OUR AIR SUPREMACY,
#
THE HONGKONG DAILY PERSS, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14r¤, 1166.
We continue daily our work of
THE - TRIUMPH ON THE
SOMME
OFFICIÁL, STORY OF THE OPERATIONS.
EFFECT ON ENEMY'S MEN AND. MATERIAL.
The following dispatch, dated October 3rd, giving a summary of recent opera- ions, has been received from General Headquarters in France:
It is now possible to give a fuller ac count of the fighting which succeeded the advance of September 18th.
MORE MEN WANTED.
BIR WM. ROBERTSON'S CALL TO
STORY OF A RAID NEAR LILLE, NEW EFFORT, General Sir William Robertson, Chief TRAINS AND AIRSHEDS DESTROYED. of the Imperial General Staff, unveiled
During the last wook or two the Ger a village cross erected at Dalderbyman airmen have been showing increased Lincolnshire, last month to commemorate netivity, almost an the services of its manhood in the Semme front (says The Times
uppishness, on the Special fighting forces. The cross was offered by Correspondent at British Headquarters Lincoln Chamber of Commerce to the meeting on Lincolnshire village that secured the that they have been stung to netion by October 6th. One assumed greatest percentage of enlistments among the contempt into which the German Air ita eligible men, and Dalderby won the Service has sunk in the eyes of German honour with, over 12 per cent..
soldiers, for there is hardly a prisoner Sir William Robertson, after congratu- taken who does not speak bitterly of his
That advance, which won DR Gource lating the village on its record, said that own Flying, Corps. As we have driven lette, Martinpuich, High Wood, Flers. the whole Empire had done well. When the energy from the high ground, more
and Bouleaux Wood, had created several We went to war he proceeded, we over, the need of observation from the salients in our front, and it was had just six divisions. Fortunately, air has become daily more imperative; necessary to advance the line between they were very good indeed. No better so a tremendous effort has evidently been them. This was the task of the succeed divisions ever left the shore of any made to mass enough machines bere to
ing week. country (Cheers.) The way which those recover some measure of their lest spre aix divisions kept up their end and cy. fought at Mons, Le Cateau, and in the observation and reconnaissance of all that wonderful retreat to the Marne and then the Germans are doing, and make life a burden to every enemy place of mili turned and thrust back the enemy to the tary importance within 50 miles of the Aisno is a story which will go down front. through history for all time. I person From reports on the performances of ally shall never forget what I witnessed our flying men towards the end of Bep and what I heard during the first few teraber, let us take the story of a single weeks of this
r us to the doinga ofraid which took place on the 25th of the those wonderful divisions. By all the month and translate it from the formal ordinary rules of war they were official language into an ordinary narra thoroughly benten divisions within a few tive. days after they came in contact with the
The point of attack selected was Liber- court, about 40 miles into German terri eremy.
tory from the Somme front, and about 12 miles south of Lille, on the main Lille Dousi line of railway. At Libercourt a branch line from the direction of Lens joins the main line from the west, and a similar branch line from the same general direction comes in a few miles lower down at Ostricourt. Such a point must evidently be of the greatest im- portance to the enemy's troop movements st a time like the present, when he is continually shifting masses of men from all the northern parts of his line down to the Somme and taking the shattered divi sions back to rest.
But they were not beaten, and if anyone suggested to these men that beaten I do not know they were what
gort of
reply they would get. (Cheers.) They were not boaten, they never have been beaten, they are not beaten now.. On the con- trary, they are winning (cheers)- slowly, if you like, but none the less surely, by the side of those numerous other divi sions which had been sent out and are now fighting so splendidly.”
Going on to speak of the number of divisions we had put into the fold, Sir Willem said that officers who before the war, were training and drilling 400 or
EXPLOSIVE AND SMOKE BOMBS. 300 men now commanded 20,000. Those Close by, at distances of from three to who before commanded 10,000 now com-five miles away, to north-west, north, and reanded hundreds of thousands. These north-east, are three German serodromes divisions were brought into being solely presumably placed here to assist in the and entirely through the energy and protection of the important railway june foresight of the great soldier Lord Lions at Provin, Phalempin, and Tour Kitchener, who had done as much as any
mignies.
It was 1 o'clock in the day, and the mun to win this war for the Empire.
German airmen were probably thinking "From whatever point of view you look of lunch, when suddenly on each of the at the situation today," he went on,
you can do so without anxiety (cheers), from the clouds, crashing into the air three aerodromes bombs began to fall not only have we got men--I do not sheds or plunging into the open ground. say enough-but thanks to the men and Immediately after the first bombe, which women of this country wo have got scattered ruin, other bombs began to fall, artillery and ammunition. The Army hot dangerous by explosion, but emitting thanks the men and women of this coun thick clouds of smoke blinding and be try for what they have done in this wildering the men below, till each aero respect. We have got guns and am-
drome from above looked like a boiling munition, plenty of the big ammunition pit. Into this turmoil the airmen above that is known at the front as Lloyd | kept at intervals dropping high explosive George's spectats.' (Cheers.) :-
bombs to show that they were still there" lest any German airman should pluck an heart to try to rise above the Welter on the ground. At the Provin aerodrome it is known that an airshed was destroyed, and at Phalempin a fire and was still burning late that evening was started which spread to the village when men at the front are confident it the junction at Libercourt, running Boon after 1.30 a train was seen leaving shows that our situation is good. They southwards towards Oatricourt, and this will not have that confidence unless they was what our airmen wanted. Two of feel they are winning, and have con-
our squadrons dipped from of fidence in those who lead them. If ever sky till they were only 100 out of the you feel inclined to be pessimistic take devoted train, and, as they dipped, they a trip to the front if you can. If not, saw another train coming along the get a letter from the front. It will cheer branch line from Lens to meet the main you up. If ever I get rather run down, line at Ostricourt, and this two others I always go to the front. (Cheers.) went off to deal with.
I think we can look forward with every condgence, I do that also because of the splendid spirit that prevails at the front where you must go for the best judges of our prospects of winning. There is no sham confidence at the front, There are no shams at the front, and
MACHINE GUN FIRE ON TROUPE,"
The men scrambled
1.
SIR WILLIAM ROBERTSON.
A MAN OF STRATEGY,
Associated with Sir Douglas Haig in 50 many ways, Sir William Robertson, his junior in age by one year-ho is 5fty- six years of age--has yet another, and in earlier, link with the Commander in Chief: they are bracketed us two of the ablest graduates of the Staff College
The discovery of Sir William Robert- son is one of the great and outstanding. romances of the war. And yet he is not really a "war" discovery Before the war came the present Chief of the Im- perial General Staff Wally," as the Scots soldiers call him-was already marked down in military circles as a man presdestined for high office and great responsibilities. His associates know him for one of the most chrnest and now read students of the problems of modern war- This fact, indeed, had official recognition fare in the whole of the British Army. in 1910, when he was appointed Head of the Staff College, through which he had dramatic advancement for the man who had entered the British Army as a pri- passed in 1899. That was indeed
vate soldier in its ranks.
called the Quadrilateral, between Ginchy On September 18th we carried the work whi Bouleaux Wood. This redoubt, which was of considerable strength and resisted our attack of September 16th. tactical importance, had thereby limiting the extent of the success successfully
of our right flank. From September 19th and stormy. to September 21st the weather was wet At the Staff College Bir William operations was undertaken by us, but models of soldierly precision and sim- Nothing beyond minor Rovertson's lectures were regarded as numerous German counter-attacks were plicity of thought. Study for the mere vanced our front between Flers and Mar hair-splitting dialectics-these things his repulsed. On September 2nd we ad nequisition of information, indulgence in tinpuich by the capture of two lines of awept aside na so much waste of time for day we gained ground cast of Courcelette of killing, and concentrated on the teach- German trenches, and on the following men concerned with the serious business By the evening of September 24th we bading of war rather than on its theory. completed the preliminaries for the next stage. On Monday, September 28th, there was a general advance on our whole front from Combles to Martinpuich.
He was an ideal teacher for the officers of that old Army whose traditione are being so brilliantly carried on to-day by the not less gallant officers of the newer. organisation.
The topography of the ground over which these operations took place deserves study. The general nature of the country history has there been a soldier of equal. Probably never in the whole of our itself is gently undulating. backbone of the ridge runs from above is so little known to the mass of his. The main eminence to Sir William Robertson who Thiepval, just south of Martinpaich, fellow-countrymen." Who's Who through High Wood and Ginchy to him a quarter of a column of small type.. Rives Marvel, then, crossing a slight din, rises but that is all compact of details of ser again to Bailly Saillisel. Between vice and achievement. Reams have been Morval and Bailly Saillisel a valley, in written about lesser men; but, notwith which lies Combles, runs south-west, join-standing this lack of publicity, the public ground slopes gently towards the north sort of way, of the enormous influence ing the Somme. From the ridge the has long been aware, in e sub-conscious and north-east. The villages in this area of this untiring worker, well out of the are surrounded by trees and are natural range of the limelight, in securing the strongholds, fortifed by every resource welfare and assuring the victory of our of modern engineering.
forces in the field.
DENIUS FOR DRGANISATION.
FRUITS OF OUR SUCCESSES. On September 25th Lesboeufs and Morval were carried, and our line in this section was advanced for more than a William Robertson. He has a genius Organisation is a passion with Sir
with the French pressure on the south, branches because he has served in the mile. The capture of Morval, combined for it. He knows the Army in all its virtually isolated Combles. The next day Army in all its branches. Transport ho we reaped in full the fruits of these sue knows, and Intelligence. He understands cesses. Combles fell to a combined move the men in the ranks because he started ment of British and French troops. In his military career as one of them. He the centre we carried Gueudecourt, and knows the commissioned officers equally on the left, attacking up the ridge from well because he has trained them at the the south, we stormed Thiepval and won Staff College and watched their work the Zollern Redoubt to the east of it. while they were under his command in
These victories brought our front at other spheres. German fourth position west of the of Sir William Robertson, that whoever more than one point within a milo of the
There is one thing that may be said Bapaume-Transley Road. Several then sise the war found unprepared he was sand prisoners and a large amount of ready. war material fell into our hands.
The task of organising and Our equipping the vast Armies that sprang losses were singularly small.
The past few days have been occupied mayed. Even in those days his was the
so magically into being left him undis
has been reduced, and almost the whole are now giving us success. Red tape for in clearing the Thiepval Ridge, where the brain that planned, the hand strong fortress called the Stuff Redoubt fashioned, many of the influences which of the Schwaben Redoubt is in our hands. him existed only to be cut, Efficiency We have also pushed forward in the was his watchword. Many great things direction of Eancourt l'Abbbaye and Leare due to him to-day, and not the least Bara.
of these is the fact that our Armies are check our advance, and since September any other Army that has over taken the The enemy has fought stubbornly to better fed and better looked after than 15th seven. new divisions have been field. brought against us and five against the French. The severe and prolonged struggle has demanded on the part of our troops very great determination and courage.
At the end of September the situation may be summarized as follows
(1)-Since the opening of the battle on July 1st we have taken 26,735 prisoners..
(2) We have engaged 38 German Divisions, of which 20 have been with drawn in an exhausted or broken state. (3.)-We hold the half-moon of a land south of the Auere, occupying every height of importance, and so have direct observation of the ground to the east and north-east.
that
To-day Sir William Robertson, who during the earlier period of the war was Chief of Staff in France, sits in his room at the War Office directing the work battlefields and in our training grounds of five million British soldiers on all our at home. His is the intelligence that foresees, the mind that plans, the hand that controls. It is a tremendous higher talent of organisation, a responsibility a position calling for a scientific knowledge of the art of warfare, than has ever previously been demanded of any soldier in a like case.
thore
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A WAINING AND AN APPEAL. "Notwithstanding this, in order not
Both trains, as it proved, were loaded to create a false impression I would like with troops; and they had a dreadful to add a serious note of warning. The time. On the first train six 20lb, bombs end is not yet, We must be prepared were dropped. The engine was hit and to go on for a period of time which it thrown from the rails, and, as it went, the impetus of the train behind it tele is impossible to estimate. Prepare for
scoped the two or three leading carriages, the worst and hope or the beat that The troops immediately poured from the is a good motto. We have yet a long train, and a scene of the wildest con way to go and we must be ready to go. fusion followed. all the way. Fight to a finish is the from the wreckage and raced for shelter order. (Cheers.) Therefore there must to a large wood which runs close down hnu slacking off. Un the contrary, to the railway here on the east side.
Chief of the Imperial General Staff, the Questioned as to the nationality of the there must be a great tightening up. We The aeroplanes dropped lower and played
man in the street would probably hazard have adopted the principle of National upon them with their machine-guna & Service in theory. We must seo to it they fled. In their panic the Germans.
luckly shot with (4.) The enemy has fallen back upon however, is not the case. Sir William
Scottish
This, that we put that principle into practice, ran massed together, so that, as our air- & fourth line behind the low ridge Just Robertson, of Scottish extraction, is a We have done a lot and I think we can men who did the shooting said, it was west of the Bapaume-Transloy Rond. do more. We want men, more men. We impassible to miss them. Many were The importance of the three months Welbourn. His education in its early native of the Lincolnshire village of scen to fall killed or wounded, and un-offensive is not to be judged by the distance stages was acquired at a private school. want them now, and in due course we shall want all men who can be spared.doubtedly the casualties were heavy. advanced or the number of enemy trench Study was a passion with him, and in Th wreckage of this rain blocked the lines taken. It must be looked for in his early days in the Army practically very difficult question to That settle. This war is not purely military approach of the other train frem Lens to the effect upon the enemy's strength in the whole of his scaut pay was expended business. There are many considerations the main line and, as it stood, the air numbers, material, and moral,
The men who were detached to attend to it enemy has used up his reserves in fe
upon the purchase of books. Gifted with which enter into, the case This is, of
dropped. The engine as well as the hody attacks without causing our Allies or became busy Again six homb were peated costly add unsuccessful counter languages was to him a matter of com- & remarkable mentory, the acquisition of of the train was hit; and, as before, ourselves to relax our steady and metho first opportunity in this regard. To parative case. India afforded hima his roops began to pour from the carriages, dical pressure, village of Evin-Malinaison, and as they
teacher to instruct him at so much a These Bed southward towards the little
the north-west tribes to engaged a acquire
a knowledge of the languages of went they, too, had to run the gauntlet of our machine-guns overhead.
his knowledge of the Afridi language lesson. Thus when the Afridie rebelled
His interest in the study of languages, made him invaluable in Staff position. however, did not cease with the close of his career in India. It is said-one does not know with what amount of truth that when he wanted to learn French he had a list of a thousand words made out and memorised them when he was walking, riding, or dressing this, of course, merely as a groundwork, on which || - to enable a teacher to begin his instruction.
course, a Government question. It is for the Government to adjust. Speaking from personal knowledge I say that it is always receiving constant and most careful attention from the Government. With that I must have it. It would be improper for me to discuss it, but am entitled to say that we are not Meanwhile, yet other of our seroplanes justified in expecting to win this war attacked Libercourt Station itself, and unless the services of every man and nearly 50 bombs were dropped on it, of woman in this country are utilized to the which 14 were huge things of 1121b. each fullest possible extent, (Cheers.) A They fell on the station buildings, on fall day's work is demanded from every the railway sidings, on the roiling stock man and woman, old and young-on the standing in the yards, spreading destruc farm, in the factory, wherever you like tion everywhere. Carriages were wrecked, in order to liberate as many men as and one was seen to lie right across the possible to go out and support those rails, where it had been hurled by an gallant fellows at the front.
explosion.
was suitab
of the British Empire and British Islands In this action troops from every part have been engaged. with the discipline 2nd resolution of All have behaved veterans.
Our aircraft have shown in the highest degree the spirit of the offensive They have patrolled regularly far behind the enemy's lines, and have fought many battles in the air with hostile machines and many with enemy troops on the ground. For every enemy machine that succeeds in crossing our front it is safe to say that 200 British machines cross the enemy's front.
A captured Corps report described oar aeroplanes as Surprisingly bold" and their work has been as conspicuous for its skill and judgment as for the its daring.
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NEGLECTED, BY HIS COUNTRY,
Armies: The most complete sympathy and confidence exist between Sir William Robertson and the Commander-in-Chief In the South African War Sir William, in the Field. Both will withstand the Staff position of great importance he won
James Bennett, carter, aged nineteen, Robertson had a brilliant career. In a politicians whose interference has caused
the loss of thousands of British lives in who came before the Middlesex Sessions
"And for this I look to women to
Overhead during all this time some of help, I have great faith in the women.
our fighting planes circled and kept I will not advise them how to do it, be- watch in case any enemy machines should rause they know their own business best. sign of any enemy machine. So
attempt to interfere. But there was no The women by universal consent have molested were our men that one of the Zonnebeke Château (used as military done splendidly in this war and have pilots seriously considered landing, 40 headquarters), and troop billets at West new distinctions in a campaign which was Trance, in the Dardanelles, aud in as a suspected person, was discharged shown splendid fortitudo in time of miles in enemy territory though it was, rooske, on Havrincourt Forest (ako notoriously the grave of established Mesopotamia. The problems of one man in December last froin the Royal Field anxiety, sorrow. and bereavement, and to find out what regiments of troops it sheltering troops, Quivrechain railway reputations. Upon his shoulders most of are thoroughly understood by the other. Artillery as medically unfit for further they have worked hard, too. We are was that we had intercepted also dependent to some extent on em- ground," we are told, ployers of labour and on local authorities but, even so, the risk was the end Bertincourt, Douai Station, Bapanne land of vast distances. Be far as the sible, Like Big Douglas Baig, the Chief race, having had his left hand twisted
works and sidings, noradromes at Velu the work of organisation devolved in that For our successes they are jointly respon- to send us men. I hope that they realize information was worth, so our men came Maubeuge. Many other places are named, went unrecognised; so far as the Army words like him again, his
Station, and the Zeppelin shed at pubile was concerned it was work that of the General Stan is also sparing with when thrown from a horse., their responsibilities. I would urge them peacefully away. One enemy aeroplane but these will suffice.
Mr. Nield, K., P. (deputy chair- and all concerned to see to it that the appeared, but was attacked and bolted,
was concerned it was work which helped goes all round the clock, working day
man), commenting on the responsibility This is the record of seven days' bomb in no staal measure to.
and for the highest tributes to his "You are here, I think, because of the nkmost every German document which we All throngh his career there has been efficiency one has to go to those with whom neglect of your country to provide for This is the story of a single incident of capture greaks of the damage done by no looking back for Bir William Robert he is a close and somediate association. your wants. The man had got no pen- kind which takes place every day. In our aeroplanes and that all prisoners tell son. He has goue steadily on from There is, save one, no nonsencesion, but only some small sume from the the documents before me, which cover of life, and interruption of troop move
of the panics which they cause, the loss success to success the gods on front shout him: he will not be drawn off into only a few days operations, one reade mente! How preposterous, in compari offes in which to clay he is directing the Another associate gives his distinguishing I
A Spartan simplicity characterises the material or irrelevant discussion Soldiers and Sailors Familles Associa
tion. He was sent to Borstal for three of bombing raids on Romain Station,
ROD, from a military point of view, pre operations of our vast and victorious characteristic in two words" Common years, not so much as a punishment as M (Continued at four of neat Column) Germany's Zeppelin raidrige
(Caninund at foot of nezi Column.)
Seasedily Maa
that he might learn a trade there,
Army does not fall short of the men it and every one of our machines got home ing raids only. Is it any wonder that secure. take victory. His personality is an attractive one, of the authorities towards the man, said
needs in order to win this way in such away is will secure to us such a pesce as will compensate us so far as that is possible for the great sacrifices which have been so readily made by the fathers and mothers, som and daughters of our Empire. I have stated the case and I leave it in your hands.
without mishap
BA WEEK'S RAIDS,"