The sun., 1918-08-26
HAIG'S ADVANCE
SO RAPID NEWS
CAN'T KEEP PACE
New Villages Taken Hourly
as Germans Are Routed
by British.
MANY GUNS CAPTURED
Three Batteries Intact Among
the Material Abandoned
by Enemy.
MANY GUNS CAPTURED
By PERRY ROBINSON.
Special Gable Despafch to THE srS from the
Jondon Tiurs Ssrrice

Special Gable Despafch to THE SrS from the
London Times Serrice.
Copyright. 1918: oil rights rcserrcd.
WITH THE BRITISH ARMY IN
FRANCE, Aug. 25.-These are great
days. 1t surely must be that they will
loom great in history. but certainly
they are great to live in. For the
correspondent at the front, however.
description or even a record of the
days events is almost impossible. The
sweep of our advance Is so rapid that
no man can say where our advanced
line as a whole may stand at any
given moment, for every half hour
brings news that this or that vii
lage Is in our hands or that some
aviator has seen khaki clad figures at
some place that We never supposed
they would reach.
Our captures Of prisoners and guns
must be very large, but even the rough
est estimate would be absurd. One can
say that UP to yesterday the army Of
Gen. Rawlinson alone had taken 10000
prisoners since August 8. One corps of
Gen. Byns's army has taken 1000 in
the last two days and another has cap
tured 1900 In the twenty-four hours
ended at noon to-day.
Good Physical Specimens.
Wherever one goes on the front one
meets prisoners streaming down. Almost
every lot confirm the earlier impress
| sion that on the whole they are good
men The chief thing wrong with them
is that sometimes they will not fight.
The circumstances OF the capture
make much difference in the appear
ance of the prisoners. Those taken after
hard fighting in foul weather look de-
plorable. however good their ply sique,
but the men l saw had surrendered
mostly without fighting and bore no
marks of combat. What is most i'm
portant is that they are extremely
happy to have been taken. although they
show no evidence OF having been i'll fed
Undoubtedly this creates an impression
| that compared with the ordinary run OF
| captives they are better than they really
are. That as soldiers many of them be-
haved contemptibly there Is no doubt.
1
Heavy Captures of Guns.
Nor can ! give a more accurate guess
as to the guns we have taken. The first
| operations of our advance was nowhere
nor was II meant to be-deep enough
, to get well among the German guns.
which had been pulled back. But now
the enormous success of these first OPP
erations has led in due course to a fur
ther advance and we are getting among
| the enemy artillery, especially the
heavier guns. which could not be so
easily withdrawn.
There has been no time, vet. however
to count the captures, One corps this
morning was said to have counted
eighty guns but 1t is rumored that they
have many more, From all parts one
hears reports CT one or two guns or
| single batteries taken. The New Zea-
| landers reported last n ght finding three
| batteries intact which seem to have been
| overlooked in the count OF the earlier
spoils. As TO machine guns and mis-
cellaneous stun the number is beyond
computation at the moment
Since my desratch on Friday the most
sensational advance has been on the
northern sector OF the front where at
noon to-day We were northwest OF Mer-
| catel. in the neighborhood of Neuville-
Vitasse. We had gone through Henis
and St Ledger and fighting was going
on about Croiselles. above which we are
close to the old Hndenburg line.
At the Edge of Bn pa ume.
Below here we hold Mory and Sapig-
! nies and Bahagnies. the scene OF sharp
! fighting this morning. Achiet-le-Grand
where the Germans are making one OF
their really stout efforts at resistance
Bihucourt, Bievillers and Grevillers Al
| Avesnes we are on the immediate edge
of Bapaume itself. II is all hard to
grasp. yet Immediately below here 1t is
even more incredible,
When one remembers what the names
Thiepval, Fricourt. Mametz and Con.
talmaison meant In 1916 It is difticul,
TO realize that we have swept over all
that ground between Friday night and
Sunday morning, Loupart Wood. which
long dominated our positions In the first
battle of the Somme. was cleared by the
help Of the tanks yesterday and this
morning. The line of trenches on the
further side was heavily garrisoned and
full of machine guns the tanks came
back shining with bullet marks, which
had knocked all the paint or
The butte Of Warlencourt and the
wood there OF dreadful memory both are
ours. All this SCARED area about Mar.
| Continued on Second Page.