Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-09-05
PALMER SEES
ALLIES PUSH"
FROM HEIGHT
Great Battle, Observed by
American, Like Unfold,
ing Panorama
BAYoNET USED FREELY
English Reap Fruit of Six
Weeks Preparation for Z
Attack
BY FREDERICK PALMER
Accredited Correspondent, with the British Ar


Of the Press Of the United states
AT THE BRITISH FRONT IN FRANCE,
Sept 4, via London, Sept. s.
A wonderful spectacle of war was visible
today from a high point near the junction
OF the French and British armies.
To the north lay a dark patch which
was the ruins of Gulllemont. frlnged by the
wave-lllSe earthly lines of the old second
line of German trenches facing Trones
wood across the space of 10 city blocks
which was veined like frogs foot with
trenches and runways which the British
had dug
For six weeks the British had burrowed
against the Germans over this shell-rup-
turcd, bullet-ridded field. Yesterday was
the day of the successful British effort TO
break through the German bulwark.
British artillery had not destroyed all the
dcep dugouts, but their curtain of intensi-
fed shell fire kept the machine gunners
down and out of these dugouts. and after
half an hours work British infantry turned
some coo prisoners
A litetle further beyond Guillemont than
perhaps treble the distance from home plate
10 second base on an American baseball
field is a sunlSen road At the northern end
oil that Is another patch OF ruins that was
once the village of Gnchy, where fghting
and forth between the barr cades and cell
lars and any old kind of cover the men
could throw up out of the debris.
The British seem firmly established on
the sunsen road. All night they were dig
Ring themselves holes there. This was
their objective no less than Is second base
TO runner on q two-base hit. II they
tried to 20 farther because the going was
good they might be put out. That happened
yesterday at some points of attack. as 1t
sometimes does. thanks to overeagerness'
Disorder results, the men get out from under
the protection of their own gunflre and are
cut up. -
BAYONET FIGHTING
At tho southern end of the sunken road
Is a finger pont--a green wedge of woods.
and below this is the Falfanont farm,
where the British attack stopped yesterday.
Here the Prussian guard left the trenches
in a charge to meet the British charge half
way.
Thus they came to the bayonet The
big guns could send no shells nor could
the machine guns send any bullets for fear
of hitting their own men. All the
engineery of war with It's missiles that
kill men at long range formed a ring
around these comba tants, who fought prac-
ticaly to extinction with the cold steel.
Today. around Falfemont farm. the pic
ture was intimate yet incomprehensible TO
observers in its ebb and How of attack
The contrast of British and Prussan meth
ods were set out as'in panorama A-..
The British charge moved up with each
unit seeming to act for itself, yet keeping
the formation and then came the German
counter-attack in regular wave, followed
by another dipping with the undulating
ground. Figures in the first wave began
TO drop as the British machine guns began
to rattle, bus the second wave still came
on in a way that made British officer
with characteristic sportsmanship exclaim:
Magnificent! Topping! -
A CONFUSED PICTURE.
The second wave melted on the ground
where the first wave had disappeared, but
the results were confused. The observer
could only tell that charges were met by
counter-charges while machine guns, in
hidden places, waited for their game with
their murderous blasts 1t could not al
ways be told whether figures leaving their
trenches were men retreating or prisoners
under escort. Fast-running figures from
either side ta-the rear were either messen-
gers sending back word OF the situation
TO commanders when all other signals failed
TO work. or they were running to get more
bombs, whose puffs OF smoke were visible
here and there.
Would these gallant fellows get through
without being hit? was the question as
they were lost in the midst of shell smoke.
Farther south, the blue Of the French
mingled with the .khakl OF the British and
the men appeared and disappeared In the
earth like ants. Back of the lines French
and British guns and transp' rts mingled
and British wounded and French wounded
came along the same paths with German
prisoners. sometimes British litter-bearers
taking Frenchmen and French sometimes
taking Britons. Groups of British soldiers
cheered the French after their success OF
yesterday
General Foch's steel-throated orators
were very busy down there In the green
lowlands of the winding Somme, where
Bhrapnel smoke lay feathery white against
the foliage fresh from the nights rain, and
across the Somme, as far as the eye could
see, ran this canopy Of flashes from guns
that seemed to answer with regular hring
20 the touch OF some master hand, Nearer
and nearer to PerOnne that swath or fire
moves with every battle.
The Germans didn't know how many
guns Father Joffre had up his sleeve" said
French officer, 'and General Foch knows
how TO use them"
As Indicative OF the enormous gunfire
British officer estimated that the Germans
fired 1000 gas shells in single day.
Tonight Official reports are that the Ger
mans still hold FalfemOnt farm, following
the afternoon's serimmage of charges and
eounter-charges.