Reuter's special correspondent at Dover has received details of the bombardment of the German positions on the Belgian coast, between Nieuport and Middlekerke, by a combined British and French squadron on Trafalgar Day. The vessels were in continuous action for_twelve hours.
The action commenced at six in the morning of Trafalgar Day, when the squadron steaming sine two miles off the shore commenced shelling the enemy's trenches situated three miles inland, and the men remained at their their posts until six in the evening. The firing was incessant, and its rapidity may be judged from the fact that daring that time one British vessel alone fired no less than a thousand lyda dite and shrapnel shells.
The fire of the squadron caused the greatest execution in the German trenches and batteries among the dunes, and betwee them the vessels of the Allies succeeded in destroying " German battery of field artillery. They also dispersed a German bridging train, collected to force the pss sage of the Yeer; blew up an munition column; killed General von Tripp and the whole of his staff to the west of Westende, and by the fierceness of their fire cot pelled the enemy to evacuate its position before Nieuport.
So rapid was the firing that some of the guns discharged fourteen projectiles a minute. damage done to the enemy Was clearly discernible from the vessels.
An attempt on the part of the enemy to get their range, by send ing up an aeroplane which drop ped smoke-balls, proved _inelfective, and so terrible was the result of the squadron's fire that at the end of the day the whole cost
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.