Arizona republican., 1917-05-02
WITH RESERvES|N LINE GERMANS ID
 NOT HALT FRENCH
(From a Staff Correspondent of The
 Associated Pressl

Associated Press) GRAND HEADJUARTERS OF THE FRENCH ARMY ON THE FRENCH FRONT, April 30 (Evening).- Ger mans were forced to engage in battle again today along a front extending between six and seven miles to the eastward of Rheims. The French at tack was delivered from a short dis tance southward of Beine to Moronvil- ! Heres. Notwithstanding the difficulties of the task confronting them, the i French at the end of the day had won a tactical victory and captured consid- erable territory, although most ob i stinate fighting continued on ground strongly fortified and offering every advantage to the defenders.
 So serious was the French advance that at one period of the day the Ger mans were compelled to throw into the i line another of the few remaining divisions of their strategic reserves, but still could not stay the French progress.
 | The correspondent of the Associated Press passed Sunday night on the bat l tlefield observing the artillery prep aration for the attack, which presented one of the weirdest of sights. Even the brightly starlt sky did not permit 1 one to observe the outlines of the ob 1 jects aimed at but throughout the night dozens of French batteries, clev- erly concealed, poured out an incessant | stream of shells against the German positions and gun stations. The flash es of fire, when they left the muzzles looked like sparks caused by striking ! flint of steel, while the air vibrated with the terrific cracks and shrieks, varying according to their calibre as they passed overhead.
 l Meanwhile, the location of the Ger man and French front lines could be | defined in consequence of the con ] stant succession of flares on each side. which were lighted for the purpose of observing any possible movement of the enemy infantry. Overhead could be heard at low altitude the whirring motors of German airplanes trying vainly to locate the French batteries. Numbers of tracing bullets bearing long tails of light were sent up in order to outline the fliers, but the artillery did not fire at them, the Ger man airmen, evidently disappointed over their unsuccessful search for bat teries, went off to Lombard the open | towns of Chalons and Epernay.
 When the French infantry attack began at 12:40 o'clock today, the French line passed from just north of the Roman road near Prunay, through the BOis de la Grille and along the crests of Carnillet and Mont Haut to Moronvilliers. In the west and center the French advanced rapidly, but on the wooded mountain slopes the fight 1 ing was harder and the Germans coun- ter attacked frequently with fresh troops, at one point regaining a sec | tion they had lost. only to be driven | out of it again later on.
 The French staff at the close of the day recorded a general gain amounting to something more than 500 to a thous- and yards, and this ground is inter i laced with powerfully organized trenches bristling with machine guns and strengthened here and there with block houses and redoubts.
 Possession of this range of forests by the French menaces the German positions at Nogent rAbbesse and Ber- ru, from which the bombardment of the Rheims cathedral has been carried } out.
 The German guns today relaxed in
 the punishment of Rheims in order to
 help defend the German positions
 where the French attacked.
 l
 battle, addressed to the commander of the Thirty third German reserve bri-
 gade warns German officers that the
 first line must be defended at all costs
 and, if lost the fighting must continue
 until it is re-won.
 Our principal line of combat" says
 the order, lis the first line. This idea
 should be anchored in your heads to
 the exclusion of all others"
 The order is signed Wan Schussler'
 This probably accounts for the desper- ate nature of the German defense in l the recent engagement. Indications } show that the strength of the German
 forces totalled on the first of April 219 divisions, each comprisn~ a max , imum of from ten to twelve thousand
 combatants. Of these divisions 14e
 faced the French and British, but only
 99 were in the actual line the others
 being held in strategic reserve. The
 remaining 76 divisions were then or , the Russian, Rumanian and Macedon l ian fronts. Many of the strategic re- serve divisions have since been throwr into line, and, owing to losses, were later sent to the rear for re-consti- tuition.