The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1914-10-28
GERMANS LOSE
THOUSANDS IN
NIGHT BATTLES
MANY WERE DROWNED IN DEATH
GRAPPLE WHILE OTHERS WERE
EAYONETTED, THEIR BLOOD
REDDENING THE WATERS OF
USER CANAL.
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS.

London, Oct. 27.-The correspondent
of the Daily Mail in Northern France
telegraphs under date of Sunday night
regarding the fighting on the river
User says:
There were $500 German bodies in
the User canal this morning after the
fighting in the night Many Of them
were drowned and others were bay
onetted. The very water was bloody
while DiXmude's streets were strewn
thick with the dead.
These ghoulish facts alone give
some idea Of the savageness of the
fighting, the desperation Of the German
attacks and the stubbornness of the
allies resistance.
the night was a hell from dark to
dawn. At almost every point OF the
line man was opposed by man, some
times at few hundred yards distance
but more often in close grips. Face
to face men even wrestled and died
~ drowning each other in the canals
waters. The Germans had orders to
get through that night, cost what it
would
An officer of theirs who was cap
tured said that the delay of more than
a week in crossing this water had in
censed the autccratic military mind in
Germany. It must be crossed tonight
il il costs a thousand men, That in
effect was the order given and the
German soidters all credit to them
did their best.
Probably 5000 OF them gave their
lives last night. They could not give
more, yet they failed. ouC not because
the Germans did not literally obey
orders. They crossed the waterway all
right as they were bid, but once
through they could not make good.
They were moved down with rife
shot, torn into humAn fragments by
shells and bayonetted back yard by
yard over their own dead into the
waters of the canal. Into the very
gray OF the morning this bloody work
went on so fiercely that there was
hardly a trench or bridge guarding the |
whole lines that did not imagine that
he had been singled out for special !
attack. /
ut is believed that some 1ve thous-
and Germans crossed the river User
but hardly one of them got back Those
to the north and northeast of Dixmude ,
probably two thousand were met by a Z
fine rally of the Belgian infantry and
Of the cavalry who had tethered their
horses. and were driven by main force .
at the bayonetts point, to the river
canal and into it. There must have
been frantic scenes and the bodies
seen in the water on the next day gave /
grim testimony OF this.
About three thousand German In
cantry men got into Dixmude. They |,
held it for a time but with shell and
rife fire the place was riddled through
nd through. The Germans dashc1 out
Of the crumbling houses only to be
wiped out y a sirocco Of shrapnel and
shot in the streets.
when Sunday morning broke, the
lead and wounded were everywhere.
Dixmude was a cemetery, but in the
woods not far away the Germans still
fingered. They held a position under
desperate fire and eventually were re-
nforced. The allies could not oust
hem and the Germans are still across
he User.
''rHo'r q os~rce may not be per-
nanent and they may suffer the same
g. = 40 ..aa ot ercome hundreds Of their
elbow soldiers during the week. who
sot over Only 20 meet their death. but
he Belgian and French lines. for the
ime being at least. have been drawn
Jack about this point"