BROODSEINDE.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 October 1917, Page 6

BROODSEINDE.

GREATEST VICTORY OF THE WAR. "NOTHING STOPPED OUR MEN." Australian papers publish Mr. Philip Gibbs' description of the attack on October 5 in the battle of Broodseinde. The assault started from ground captured on September 26 northward and southward of Polygon Wood. We advanced upon Passchendaele Ridge, and apparently reached Gravenstafe and Abraham Heights, Which crown the western spur of the ridge, and Broodseinde, which is a high point and the keystone of the enemy's defence line beyond Zonnebeke. We are fighting southward of this with good success, between Cameron House and Declare, across Reutelbeck, and its swampy ground, down beyond Polderhoek to the south end of the Menin road. I saw hundreds of prisoners trailing back across the battlefield. Our lightly wounded!, despite their blood-, stained bandages, speak of the smashing blow dealt against the Germans, and the completeness of the victory. Our wounded say: "We have him heat." They are sure of this because of his enormous losses and his broken spirit. The fight- ! ing has been hard, because of the great gunfire through which we had to pass. It has been a strange and terrible battle—terrible in the greatness of the conflict between guns and men. If all goes as well as it is now gojog the enemy may remember to-day as the turning point in the history of the war. He has realised his great peril if we strengthen our hold on Pas|ehendaele Ridge. All signs have showed him that jt is our intention, because our pressure is intense.

The enemy prepared a great attack in order to regain ground lost on September 26, or at least to check our advance until our attneis should become choked with mud. His local counter-attacks had failed, and his persistent, hammering on our right wing southward of Polygon Wood did not bite deeply into our line, though it caused us anxiety oh the 25th and made our attack on the following day more difficult. 'But sow the Ger!man high command had decided upon a big blow. Timed for seven o'clock this morning, it was an hour too late; our attack was fixed for an hour 'before his, hence our attackers had to pass through his barrage in order to follow under the protection of their own barrage. Although this barrage had fell upon our men before they had leapt up to the assault, it happened terribly for the enemy'that our men were not stopped, but went through the zone of German shells without disorder and swept over the Gorman asault troops, annihilating them and crushing their jlan of attack. Those German troops did not attack. Their defence even was broken. As our lines of fire crept forward they reached and broke the second and third waves of men who were intended for the attack, and caught them in support and reserve positions. We can only guess what the slaughter has been. It was a slaughter in which five German divisions were invoh'ed.

| The battle looks like one of the greatest victories that we have had in the war. It was being prepared on a big seals a= soon as the last was fought and won. Tommies, Chinese and colored men wore engaged in the feverish work of bringing up mountains of ammunition to feed the guns. Thousands of shells, new from the English factories, were unloaded, bright and glistening in the waste ground of the old battlefield near Ypres, ready for the greedy guns. Here was food for a monstrous appetite. The pioneers continued repairing the roads, and laying tracks for railways with astounding unconcern. Bain again fell on Wednesday, and the ground was sticky. Our boys cursed the rain, which might mean the difference between a great success and a half failure. When the men went forward the rain was glistening on their steel helmets. They had already passed through a great ordeal, and some were unable to rise to go with their comrades. The stretcherbearers were already busy in the darkness, where 1 thousands of men were waiting to attatfk. The enemy put over a heavy barrage at 5.30 a.m., as a prelude to his attack. Knowing that the old methods of defence by pillboxes was now useless the Germans had hurriedly prepared a new plan. They moved their guns, registering them upon their own trenches, and, fearing to lose them, they assembled their best troops, hoping to wind us before our attack started. .The German barrage was the beginning of his new plan, which failed because of the great courage of our troops and because the German infantry attack was timed an hour late. If it had o<a> <mrred two hours earlier it might have led to our undoing, and might have prevented anything like a real victory. Fortune was on our side. Tile wheel turned round to crush the enemy. The main force of the German attack was the 4th Guards Division, two others being ready to assault the centre of our battlefront | at Polygon Wood and down from Brood'seinde" cross-roads, but wc fought the German assault divisions at Broodseinde crossroads, making prisoners of many before they had time to advance. The enemy heavily shelled Inverness Copse and G leneonr.se Wood, where there were frightful heaps of German dead a week ago, also wide areas of Polygon Heights, and the low ground in front of Zonnebeke. The shells did not greatly harm our men, plunging deeply into the soft ground, and bursting upwards in tall columns. Many shells missed the advancing waves, which moved forward under our enormous, annihilating barrage. The Germans in some places occupied a kind of trench system where the craters were linked together. The Germans were seen lying dead in many craters, and from others men and- boys, including many boys of eighteen, rose with iipstretch'ed arms. Other Germans came running forward across the frightful fields, not to fight, but to escape the shell fire. Many were streaming With blood, and had broken, bleeding arms and head wounds. 1 The scene of the battle in the early morning hours was a great and terrible

picture. The ruins of the once fair city of Ypres appeared vague and blurred, lit up by tin; r«-i light of our flaming gunfire, that slion? fci a second witn unearthly Our 31ms were everywhere, and it was impossible to walk anywhere to avoid the blast of j their fire. Never was there a moment

trithin range if vision when hundreds of guns were not firing together and slinking the earth. Tim enemy vns answering, but with no great threat to I our batteries. The German shells came I whistling and bursting on either side of the mule tracks.

Fresh shellholes, enormously, deep and thickly grouped, showed that the enemy had plastered the ground fiercely, but later in the morning the shelling eased off. His guns had other work to do over there, where our infantry was advancing, unless the guns were smashed, with teams lying dead about ,them, killed by our counter-battery work with high explosives and gas. For in the night we smothered them with gas and tried to keep them quiet for this battle and for •8l! others.

Viewed from westward, the whole scene of Passchendaele Ridge, Hill 40. westward of Zonnebeke, and the line of the crest to Polygon Wood, was veiled in smoke and mist, through which the ridge loomed darkly, with a black lump where Broodseinde stands. But one clearly saw the white and yellow cloudbursts of our shellfire and the flame of the shellbursts. Great as were the bombardments of the Somme, Vimy, Arras and Messines, in frightfulness they were not comparable with this, the most terrible that has been witnessed throughout the whole course of the war. The entire Passchendaele crest was like a series of volcanoes, belching up pillars of earth and fire. It seem'ed incredible that so many 9hould have lived through it all, yet along the pathways between deep shellcraters came a stream of prisoners and the trail of our walking wounded. It was a tragic sight, despite its prool of victory and of the valor of our men. and the spirit of our wounded, who were bearing their pain with stoic patience, and were overheard saying "It has been a ?ood day." The prisoners were haggard, wliite* faced, thin, worn-weary and frightened. Many were badly wounded. The high ground at Broodseinde is a dominating position. It has been a wonderful battle in the fulness of its success 'and if we can keep what we have gained, it will be the higgest victory of the war on the British front. Nothing stopped our men.