Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-09-05
British BurrOw Through
German Bulwark in Reneuual
of Great Drive Along SOmn,e
By Special Corrsspondenes

with The British Armies In France.
Sept. (via London, Sept. 5.)-A won-
derful spectacle of war visible to-day
from a high point near the junction
of the French and British armies. To
the north lay dark patch-the ruins
of Guillemont-infringed by q wave
like earthly line of old second line
German trenches facing Trones wood
across a space of ten city blocks.
which is veined like frogs foot with
trenches and runways the British had
dug.
For six weeks the British burrowed
against the Germans over this she'll
ruptured, bullet-riddled field. Yester-
day was a day of successful British
affort to break through this German
bulwark. The British artillery had
not destroyed all of the deep dugouts,
but the curtain of intensified shell
fire kept the machine gunners down.
and out of those dugouts after half
an hours work the British infantry
turned out some six hundred prisoners.
A little farther beyond Guillemont
perhaps three times the distance from
second base to the home plate is a
sunken road, at the north end of
which is another patch-the ruins of
Ginchy-where the fighting between
Briton and German surges back and
forth between barricades and cellars
and any kind of cover that the men
can throw up out of the debris. The
British seem to be firmly established
in the sunken road. All night they
were digging themselves into holes
there. This was just as much their
objective as second base is to q base
ball player who has just made a two
base hit. If they tried to go farther
hnHl1IGa Gxr hnx
might be put out. That happened yes
.terday in some points of the attack,
and 1t sometimes does, thanks to
over-e r-eagerness.
Meet Prussians With Bayonet
At the southern end of the sunken
road is a f1ngerpoint of the green
wedge wood, and below this lay Falfe-
mont farm, where the British attack
stopped yesterday. Here the Prussian
guard left their trenches in a charge
to meet the British attack half way.
Thus they came bayonet to bayonet.
The big gun could send no shells, the
machine guns no bullets for fear of
hitting their own men. All the ma
chinery of war, with it's missiles which
Kill men at long range, formed ring
around these combatants, who fought
virtually to extinction with cold steel.
Waves Disappear
To-day around Falfemont farm the
picture was intimate vet incompre-
hensible to observers in its ebb and
flow of attack. The contrast between
Prussian and British methods stood
out as in panorama. The British
charge, moving up with each unit
seeming to act for ITSELF and yet keep
ing its formation and then the Ger
man counter attack in regular wave
followed by another, dipping with the
mn d1t a. Of LIe IN,
the first wave began to drop as the
British machine guns started to rattle,
and yet the second wave came on in q
way that made a British officer, with
characteristic craftsmanship, exclaim:
Magnificent! Topping!" The second
wave melted on the ground where the
first wave had disappeared
But the results were confused. An
observer could only tell that charges
were met by counter charges, while
machine guns in hidden places wait
for their game with their murderous
plasts. 1t is not always to be told
whether figures leaving the trenches
were men retreating or prisoners un-
der escort. Fast running figures from
both sides to their rear were either
messengers bringing back word of the
situation to their 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. Whether these gallant fell
lows would get through without being
hit was the question. Most of the
time they were lost to view in mists
of shells smoke.
Move Nearer Peronne
Further south of the blue of the
French mingled with the khaki of the
British as the men, like ants, appear
ed and disappeared in the earth, and
back of the lines French and British
guns and transport, British wounded
and French wounded came along the
same path with German prisoners.
Some times British litter bearers took
Frenchmen while French took Briton
and groups of British cheered the
French after their successes of yester-.
day.
General Foch's steeI-throated ora.
tors were very busy down there in
the green lowland of the winding
Somme, where shrapnel smoke lay
soft 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 tiers of guns
that seemed to answer in their regular
firing to the touch of some master
hand.
Nearer and nearer Peronne that
swath of fire moved with every battles
The Germans did not know how
many guns Father Joffre had up his
sleeve, said French soldier, land
General Foch knows how to use
them"
AS indicative OF the enormous guns
| fire, a British officer estimated that
the Germans fired ten thousand gas
shells in one day.
Tonight the official reports are
that the Germans still hold Falfemont
| farm after the afternoons scrimmaga
of nharpaa and n0unfar rharrna