WILD ENTHUSIASM

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 13, 15 July 1939, Page 9

WILD ENTHUSIASM

PARADE IN PARIS

150 TH ANNIVERSARY 0*

FALL OF BASTILLE J

EMOTIONAL CROWDS

BRITISH TROOPS LIQNJSED

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright!.

(Received July 15, 9 a.m.)

PARIS, July 14. A million spectators in the Champs jElysees alone, thousands of. whom had slept on the pavements'. all night, witnessed a military parade, on the 150 th anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. The parade captured the popular imagination more than any similar display since the victory march at the close of the Great War, President Lebrun. took the salute. It took three houifi for a 10-mile column of 30,000 troops, 15,000 cavalry, a thousand tanks, armoured cars, and mechanised artillery to pass, ' The city was lavishly decorated with the British-and French colours. There was great enthusiasm at the arrival overnight of a large detach*meat from the British Brigade of Guards and another from the Royal Navy, These units had an honoured place at the head of the column, at which the crowd went mad with deHght, President Lebrun was surrounded on a dais by the Prime Minister, M. Daladler, ihe Sultan of Morocco, members of the Cabinet and of the French stall, the British Minister of War/Mr. Hore« Belisha, Mr. Winston Churchill, Vi#count Grort, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir" Cyril Newell, Admiral Sir Edward Evans, and attaches of nearly every nation in the world, including the Axis Powers, Before the march, 52 of Britain'! fastest fighters and bombers flew over, but they failed to drown the roar of cheering, Three hundred and fifty French warplanes followed. Paris was gripped with a fever of patriotism, and hailed the presence of the British as being symbolic of AngloFrench unity and renewed strength. The sight of the British Guardsmen, was too much for thousands of people, who broke the cordons and. held up the inarch for twenty minutes shouting "Long Live England" and . "God bless our friends." The guardsmen were obliged to hold thei? riflesabovo their heads to ay old injuring frantically emotional meri and women. The President sent a cable messaga to King George praising "the magninV cent appearance" of the British pai> tieipants in the parade.