hin artillery range of Halicz, an important railway junction
sixty miles south of Lemberg. They had cut the railway line between
Lemberg and Halicz, and the latter town was in flames.

ALLIED PROGRESS ON THE WESTERN FRONT

British and French successes on the Western front continued during the
month of September, and the gains were encouraging to the Allies. On
September 15 the British took Flers, Martinpuich, the important position
known as the High Wood, Courcelette, and almost all of the Bouleaux
Wood, and also stormed the German positions from Combles north to
the Pozieres-Bapaume road, arriving within four miles of Bapaume and
capturing 2,300 prisoners. A prominent feature of the attack was the use
by the British of armored automobile trucks of unusual size and power,
so constructed that they were able to cross trenches and shell-holes.
These "tanks," as they were called, proved a genuine surprise to the
enemy. They were said to be developed from American tractors of the
"caterpillar" variety, which lay their own tracks as they proceed.

A two-mile trench system, believed to be impregnable, was stormed by the
Allied forces near Thiepval September 17, while south of the Somme the
French took the German trenches along a front of three miles. Next day
more ground was taken in the advance toward Bapaume and German prisoners
continued to fall into the Allies' hands. The number of Teuton captives
taken during the Somme fighting from July 1 to September 22 was placed
at 55,800 men and officers.

The month of September was remarkable for the great number of aerial
combats on the western front and the efficiency developed in this mode
of fighting. Many airplanes were shot down on both sides, but the Allies
seemed to be gaining the mastery of the air. On a single day, September
24, over a hundred air combats were reported, during which fifty-seven
airplanes were destroyed. On the same day two French airmen, in flights
of 500 miles, dropped bombs on the Krupp works at Essen in Germany.

In a forward sweep near the end of the month the British took a number
of German positions northeast of Combles, while the French advanced
south of that point, so that the two armies almost surrounding it were
scarcely a mile apart. A day later British and French troops entered
Comibles from opposite sides and drove the Germans out. Continuing
the drive from Thiepval, which had also been occupied, the British
consolidated their positions an