On the western battle front important changes are few. During Saturday and Friday the artillery on both sides was at work, but the other arms were little employed. The Germans made several attacks which failed and one which succeeded. In the Argonne the enemy seem to have advanced some 200 to 300 yards after a violent engagement. Berlin says the French lost four or five hundred men killed and over 700 prisoners; Paris admits a retreat and a long casualty list. Another reported German success, the capture of Angomont, on the Lorraine frontier, the French explicitly deny.
╥Eye-Witness╙ in his latest despatch, issued by the London Press Bureau last night, describes the hard fighting about La Bassee on Monday, January 25. He confirms the earlier report of the violence and heavy cost in life of the German attacks. North of the La Bassee Canal the enemy carried the forward British trenches and reached Givenchy, only to be driven back again; south of the canal the enemy, after suffering many casualties, established themselves a little further forward. The final result of the day's fighting was a slight and local gain of ground to the Germans at a great cost.
Where they had made their advance on Monday last the Germans attacked once more in some force on Saturday. An official statement published in London says the attack was easily repulsed. According to Paris the British have recovered all the ground they had temporarily lost.
In ╥Eye-Witness's╙ despatch the story is told of a British soldier who in the fighting at Givenchy broke into a house where eight Germans had sought shelter, killed four of them, and took the other four prisoners. Through it all he smoked his clay pipe.
