WAR MEMORIES

Evening Star, Issue 17968, 15 May 1922, Page 4

WAR MEMORIES

FRANCE AND BELGIUM THE KING’S VISIT. Pres* Association—3y Tslegnph—Copyright. PARIS, May 13. While touring the Ypres battlefields, the King stoppedfor .some time at the grave of an Australian, Sergeant M'Gee, a posthumous V.C. His Majesty reached Arras on Friday, and motored to Notre Dame, on the Do Lorette Plateau, where ICO,OOO Frenchmen fell in a battle lasting a year. A memorial, with a lighted lantern, "is to keep a perpetual vigil. The King met Field-Marshal Foeh there, and visited several cemeteries, depositing wreaths of red laurels. Ho also visited Vimy Ridge, which the Canadians captured, and mot the Canadian High Commissioner and Mr Kndyard Kipling.—A. and N.Z, Cable. KING AND FIELD-MARSHAL?. A MOVING INCIDENT. LONDON, May 13. At Dc Lorette, the King listened ciigcrlv to Ficld-Marshais Foeh and Haig, who described various famous points and explained details of the stupendous battle. He turned to them once, confidently saying in French; “ Tfeujonrs, hons amis; n'est-ce-pas? ” General Foeh replied with fervor: “Tonjours, toujours, pour les memes chose* et les monies raisons.” He grasped General Haig's hand. As tlie. two Field-Marshals held hands in a. grip of comradeship, the King placed his hand over theirs. The scone was worthy of record by a groat painter. On the hillside, scarred with graves and overlooking a devastated France, the Urilisli King, sealing the comradeship of two great war leaders, made an historic scene. —A. and N.Z. Cable. PRESIDENT MILLERAND’S’ OFFER. PARIS, May 14. King George declined, on constitutional grounds, President Millcrand’s proposal (o meet him during his tour of the battlefields. The King explained that a .meeting between the two heads of Stales during the Genoa difference would' assume a political aspect, which it was desirable to avoid. The ‘Sunday Times's ‘ Paris correspondent expresses the hope that, the King’s refusal will terminate the persistent efforts which are being made by the French Press to present" the King as opposed to the policy of his Ministers.—A. and N.Z. Cable. END OP THE TOUR, THE EINGtTMESSAGE!. LONDON, May 13. The King and Queen visited Terlinglhun Cferaetcry, and concluded their tour of the battlefields. King George delivered an oration including inis message to the war bereaved : For the past few days I have been making a. solemn pilgrimage in honor of the people who died for all free men. I should like to send a message to all who lost those dear to them in the Great War. In this the Queen joins amid surroundings so wonderfully typical of that single-hearted assembly of nations and races forming our Empire. For here, in their last quarters, lie the sons of every portion of that Empire, across, as it were, the threshohf of the Mother Island which they guarded, that freedom might he saved in the uttermost ends of the earth. A generation of our manhood offered itself without -question, almost without need, in answer to the summons. _ Wo may truly say that the whole circuit of the earth is girdled with the graves of our dead. A ROYAL TRIBUTE. TO BRAVE AND CHIVALROUS ALLY. •PARIS. May 14. (Received May 13, at 9.45 a.in.) Franco is deeply moved by the King s noblo words at Tcrlingthun, especially by the following quotation : In tin's fair land of France, which sustained with the utmost, heroism the long strife, our ‘brothers are numbered by hundreds of thousands. They lie in the keeping of a tried and generous friend, and a. resolute and chivalrous comrade-in-arms, who with .ready and quick sympathy has set aside, for ever the soil in which they sleep, so that we

and onr descendants may for all time reverently tend and preserve their resting- places. I have many limes asked myself in the course of my pilgrimage wncther there can bo more potent advocates of peace upon earlii through the years io come than tills massed multiin do of silent witnesses to the de-sola tion of war. —A, and N.Z. (.‘able. FEE X C ll Ft MASS A P PIPE OIATIO X. PARIS, May 14. (Received May 15, at 0.25 a.in.) The whole Press pays a warm Iribnle to tin 1 King’s speerli. Many newspapers pointedly differentiate between His Majesty’s speech and Mr Lloyd George’s attitude towards France at Genoa, contending that Mr Lloyd George docs not represent English feeling. ‘Figaro’ states: There issued from every sentence of the King’s speech a high emotion. Who knows but that the old hatreds which separated Franco and England lie buried in the graves of our heroes, and that even the monstrous efforts of the .politicians will fail to reawaken them.

The ‘ Republique Francaiso’ slates; The King’s pious pilgrimage comes opporInnalely to remind the exasperated French nation that Air Lloyd George is not England.

‘Rappel’ suggests that some kind friend should trauslalc the KingT? speech into English for tho benefit of Mr Lloyd George.—A. and N.Z. Cable.