NOVEMBER 2, 1918
The battle in Flanders
On the front of the Allied attack in the north which began yesterday we continue to push the enemy back upon the line of the Scheldt, while in the Valenciennes area we have forced our way so closely up to the southern edge of the city that you may hear tonight that Valenciennes is in our hands. The position of the Germans there must now be nearly intolerable. A characteristic item of the booty taken in the southern area was a party of four German ambulances which, having a legitimate load of wounded on the beds below, were laden above with booty plundered from the villages.
Pushing up behind our troops, our guns have been industriously shelling enemy troops and transport on the roads. On our immediate left the French troops had some trouble with strong positions in Anseghem Chateau. The place was full of machine-guns, and the Germans fought stubbornly, and it was not until after hand-to-hand fighting that they finally got possession. On the left of the French, American troops seem to have had the hardest fighting. The woods were strongly held, and protected with wire and machine-guns, but, working like old soldiers, the Americans made their way round, and those of the garrison who were not killed or escaped were made prisoners.
All this country is thickly settled, and the Germans last night had set a number of farms on fire, which kept the hours of darkness brilliant and made the advance of the French and Americans in the early morning very easy. In other farms and hamlets are large numbers of civilians, and the Germans, falling back, fought from and among the buildings in Boer fashion. We hesitated to use the guns because of the innocent inhabitants, and the infantry therefore had to go forward without artillery, and the work was done by individual fighting with rifle and bayonet.
The Germans, as they fall back, shell with gas the farms and villages where civilians are. Our men do all they can to protect civilians by giving them gas masks, which they strip from German prisoners, and are trying to make them get out of the area; but it is difficult to persuade civilians not to cling to shelters in cellars and so forth, which have so far proved their salvation, but where it is impossible for them to live always in their masks.
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