River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1917-06-14
BROKE GERMAN LINE
Details of important Allied Vic
tory Before YpreS.
OLD SCORE is WIPED OUT
Capture of Messines Ridges Peculiarly
Gratifying, as 1t Was the Scene
of Former British Defeat
Defenses Shattered.

With the British Armies in France.
| June Tn one of the most deliberately
| planned and daringly executed ma
neuvers of the war Sir Douglas Haig's
forces have dealt a mighty blow
against the German line in Belgium,
| and been rewarded with notable gains
in terrain and the capture of more
than 5000 prisoners and numerous
guns of various caliber. In addition
they inflicted heavy casualties on the
Germans.
The Germans, though apparently
aware that the blow was coming and
seemingly prepared to meet it, were
driven from their nearly three years
hold on Messines ridge, opposite poor
old" Ypres Ypres in a sense was
avenged today, for Messines ridge has
been the vantage point from which the
Germans have poured torrents of shells
into the stricken city. The British also
wiped off an old score against the Ger
mans, for they held the ridge in Octo-
Der, 1914, and with very thin forces,
and virtually no artillery, fought blood
lily but vainly to hold it when the Prus-
sian troops massed their modern and
overpowering weapons of war against
it.
Prisoners taken declared that the
bombardment of Vimy ridge was
child's play compared with the gunfre
turned upon Messines ridge.
Triumph for Artillery.
This fire reached it's climax just
as dawn was grazing the eastern skies
and while the full moon was still sus-
pended high in the heavens.
The attack was accompanied by all
the arts and deviltries of latter-day
war. The enemy guns and gun crews
had been bathed for days in gas shells
sent over by the long-range British
guns.
The night was filled with red in
cendiary flames. Shells that spurted
lead in streams crashed in appalling
numbers about the heads of the de-
Tending soldiers. High-explosive and
| shrapnel fire was carried out with such
rapidity that the earth writhed under
the force of the attack.
Mines that had taken two years to
| dig and fill with an overwhelming eX-
| plOSive broke into an avalanche of
| flaming destruction in the half light of
dawn. This was indeed an Ypres day
of retaliation and victory for the
vicious sufferings Of two years and
eight months.
Gunners Strip to Waist.
It was day of intense heat, and the
| gunnerS worked stripped to the waist.
| The attack went forward with clock
| like regularity.
The British casualties were slight
| Three out of four of the casualties
were reported to be walking cases, who
would return to duty in few days.
The attack began at dawn, and the
setting was as picturesque as can we'll
be imaginable. The day before had
been hot and sultry. Toward evening
there was a series of thunder storms
which extended we'll into the night, the
| lightning mingling with the flashes of
the guns, but the thunder being virtu-
ally unnOticed amid the din of the can
non. A full moon struggled continu-
ously to break through the heavy
clouds which scudded across the vel
vety night sky.
Sing on Way to Fight.
On the way to the front were all the
| familiar pictures of the war-endless
| trains of motor trucks; all varieties
of horse transport, the British sol
diers marching to battle light of heart
and singing songs familiar In every
| American community.
In the shadow of an old windmill
which has withstood the storms of
century and been undaunted by nearly
three years of war, the correspondent
| witnessed the last phases of the seven
| day preliminary bombardment and the
| final Outburst of the guns which sent
the British infantry confidently on
their way to new successes in fighting
the greatest military nation the world
has ever known.
From the German line the same
lazy, looping rocket signals were as
cending to illuminate the treacherous
bit of ground between the trenches
known as No Mans Land. This night
" "straffing" had been going on so
long that the enemy considered it en-
tirely normal and took no alarm. Oc-
casionally blue and yellow rockets
would be flung into the air by Germans
holding the front line.
One by one the guns became silent.
There was the old grandmother"
howitzer of enormous caliber, which
kept breaking the peace at ive-min-
ute intervals, the shock of each sue
ceeding explosion and the Shrek of
the heavy shells being emphasized by
the silence which lay over all the sur
rounding country.
Like Volcanoes in Eruption.
Day was scarcely breaking when
from the dimly visible ridge a score
of fiery volcanoes seemed suddenly to
spring from the earth. The night had
been filed with strange noises and still
stranger sights, but these masses of