While om cial sources remained close-lipped, unoMicial but reliable re~ ports said' that French advance columns operating in the Saar Valley had captured many coal mines.
Several other pits, still nominally under German control, were rendered unworkable by heavy French artillery batteries constantly pouring a steady stream of shells on the principal ronds and highway:
German sappers blew up the 'Toler-Metz railway line near the Luxembourg frontier yesterday oven Ing and considerable debris Ianded in' Luxembourg territory, reports from Luxembourg said today 'The Germans were believed to have purposely destroyed the railway since the road would have been of major strategic value if it fell into French hands, The German move was expected to change French plans for attack in this area' and Several alr fights between French and German planes are reported to have occurred above the lines.
'The latest French communique states that' French troops have. improved the whole of the positions possi taken in the last few days.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.