London, Jan, 17, Ca-ordinating tanks, artillery, ea-vairy and Infantry attacks, 1,500 Thai troops yesterday staged a miniature blitzkrieg in southern Laos and forced 200 French troops to withdraw about 42 miles to Pakso on the east bank of the Mekong River.
The French claim to have inflicted heavy casualties on the invading Thai forees. A few French troops remain fed in advanced. machine-gun posts and as the Thal forces attacked claim-fed to have mowed down waves of in-
Santry.
These "suicide detachments," how. ever, were wiped out as the Invaders advanced, The French reported Tosses of some 15 French and native soldiers in this fighting.
"The battle placed a small triangle fof southern Laos, between the Me-Kong River and the 'Thai border, in 'Thal hands, and left Pakse a front me elly. 'The French were report ed. busy' fortifying the place, "with confidence that the Siamese troops vould not be able to eross the mile-Wide Mekong and attack it success fully.
The French withdrawal, however, exposed along strip of southern Laos and northern Cambodia, west of the Mekong River, from the point Where the Mekong ceases to be: the boundary between IndosChina and Thailand, southward for a hundred Meanwhile, General Mordant, new French Commander-in-Chief, understood to have proceeded to Cambodia on Wednesday night for an Inspection of French troops and fences in that province, He was ex: pected to return to Saigon shortly.—pected to return to Saigon shortly, Bisophion, has been completely evacuated of all except French troops Beenuse of Thal bombing thre neutral foreign traveller arriving from Batambang today sald—United Press.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.