WORLD'S BATTLE RAGING.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 September 1918, Page 7

WORLD'S BATTLE RAGING.

ATTACK ON WOTAN LINE,,, J" - ILAN-TO-MAN STRUGGLE. ~ London, Sept, 3. Mr Boach Thnnins, wrrenpondcnt of the Daily Mail, says: The attack on the Wotan hne is a world's battle, split into 1000 fragment*. Although pierced, and its ditches captured, we have only penetrated its outer defences, and the enemy is still defending the line to a great depth. We have seized the ridge along w-]iic-h the line is dug, and are looking across a narrow valley to a sec-, ond ridge, where the Germans are mass-' ing every available man. We have stormed the strongest earth and wire fortress in history, and have commenced a great battle, in which the enemy is forced to struggle man to man, despite his utmost ingenuity to avoid such a conflict. In a later message, Mr Thomas' describes the subsequent advance through the breach as so impetuous and irresistible that prisoners were captured screaming and quaking with fear, their appearance suggesting that the enemy is badly short of man-powe,r. Many were young, small, weak, green troops, oddly dressed, with self-made paper puttees. This was their first experience in actual fighting, having been hurriedly thrown in to stop the breach. The number cf prisoners seems to be legion and they are coming in everywhere. The motor machine-guns' dash on the Xord Canal was a most wonderful feat. They travelled the Arras-Cambrai road, which was a corridor of death heaving and smoking beneath the shellfire, as though the earth was in eruption. The motors careered along at such a speed that they passed the shells, and then they doubled and trebled defences on both ides of the road, and reached the canal, where they held up the German reinforcements. Mr Percival Phillips, correspondent of the Daily Express, says (hat fierce fighting continues among 1 the villages- .vest of C'ambrai, the enemy making a supreme effort to hold up General Home's troops, and throwing in every scrap of available material. Divisions are hunched together indiscriminately, tired and fresh infantry, dismounted cavalry, pioneers, and headquarters clerks, fighting witn the energy of despair. Everywhere the Herman war machine shows signs of lack of discipline and determination. To what straits the enemy is reduced may be judged by the condition of the Second Guards' Reserve Division, which was thrown in during the fighting. It had already suffered so heavily that its fighting strength was barely 1000 men, one battalion consisting of a single officer and 35 other ranks. Tlie prisoners are dejected, but bitterness and arrogance are almost entirely absent. German fighting aeroplanes are almost wholly devoting themselves to anti-tank work, particularly at night time, when they constantly cut off their engines' in order to detect the grinding of tractors, after which they drop brilliant parachute lights to\see where to bomb.