WESTERN ATTACK.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 January 1918, Page 5

WESTERN ATTACK.

AIRMEN BUSY. KAIDS AND pOUNTEK-UAIDS London, Jan. IS. 9ir Douglas Ilaig reports that the enemy raided a post eastward of Kpehy with aeroplanes last night, Despite bad weather we bombed large railway works at BemsdorlV, SO miits south-eastward of Met*. All our machines returned. ANGRY GERMANS AND GAS. A DOSE OF THEIII OWN MEDICINE. In the course nf a message sent from War Correspondents' Headquarters on Saturday, r-eptt'iuwr a Scotsinun correspondent says: Between. battle.; the great armies of - Bvrtain are lar from id If. The smallest • opt-i-ltioii demands from the nii-ti engaged ' the Mmr herohinaiui rcsoiiivei'ulne.-s as a great battie. XTi« routine experiences particularly raid? ■ and reconnaissances, furnish many incidents of extreme daritilt. All nf them show the undiminished energy Mid determination of the men. When von hear allegations of the failing morale and wal" weariness oj our troops, remember tliat soldiers in such a plight would nnt perform acts like sonic of those I propose to quote al random. The private of the I.in"olu* who killed five Germans, took three prisoners, and marched tiie latter back with an v.ndresßed r.a'"one* wound in his arm. could hardly he considered war weary. The Lancashire sergeant who took a Lewis ?un into a crater in the wilderness of confitfte forts ca s t of and lay there for two days and nk'hl-. holding un [he eriiTiiv, j* not a iair example of failing morale. M.\XY VMVKY DEEDS Nor can the peacemongers claim as their own the Londoner who brought a OeplUln machine-gun back from a raid, and-returned alone into No Man's Land to get the other one that, he had left in a crater, "because lj was (no big a load to carry both" aii.i lie •'thought it wn» a pity to !• e.vo ii there for the J Funs." v "The Tecord of every day's work along ihc Hritisli front full of such stories 1 should like (o : ve the name of a private who, after raid, wiien a number of ills wounded coierades had been left, behind in a shell-hoie close to the German lines, remained with them two days iind nights, tearing up his clothing to • make bandages, and eventually brought all of them back. I could name a score who, like ft certain machine-gunner I have in mind, went on to their objective in a raid, although wounded, and moisted «» finishing the vrork they had begun. The majority of th-se incidents concur* men of t'ngliob county regiments and their comrades of the North, because Ihey form Ilie bulk of the great lighting forces in Flanders and France: but the .same'fine spirit Is apparent everywhere— Irish. Welsh, tKc Canadians, Australians, and other coriinernt. from every part uf the dominions overse* IUK ,V SWT-?E" SVIIO INVENTED GAS The new German mask is less pliable than the rubber type, although of soft oiied leather, and less easily adjusted. Rubber is jcaree, and ominous warnings •if economy in leather have reached the garrisons in the zone, of death. 1? the Canadians decided to take Lens, said a recently captured prisoner, we could go back to a good position in the open air, and have a chance of life, lint as long as wc are made to keep Lens, the bulk of the troops must live underground, and gas drifts info the network r.f tunnel* :tnd rtlfcpifig rooms and hangs about. The "hole city i« so accurately ranged by , Canadi«». guns that it is death to try to remain on the surface. In brief, the Canadians have pounded tfieir opponents into a state of passive resistance. They no longer try asgres-;-ive pushes into the territory they recently lost. Even their aeroplanes daro not i.ry io harass our infantry in the oppji, as they have teen doing further north. Some planes venture across for observation, but they we distinctly caution*. "Do you think," naked a Prussian officer captured at Hill 70, "that if we hjwi not first used gas the English would not have tried It,?* "T am sure they wouldn't," replied one nf his captor*. . "Then f wish we had the swine wlm liegan rt." said the officer. "Our men have never gone in for crucifixion, although some of you Canadians think we hllTe. £iut I thinV the troops in Lent would willingly gratify tbe man who inrented gw ''