Image TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage TileImage Tile
Image size: 6144x7680 Scale: 35% - PanoJS3
Page overview thumbnail

Article text

THE EASTERN FRONT.
THE GREAT BATTLE
WORK OF RUSSIAN GUNS.
ENEMY'S DEFENCES
SHATTERED.
LONDON, January 17.
The "Daily Telegraph has received
the following message from its special
correspondent at Petrograd : -
The Russians opened a' stupendous
battle in Galicia on Christmas Day.
The cttiiiioiitidc developed into a continuous
roar, going on day after day.
The Austro-Germans left their first line
of trenches, where the Russian shells
were falling as thick as a shower of
hailstones, fined bursting on every side.
The Germans had constructed five
rows of barbed wire entanglements
along the River Strypa. but their defences
were transformed by the Russian
fire into pits and hillocks, and the
scene of devastation was littered with
splintered posts, tangled masses of wire,
and mangled bodies of the Austrian defenders.
The intensity of the bom
parchment was without precedent.
Many soldiers were buried by the foun-
tains'' of earth thrown up by the" explosions,
more were rendered deaf,
while the nerves of others were so shattered
that they became practically im-
becile. When the guns had done their
work, the Russian infantry rushed for
ward to the attack, and darted from
pit to pit in pursuit of the enemy, and
many of' the Austrian waved their
handkerchiefs frantically as a signal of
surrender.
Similar scenes took place on tho
Bukowina front. Round Czernowitz
the Russian guns knocked to powder
the fortifications built three weeks before
by the Austrians.
Amongst the prisoners taken here
were 30 Germans who were supervis-
ing the work of the Austrian machine
guns, and looking after sections of the
entrenching work. During the battle
the roads round C/.oriioivit-a were
choked with trains of Austrian wounded.
Owing to the great number of
wounded men coming in, many were
left in the open streets for hours exposed
to bitter weather.
There is now a lull on this southern
section of the Russian front, owing to
a rapid thaw, which has converted the
countryside into a sodden waste, and
rendered the transport of artillery impossible,
while it is difficult even for
infantry " to move.
$