GERMANS OPEN THE GREAT OFFENSIVE

The much-advertised, and long deferred, German offensive on the Western front has at last commenced. It began early yesterday morning and, as Sir Douglas Haig’s communiqué showed, was preceded by a very violent bombardment over a wide sector of the British front. The following message was sent from the Reuter’s correspondent with the British Army:

Following the heavy bombardment which the Germans commenced against almost the whole of our front south of the Scarpe, at five o’clock this morning, the enemy launched an infantry attack on a big scale. Under cover of a smoke barrage his infantry came over in dense waves on a front extending from the north of Lagnicourt down to Gauche Wood. There was hand-to-hand fighting in our front line at various points.

Thus far, details coming back from the battle line are scrappy and confused, but it seems certain that the Germans have assumed the offensive on a big scale. The artillery duel is terrific, more particularly in the ridges about St. Quentin, which appear to be a main objective of the German scheme. In the House of Commons yesterday evening Mr. Bonar Law stated that the battle extended over a front of upwards of fifty miles, from the River Scarpe, on which Arras stands, as far south as the Oise, which runs some fifteen miles south of St. Quentin.