Turks’ poor show

Effort to cross Suez Canal

Polish battle continues

Heavy slaughter of Germans

The Turks are fulfilling their promise of giving our men something to do along the Suez Canal but they are tardy wooers of battle and their old time reputation of being among the best fighters in the works seems in danger of being irrevocably lost.

However they have kept their appointment and our men are full of hope that an early chance of engaging them in earnest will present itself.

A message received last night and published in the Argus was so worded as to suggest that the enemy had been allowed to cross the Canal but the more detailed telegrams put a different complexion upon matters.

The attempt was made and they were given a fair amount of rope but only for the purpose of administering the familiar maxim.

All the material necessary for the construction of a bridge was brought to the east bank, our troops looking on from afar and probably hoping that the General Staff would allow the building to go on and permit the foe to ‘walk’ into the parlour.

Political perhaps more than military reasons however defeated another policy and when the time was ripe for upsetting the Turks’ little game with their box of bricks, the attack was opened.

The result will not surprise those who have followed the course of events. The enemy stood not upon the order of their going but went at once leaving some of their number in the inhospitable waters of the Canal with all their bridge building materials on the bank. They will come again of course but it must be admitted the encouragement offered that, has not been great.

In the somewhat more serious brush on the El Kantara front they were easily repulsed leaving a number of dead and wounded on the field and some 40 prisoners in our hands. Our losses were three wounded.

It must not be supposed that the warfare in the region will always be of this order. The Turks have too much at stake to throw in the towel and they know we are not likely to be content with merely defending the Suez Canal.

Nothing of importance was reported yesterday from the western battle front but the official messages mentioned the introduction of some new German methods – the launching of gun boats on the river above Aveluy a small place to the North of Albert. These contrivances however were not allowed to do any harm.

Apart from the customary daily cannonade the actual fighting yesterday appears to have been confined to the Champagne and Argonne districts where a number of German attacks have been repulsed.

While he is content to hold the enemy in front of Warsaw, the Grand Duke Nicholas is pursuing a vigorous offensive in the Carpathians east of the Dukis Pass where a number of guns and many prisoners have been captured.

German troops here have suffered heavily with a whole battalion being wiped out, those not killed were taken prisoner. The Germans are now apparently throwing reinforcements into the field and the Russians are still inflicting dangerous losses upon them.

It is evident that the enemy are now making great effort to repair a situation which has been growing increasingly perilous but their failure to make any real impression upon the Czar’s armies suggests that the reinforcements are not on one side only.