Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 October 1918 — BRITISH TROOPS TAKE LE GATEAU FROM GERMANS [ARTICLE]

BRITISH TROOPS TAKE LE GATEAU FROM GERMANS

Allies Pursue Fleeing Enemy Twenty Miles in the Open Country. f.: HUNS ARE IN FULL RETREAT Retirement Spreads Far North and South of Cambrai —Three Hundred Thousand of the Enemy Fleeing Without Attempt to Make Stand. With the American First Army, Oct. 11. —Practically the whole of the famous Argonne forest Is In our hands. The Germans hastily completed its evacuation, withdrawing eastward. We pressed our advance slightly and also progressed on the east bank of the Meuse. A German Colonel is among the prisoners taken by us. London, Oct. 11.—The defeated Germans continue to flee eastward from the "impregnable Hindenburg .line.” The allies are pursuing them, foot and horse, in the open country. The official report from General Haig said that the British had captured Le Cateau, the great railroad base. t The advance in the .last two days has reached nea*rly twenty miles at some points beyond the positions between Cambrai and St. Quentin which the enemy boasted never could be broken. Three hundred thousand Germans are fleeing without attempts to make a stand except by- the small parties of machine gunners which they left behind as a rear guard. . Even these are not making the fight which they did in the earlier days, but are deserting their posts in many cases as the allies draw-near. Advance Far in North. The German retreat has spread far to the north. The British between Lens and the Scarpe have reached the line roughly placed at Vitry-en-Artols, Ael-Les-Equerchin and Rouvroy. Saullaumines and Noyelles, to the east of lens, have been captured. On the south of the Anglo-American front, the French are keeping up their rapid advance to the east of St. Quentin. Early in the day they bad passed Fontaine Notre Dame and Beautroux.

Tanks Defeat Gunners. With the Anglo-American Forces Southeast of Cambrai, Oct. 11» —Between Fresnoy and Bohaln, where machine , gunners have concentrated in force, khere was the stiffest kind of fighting today. British tanks helped to clear the machine gun nests. Allied troops are in force a thousand yards south of the Le Cateau road and have captured the towns of Estoumel and Igniel les Frisettes on the highway. The whole battle is on a field that was aflame throughout the night. The many fires have destroyed towns and farmhouses. The powerful mines which the Germans had placed under Cambrai seem to have been set with a time fuse, the idea being to complete the destruction started by fire and to kill as great a number of the allied soldiers as was possible. The explosion went off with a roar under the center, of the town after it had been occupied by the British. The crash and detonation were seen and heard for miles. Result of Other Battles. Paris, Oct. 11.—The Germans are in full retreat with the smiles hot at their heels. This movement Is regarded as the first step in the great general retreat of the Germans, which now seems inevitable. for it is doubtful whether General Ludendorff has such fortified positions on the Upper Oise and the Sambre canal as to permit him to resist the exploitation of the victory of the last two days on the allied side. The success in the Cambral-St Quentin section of the front was in a large measure made possible by the spendld achievements of General Gouraud’s men and the Americans from Reims to the Meuse. Because a break in that part of the front would have much worse consequences for the enemy than anywhere else, the Germans concentrated most of their reserves there.