Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 210, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1918 — FRIDAY WAR SUMMARY. [ARTICLE]

FRIDAY WAR SUMMARY.

Compartively vague and fragmentary dispatches regarding the great pincer drive at dawn Thursday in conjunction with the French against the St. Mihiel salient were supplemented today by a dispatch from a staff correspondent of .Universal Service, which throws important light upon the scope of the operation which up to late Thursday evening had netted the Americans 6,000 prisoners and the French 4,000. The dispatdh shows that as the day wore on the Americans extended the line of their attack east of St. Mihiel, originally eleven miles in extent, to the east of the Moselle, where they are approaching Cheminot wood. < The village of Cheminot lies less than a mile from the German Lorraine frontier and ten and a half miles due south of Metz. This means that the American attacking front east of St. Mihile is nineteen and not eleven miles in extent. 'Cheminot lies a little less than eight miles northeast of Fayen-Haye, which the day dispatches designated as the eastern-most point of the attacking line east of St. Mihilie. This makes a total front of nearly fifty miles. The region of Thiaucpurt, which on the basis of the day advices had appeared to be the scene of the advance of the American right wing, thus becomes virtually the center. Here, according to the Universal Service staff correspondent’s dispatch, the Americans progressed northward to a depth of nearly six miles. Moreover, this dispatch shows that the town of Beney was captured by the Americans, which means that the length of the neck of the salient has 'been reduced by more than one-half in the first day of the American smash, for Beney lies only four and a half miles southeast of Vigneulles, the German nerve center within the pocket, and eleven miles southeast of Donmartin. If the American line extends solidly from the Moselle to Beney, then the Germans have only a funnel seven and a half miles wide left for the extrication of their forces in the St. Mihiel pocket