LE QUESNOY MEMORIAL

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 14, 17 July 1923, Page 7

LE QUESNOY MEMORIAL

TO NEW ZEALAND SOLDIERS

IMPBESSIVE CEREMONIES.

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPXRIGHT.)

(AUSTRALIAN - NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) PARIS, 16th July.

For many days the inhabitants of Le Quesnoy have been making preparations for unveiling the French memorial in honour' of New Zealanders. The memor: ial takes the form of a marble plaque in the ramparts near where the Rifle Brigade climbed the wall on 4th November, 1918. The streets were garlanded, with flowers. People from the whole countryside gathered for the unyeiiing. An impressive ceremony at the French monument began on Saturday night.. The New-Zealand Avenue of Honour leads along the battlements from the Place d'Armes in the middle of the town, through an archway to the bastion outside the walls facing the monument, which is from the chisel of M. Felix Dearnelles Favrons. the French sculptor. There is a beautiful garden, in which many varieties' of New Zealand flax and flowers are growing, on the bastion and in the moat. The statuary presents a magnificent effect, including a beautiful figure, Peace. Triumphant, and the reproduction of a battalion climbing the wall. The inhabitants were enthusiastic and much impressed by a pilgrimage to the New Zealand garden.

Those present included Lords Milner and Liverpool, Sir James Allen, the High Commissioners of South Africa and India, Generals Godley and Fabian Ware, Colonel Johnston, the lions. Dr. W. E. Collins.and.C. H. Izard (members of the Is' ew. Zealand Legislative Council), Mrs. H. T. Fulton, and other New Zealanders. There were also present Lieutenant Averille, who was the first man over the wall, and Lieutenant Lang, and Sergeant Moscop, who took part in the siege.