The Sun.
London, England, 1871-01-02 00:00:00

THE ATTACK ON MONT AVRON.

Writing from Chelles, December 28, the special corre-
spondent of the Daily News at the Crown Prince of
Saxony's headquarters thus describes the attack on Mont
Avron :—At exactly a quarter to nine the first gun
crashed its report below me in front of Mont-
fermeil, and I could hear its angry whiz as it
cut the air in crossing the intervening space.
In three minutes more the air was full of a din of
deep diapason. There was nothing to see, arid I saw
it—such may serve as a summary of my day's work.
At daybreak the snow had begun to fall, not heavily and
in big flakes, but in feathery particles, which filled and
whitened the air, making obstacles invisible a quarter
of a mile off. Of course, the gunners had got their sights
and ranges the day before, and their shot must have
been "there or thereabouts," but Avron was as
invisible as if it had been on the further side
of the North Pole. The work gave one the
idea of fighting with knives in a dark room.
At first it seemed as if the French artillerymen
were taken by surprise. It was not till nine o'clock
that Avron sent back the first instalment of its reply.
When it did begin though it went to work with a will,
13ut rather wildly, the shells flying about promiscuously in
a fashion that impaired the safety of any given point. By
ten this duel in the dark was in full sway,
the air incessantly lacerated and tortured by the
whistle of the projectiles, so that one might have
imagined himself in a calm at sea, with the rush of
. coming squall bearing down upon him. The German
fire was like clockwork ; three times I timed the number
of rounds fired in a minute, and the results were-24, 23,
25. Of course these figures are valueless as indication of
the rapidity of the firing without information as to the
number of the guns, which I am not at liberty to give;
but they afford remarkable evidence of the syste-
matic steadiness of the practice. The French fire came
more in spurts and gusts, and then was silent for some
half a minute. When in full blaze it was so rapid as to
be continuous, and not admit Of being timed itself, or of
one timing the German fire. About eleven the batteries
at Bondy—as well as I could judge by the direction of the
sound, took up their parable, and were replied to by
the extreme right flank cf the German position,
which has been designed amiably looking toward
the said Bondy, with a view to such a demon-
stration. All day long the firing continued, with
no great variation to speak of. Perhaps it was heaviest
from twelve till two. After that hour the French fire
seemed to slacken visibly. There were longer intervals
between the spurts, and the spurts were not so ani-
mated. The forts of Rosny and Nogent, however,
chimed in occasionally, covering the slackness of
Avron's efforts. About sundown there was a
marked weakness in the enemy's fire, the German fire
continuing meanwhile in a steady, dogging, stolid fashion.
During the day the firing has been continued
at the rate of about five to eight shots per minute,
chiefly from the guns on the right hand bat-
teries in front of Rainey. These batteries have
been a " staggerer " to Mont Avron. The French
batteries on that commanding position were for
the most part constructed to dominate the valley
of the Marne. Thus they could cope face to
face with our batteries at Noisy -le - Grand,
they could sweep the " horseshoes," they could pound
into Chelles, till a man was thankful when he was out of
it, and they could even send their missiles into Montfer-
neil. But that was the most northerly point on which
they looked out. Consequently our batteries further
north, in front of Rainey, actually enfiladed the batteries
and parallels of Mont Avron, throwing in a flanking fire,
,gainst which there was no defence. This circumstance
accounts for the collapse of the Avron batteries earlier
..han I allowed myself to anticipate. There seems to be
io question as to the collapse; the fire is all but extin-
guished, and the four battalions of French infantry which
were supporting the gunners when the firing began
yesterday morning are known to have fallen
back off the table land with considerable loss.
Our casualties from yesterday's fire are twenty-
three men killed and wounded. lam surprised that
_ _ _

should have been so heavy, spite of the unquestionably
heavy fire, since the artillerymen are protected by
solid parapets, seven feet high, and the supporting in-
fantry are sheltered in the parallel by earthen protec-
tions of equal height. The more one thinks of it, the
more one is astonished at the thoroughness of the surprise
which the French have allowed themselves to suffer. How
complete this has been is obvious from the fact that our
right-flank batteries so thoroughly raked their positions
as I have stated. Had they the remotest conception that
batteries were ready to be unmasked behind the trees
right under their nose they would have surely taken
measures at least to protect themselves from this
flanking fire, when they could have done so by a few
hours' labour of a body of men with spades and
pickaxes, even if they could not have done more in
the way of organising a more or less effective reply.
It seems the French are refining on the "legitimate"
horrors of war. I have seen a Chassepot bullet—it has
never been fired of course—which looks all right outside,
but which, when dissected, is found to be in 17 pieces,
curiously jagged and angular. I suppose it will presently
come to firing haudfulls of rusty nails and the clippings
of zinc roofs.