STRANGE BATTLEFIELD SCENES.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 October 1918, Page 5

STRANGE BATTLEFIELD SCENES.

EVERYWHERE SIGNS OF WRECKAGE. Received Oct. 7, 9.55 p.m. London, Oct. 9. Sir. Murdoch, writing on the oth, says the German efforts to stabilise the situation have provided extraordinary spectacles. Some small sectors are almost deserted. One sees English or Australian advance guards in sunken roads and phell-holes. They signal the aeroplanes, No shells approach them. All is deserted and lonely, the nearest visible Germans being a few. scurrying forms a thousand yards away, One wonders why we don't advance, till suddenly, as a Tommy runs across the open, the fierce rattle of enemy machine-guns breaks out, showing that some game Germans are holding obscure outposts on the line of advance.

Everywhere there are signs of wreckage, the dead being scattered amid shattered tanks, smashed wire, and all sorts of dear:s, which speak eloquently of the previous intense combjts. The German machine-gunners die beside their guns, dead riflemen with many empty :*rtridges being beside them. They must have continued their fire till the tanks were on top of them, affording evidence that the German army fights with the bravest men forward and the others running away.

It. will not lie surprising ff the winter falls with the enemy holding an irregular, jumbled line, from -which he will be able to shout peace while preparing for a shorter water-fronted line, perhaps the Meuse, to which he will Retreat in the spring.—United Service.