THE BATTLE REOPENS.

18th November.

The Battle of the Ancre, which for a moment had died down, began again this morning, at dawn, with a new violence.

The English had only paused just long enough to oil the vast machine, which has now resumed its regular, methodic movements; and the latest news permits us to anticipate a fresh and substantial success.

The scene of these last events has been rather different from that which witnessed the English advance of the 12th and 13th of November. This, one may say in passing, proves the elasticity of the British offensive.

If the eye travels, on the map, to the right, beyond the positions in which the last battle was fought, it follows a line almost parallel to the valley of the Ancre. To-night, then, the English, not pursuing this theoretically correct line, inclined their front slightly to the South, to the centre of a line drawn between Thiepval and Le Sars. This re-entering angle formed an obvious obstacle to the domination of the Ancre valley upon the whole of this part of the British front. For this reason General Sir Douglas Haig decided to abolish it.

Hence the movement of this morning.

The attack was elaborately prepared, and with the utmost secrecy, and was launched at dawn.

At the moment of writing this telegram the reports that are coming in from the scene of action show that the operation is being carried out, within the limits assigned, very successfully. To employ an expression coined by one of their own number, the Boche prisoners are "pouring" to the rear.

This morning the weather, so fine during the last three days, was extremely unfavourable to any movement of troops. There had been heavy snow during the night, and for the first time this winter our Allies fought in the snow. About 8 o'clock, the temperature having risen, a thaw set in. After that it was in foul mud that they did their fighting.

In order to understand properly the British manoeuvres on the two banks of the Ancre, we must remark that yesterday, the 17th of November, the English had executed a movement which obviously aimed at assisting to-day's operations.

Shortly, by outflanking the village of Beaucourt to the East, they had carried their foremost positions, by yesterday evening, as far as the little wood of Hollande. Now it is clear that any advance in this direction seriously menaces Grandcourt and those positions on the north bank of the Ancre, which the British troops attacked this morning.

A superior staff-officer remarked lately in my hearing that the German line, throughout the recent fighting, has exhibited points of varying strength. He attributed this circumstance to the work of the English artillery. The resistance which the enemy had been able to offer had varied directly with the effectiveness of the English gunfire.

It is also noticeable that the German losses in killed, prisoners and missing are considerably greater than the corresponding losses among the English. This result is apparently due to the fact either that the Germans surrender more readily than the English, or that the British artillery causes the enemy to sustain the heavier damage in dead and wounded, or else finally that, unlike the English, the Germans do not include their lightly wounded in the total of their losses.

Whatever the causes may be, that the issue of this battle has been disastrous for the Germans becomes daily more evident. It appears now that they are thinking of shortening their line where it is opposed to the British Army between Puisieux-les-Monts and Grandcourt. Under the increasing pressure of our Allies, the Germans, who are convinced that Grandcourt must soon fall, are entrenching themselves with feverish haste upon a new line, which unites Puisieux with Miraumont.

The enemy, using Puisieux as the pivot of his retiring movement, would thus describe an angle whose depth, from Puisieux to the Ancre, is about 2 miles, and whose width, between Grandcourt and Miraumont, is about 1-1/4 miles.

It is possible, however, that the British offensive may to some extent disorganise the beautiful and geometric symmetry of this new "strategic retreat" of the Germans.