Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-08-20
TERRIBLE CARNAGE
/ FEATURES ASSAULT
Battlefield Strewn With Dead Of
Contesting Armies; Meuse
Runs Red Streaked
Special to The Telegraph


London, Aug. 20.-The Daily News,
under a Namur date, publishes the fol-
lowing dispatch from it's special cor
respondent Godfrey Young:
The aviators have stopped drop
ping bombs, and the soldiers here
learned to-day that King Albert has
sent an envoy to say that 100 prison.
ers are to be shot for every bomb
dropped in the unprotected streets.
Only girls and old men have so far
suffered from this inhuman practice.
THE losses yesterday about Dinant
seem to have been immense, in view
of the fact that it was only an en-
gagement of forces in reconnaissance.
Rumor speaks of anything between
10000 and 10000 as the casualties in
the two opposing forces, and it is
probable from all accounts that the
number must be reckoned in the
thousands
"A peasant from a village below
Dinant said that when he was called
back from the fields by the noise he
came over the hill to see the Meuse
running red-streaked with blood. AL
lowing for Ardennois emotion, there
seems to be no doubt that the fighting
was savage and terribly costly, and
that one, out of many good reasons
that stopped our passage short of Di-
nant to-day was the feet that the dead
had not yet been removed. In this
war both sides are very rapidly con-
cealing their losses. Relatives are
separately informed whenever it seems
fit, and no lists are published"
Another correspondent describes
the assault in the following dispatch:
Shortly after noon the Germans
seized the citadel, and at 100 o'clock
the black, white and red standard of
the German Empire was f1uttering
above the smoke of battle on the
crowning heights of the citadel.
Throughout the long, hot afternoon
the German infantrymen, sheltered
behind the natural ramparts of the
heights, and supported with one ma
chine gun, poured steady fire down
upon the French in the town below.
THE German lines on the Meuse
began to fall back, but at Z o'clock
their artillery was silenced by the
French guns. Only the citadel, with
the German defenders, was left to
rake the French lines with its fire.
THE citadel rests upon hill at the
southern end of the town. The bugl-
ers were giving the signal to charge.
With fixed bayonets the French NOV
ed forward on the run. At the front
of the slopes they were met with
whitening fire which sent the front
ranks reeling backward.
again the Snflll DlaStS OF Jne pug
lers arose above the roar of battle.
up along every one of the rocky
trails leading to the crown of the hill
swept the French soldiers. The rear
ranks, using their bayonnetted guns
to assist them, climbed with painful
slowness, plunging the points of their
bayonets into the hard, rocky soil.
The French battle cry passed from
lip to lip and the soldiers plunged
onward up the slopes, swept with a
never-ceasing fire.
The German machine gun had
been planted to sweep the broadest ap-
proach and a steady stream of fire
spurted from it's muzzle.
Long afterward the barrel of this
gun was fund to be sizzling hot,
the terrific use to which 1t
had been put.
1.-The paths became blocked with
fallen French soldiers, but still the
red-trousered lines passed on, the SOL
diers lifting their eyes to the hated
standard of Germany to gain fresh
courage.
THE gallantry of the French might
have gone to no purpose, and their
many sacrifices might have been made
in vain but for a well-aimed cannon
ball which struck the German ma
chine gun, putting it out of commits
sion. Within less than half an hour
the French had gained the summit
in the midst of a deadly rifle fire and
hauled down the German flag. The
Germans fought desperately, but were
outnumbered. They fled while the
French fired upon them from the
heights which they had just been
compelled to eVacuate"