New Mexico state record. (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1914-19??, 1917-04-20
SUPREME TEST
OF WAR AT HAND
TREMENDOUS BLOW BY NIVELlE
AND HAlG SIMULTANEOUSLY
PROMISES DECISIVE BATTLE.
START DRIVE
GERMANS MASS IMMENSE FORCE
TO HALT THRUST AIMED
TO SKATER LINES.

Berlin, April 1S.-"On the Aisne,'
says an official statement issued
Monday, "a great French attempt to
break through, with a far distant OBJ
ject, has commenced, after ten days
mass fire. A bitter fight is proceed
ing on a 40-kilometer front around our
foremost positions"
British Headquarters in France
With the hot flames OF war raging
along the entire western front British
and French alike, it can be stated
that each detail of the offensive has
been worked out at prolonged confer
ences between General Nivelle and
Field Marshal Haig and the war u
ellis of France and England. The part
to be played by each belligerent has
been definitely agreed upon, and a
schedule has been arranged as for n
great cohesive force. Various tasks
have been precisely allotted along the
wide-reaching battle-lines, and the re-
suits thus far attained justify the con-
clusion that the supreme military test
of the war is neal at hand.
1t was planned that the British
should strike from Arras while the
French guns were still roaring their
preparation for infantry hostilities
along a wide front farther to the
south.
The successes gained in the first
stages of the British advance have
given the French great confidence in
the Inauguration of their own enter
prises.
The whole struggle in the western
theater promises to be a titanic one.
The allies are prepared as never be-
fore both in material and personnel,
and are cooperating with a smooth
ness which from a complete
understanding and thorough appreci-
alton of the work in hand.
The Germans have divisions
on the western front than would have
been thought possible a year ago, and,
however much of an 'easterner' Field
Marshal Won Hindenburg may have
been in the past, he will have to de-
vote his entire time and attention to
western events for some weeks to
come.
Already half a score of Germany's
best divisions have been smashed to
pieces by the British onslaught and
their own unsuccessful counter attacks.
The Bavarian divisions were sacri'
feed first, but the Prussian guard di-
visions, thrown in to stem the British
flood tide, have been suffering such
casualties in the last few days that
they will have to be relieved.
The Canadians accounted for a
large contingent of %grenadiers in the
fighting, while the affair at Lagni-
court took its heaviest toll both in
dead and prisoners from five German
regiments.
1t will ever be one of the most strik-
ing pictures of this war, the rout of
the Germans at Lagnicourt, after
what they believed to have been a sue
cessful attack.
Turks driven back farther by Brit
ish in Mesopotamia.
T%eutons repulsed in attack on al
lied position in Cerna region of Mace
donia.
British and French air pilots drop
many bombs on German city of Fro.
burg.
London, April 17.-Apparently the
city of Lens, the great coal center of
northern France, has fallen before the
British drive. British troops are tight
ening their grip on the outskirts Of
st. Quentin. The night British Of
fetal report speaks only of progress
east of LEVIN, where our troops are
approaching the outskirts of Lens"
but the correspondent of Lloyds News
with the British army telegraphs that
British patrols entered the city be-
tween 4 and 5 o'clock Sunday after
noon. The Germans ordered the civil
population from the town on Friday,
preparatory to their own departure,
and seized three months provisions
accumulated in Lens by the American
relief commission.
The German trench system among
the Stag heaps in front Of the city has
been virtually pulverized by the blast
fire from Gen. Horne's batteries. East
of the city they have another network
of trenches in which it is believed
they will make a temporary stand be-
fore retiring to the supplementary
Hindenburg line between Drocourt and
Queant.
A powerful counter assault launched
against the newly-formed British line
converging on St. Quentin and Lens
Monday gained the Germans a foot
hold in the village of Lagnicourt, &C.
cording to word received from Gen.
Haig's headquarters in France.
Seventeen British, French, Ameri-
can" airplanes destroyed by Germans.
The Turks have sustained another
defeat at the hands of the British in
Mesopotamia. The war office an
nounces that the Turks are in retreat
after a battle in which they suffered
heavy losses.