under dense smoke-clouds, fired from smoke-shells up '.wind. The enemy, seems recently to have concentrated on a form of defence describable as a formation steadily thickening in strength from ti\e front to the rear, and backed with fresh troops trained and practised in roimter-attacks. The enemy's shelling was much more persistent and heavier between St. Julien an.) Tnv->« ness Copse than northward. He is "still holding a valuable ridge near Gheluvelt.

FRITZ SANDWICH. "Our, West Country troops fought splendidly, wading close to the barrage (is a gardener pruning wall fruit. The barrage suiting itself to the state of the ground, moved ever so deliberately before them. Amongst the prisoners taken hero was a large group of Germans, who, sandwiched between two barrages, were too afraid to run away. The Irish troops participated in the heaviest fighting of the day. The attack on Langemarck itself wa 3 unusually difficult. The better part of the village was a deep march, sown with intricate islands, ft needed both skill and good, hard, solid English doggedness to put out the enemy and keep up our barrage. Only once were ,our troops seriously checked, but they soon surrounded the obstruction (a concreted farm) and captured or killed the garrison. A German division mas badly hit, broken to pieces, and put out of action at this .point." ENEMY'S DEFENCES.

Almost every acre the British had to cross in the recent Ypres offensive, was 1 * honey-combed with defensive works. Although the terrific gunfire had smashed and flattened out most of these, yot they were still largely tenable by snipers and machine gunners. All the farms, .in the district had been turned to the greatest possible advantage, every hedge was thickly wired, every cellar concreted into a regular fort. The outer defences of Langemarck consisted of a sort of concreted moat, blocked in many cases by masses of soft clay, in which our men sank to the hips. It was often impossible to detect the existence of the underground works until the occupants opened fire.

Once a white flag was displayed, but .1 burst of fire met the warily-approach-ing men. The last heard of this spot it was surrounded, and our bombers were quietly awaiting. events. There -were sanguinary German losses, the mud holding many of the fleein" troops till they were killed in scattered fighting in swamps and flooded shellholes. The Germans' chief defence, the concrete pillboxes, proved death-traps, in many cases parties of our men encircling them, killing the garrisons or compelling surrenders.

One Tommy, carrying a Lewis gun, attacked a pill-box single handed,. He poked the gun into a loophole and played it into the interior, killing the inmates.

Our shell fire occasionally set the interior of one of these structures on fire, when the garrison immediately put up I the wiiite flag. The Germans abandoned | a number of guns and a quantity of 'stores and munitions, stuck fast in the '»u4

FRENCHMEN'S PERFECT ADVANCE. The French co-operation on_ our extreme left, was perfect. They went forward with admirable unity of execution, and were model Allies. Very young Prussian troops defended Langemarck. Captured officers account for their poor fighting capabilities by the statement that these lads were under-nourisfied for two years before enlistment. STRENGTH OF THE PILL-03OXES. "The Germans," s ays Mr. Beach Thomas (Daily Mail), "'build their concrete pill-boxes so strongly and so heavily that our shells frequently bounce and ricochet from the sides, not hurting the Imitates, and not damaging the pillboxes. Sometimes, however, iwe found the occupants killed by shell-shock, though the shell had not penetrated the walls. It was a comical spectacle to see our bombers surrounding the pill-boxes like terriers at a rabbit-hole, and vainly seeking an entrance. "It was amazing that we advanced so far, considering the vast number of machine-guns used in the defence. Langemarck church was a machine-gun centre. Every cellar, farm, and hole roundabout Vas similarly used."

HOW THE "COCKCHAFERS" FELL. Mr. Pierre Robinson (Times correspondent) writes:— "The way in which the Welshmen wiped out the "Maikafers," ''Cockchafers," or ".May-beetles" was almost pathetic. The latter were the Kaiser's pets. Every Ist of ,May he sent them compliments and a box containing a tame cockchafer, but it takes a lot of beetles to make a meal for the Welsh Dragon. He ate his fill on July 31. The Welshmen's advance was irresistible. Through a dense complication of trenches and numerous fortresses they stalked and bombed their way, rushing each fortress as they advanced. Numerous small units had little independent battles, everywhere encountering .oncretc "pillbox" redoubts filled with "Cockchafers," who fought savagely, but were overmastered, and sent to swell the ever-growing nests of '•Cockchafers" at the rear.

Two battalions were crumpled up and disappeared before the tremendous Welsh attack. A third did little better, the Welsh taking prisoner fi3o of them and killing and wounding more. A prisoner officer, seeiiig the masses of his comrades prisoner in the cage, burst into tears of grief and rage at the degradation lof 'the iKaiser's proudest regiment.

The booty included copies of the regulation poem celebrating the valor of the "Cockchafers," and telling how they flew into Trance and desolated it in 1870, ana how they flew over the Rhine in this war and obliterated Belgium. Then Hindenburg called, and ,they .flew east and broke the, Russians. Austria called, and they flew over the Carpathians. The Kriti«li gnashed their teeth as the "Cockchafers'' swarmed against them.

Sir, Robinson uomments: 'lt is a nice sotiUi. but it neflda another verae."