FRENCH R.S.A.

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 April 1929, Page 8

FRENCH R.S.A.

VISIT TO LONDON.

(Australian Press Association.) (By Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, March 31

Nine hundred members of La Flame, the French equivalent of the Returned Soldiers’ League, headed by General Gourand, Governor of Faris, who lost an arm in the war, spent to-day in London as a visit' of homage in response to yesterday’s pilgrimage of 11,000 British legionaries to Ypres and Northern France. The Frenchmen were all in. mufti and were wearing berets inscribed “La Flamme.” They assembled at Westminster Hall, where they were welcomed most cordially. Speeches were made in French by Lord Jellicoe and Major-General Clive. Then, headed by British and French military bands, they went to Westminster Abbey, where General Gouraud laid palm leaves worked in bronze on the tomb of the Unknown Warrior. Reforming, the procession then proceeded to the Cenotaph. General Gouraud again depositing a bronze wreath, the French band playing Abilin’s funeral march, “Somme II Eternel.” General Gouraud was joined by Countesses Haie; and Jellicoe and naval and military officers, and took the salute of the pilgrims,, who marched past on the Horse Guards’ parade.

WAR-TIME SHELLS EXPLODE.

PARIS, March 30.

AVar-time memories were revived at Argonne Forest, whei’e in the course of a bush fire hundreds of shells and cartridges which had been buried in the undergrowth for ten years exploded. The air all day resounded with shell bursts, the presence of troops fighting the flames heightening the battle ’ suggestion,

PEACE PACT RATIFIED

PARIS, March 29

The French Senate unanimously ratified the Briand-Kellogg Peace Pact.