GREAT DEFEAT FOR GERMAN ARMY.

FRUITLESS ATTACKS.

FROM PHILIP GIBBS. WAR CORRESPONDENTS’ HEADQUARTERS. FRANCE, MONDAY.

There was violent and widespread gunfire all last night from the enemy’s batteries from the Belgian front down through Flanders to districts about Bethune, and this morning the German bombardment was intensified to heights of fury all round Ypres and upon our lines near Voormezeele and Vierstraat and against the French front west of Kemmel Hill to the country south of Dranoutre, where the British troops join them again. Then began at about six o’clock this morning that attack which was the inevitable plan of General Sixt von Armin after the capture of Kemmel Hill, that is, an attempt in strong force to gain the chain of hillocks running westwards below Ypres and Poperinghe and known to all of us as familiar landmarks – the Scherpenberg, Mont Rouge, and Mont Noir. These hills, forming the central keep, as it were, in our defensive lines south of Ypres, are held by the French, and are of great tactical importance at the present moment, so that the enemy covets them and is ready to sacrifice thousands of men to get them. In order to turn them, if the frontal attacks failed against the French, German storm-troops – they are now called “Grosskampf ” or “great offensive” troops – were to break the British lines on the French left between Locre and Voormezeele, and on the French right near Merris and Meteren. It obviously was the intention of the German High Command this morning, judging from their direction of assault. So far they have failed utterly. They have failed up to this afternoon to break or bend the the British wings on the French centre, and they have failed to capture the hills, or any one of them, defended by the French divisions. They have attacked again and again since this morning’s dawn, heavy forces of German infantry being sent forward after their first waves against the Scherpenberg and Voormezeele, which lies to the east of Dickebusch Lake, but these men have been slaughtered by the French and British fire, and have made no important progress at any point.