ARMISTICE DAY

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 November 1929, Page 12

ARMISTICE DAY

ELEVENTH ANNIVERSARY OBSERVANCE ON MONDAY ELEVEN years ago, at 11 a.m. on Monday, November 11, the ! Armistice was signed, Germany and her Allies tasted the fruits of defeat, and the shadow of the Great War was lifted from a weary world. On Monday next, at-11 a.m., the two-minutes’ silence will be observed, in accordance with the wish of His Majesty the King, and the usual arrangements are being made at Greymouth.

The silence for two minutes, commencing at H a.m., will be broken by the' slow tolling of the bell at the Central Fire Station. . ~ The citizens are invited by the De-puty-Mayoli (Mr. J. B. Kent) to attend the ceremony of placing wreaths on the Cenotaph, Taihui Street, at 11 a.m. The occasion.will be observed in the various schools, and appropriate references made to the day.

Last year, November 11, occurred on a Sunday, and the observance of ' Armistice Day was extended by the holding of special church services and parades.

TAKING OF LE QUESNOY.

NEW ZEALANDERS’ FEAT. Eleven years ago—on November 4, 1518—the New Zealand Division crowned its victorious career with the most brilliant and completely successful of all its actions in the Great War —the capture of the fortress town of Le Quesnoy. The end of the war was very near. By this time the rapid succession of heavy blows dealt by the Allied forces had had a cumulative effect, both moral and material, upon the German armies. The capitulation of Turkey and Bulgaria, and the collapse of Austria —consequent upon Allied successes which the desperate position of her own armies on the Western front had rendered her powerless to prevent—had made Germany’s military situation ultimately impossible.

The victorious advance of the Australian Army Corps on August 8 marked the beginning of the end. On August 21 the New Zealand Division, in the Fourth Corps of the Third Army entered the final series of great battles that brought about the collapse of German military power. Moving ever eastward with but brief and broken intervals of rest, the New Zealanders had fought brilliantly through the five great battles of Bapaume (August 21-September 1), HavrincourtEpehy (September 12-18), CambraiHindenburg Line (September 27-Oc-tober 5), Le Cateau (October 8-12), and the Battle of the River Selle (October 17-25). Now, on November 4, 1918, they were called upon for their last great effort by taking part in the Battle of the Sambre.

ANCIENT LE QUESNOY. Between the courses of the great rivers Sambre and Scheldt is a wide expanse of country where no great natural obstacles bar an invasion of France from the north-east. Here, on high ground between the smaller rivers Ecaillion and Rhonelle stands Le founded in the eleventh century. It was surrounded in the middle of the twelfth century by extensive ramparts which had not prevented its capture by Louis XI (1447), Henry II of France (1552), the Spaniards .(1568), Turenne (1654), Eugene (1712). In 1793 it had been captured by the Austrians, and with its recovery in the following year is connected one of. the earliest recorded uses of telegraphy. Before Le Quesnoy, the English soldier had, in the year of Crecy (1336) been for the first time exposed to the fire of cannon. Some three miles to the south-east of the town lie the western extremities of the great Mormal Forest, which eastward falls to the River Sambre. Through the forest on August 26, 1914, the German invaders had pressed hard ion the British columns retreating from Mons. k lt was fitting, therefore, that the delivery of-this ancient town and the clearing of the enemy from the vast forest should fall to the task of the soldiers of the youngest country in the Great War. The general plan laid down for the British Armies was to continue their advance in Aulnoye railway junction and other centres of communication about Maubeuge vital to the enemy, and if possible, cut the main avenue of escape for his forces, opposite the French and Americans. The New Zealand Division held a line west and north-west of Le Quesnoy, roughly

from the junction of the CambraiValenciennes railway ’ lines, south- > ward to Ghissignies, and nearly parallel to the Cambrai line. The task allotted to the New Zealanders was, in, conjunction with the 37th Division (right) and 62nd Division (left) to attack. and establish a line nearly four miles east of their starting line and 2J miles beyond the eastern ramparts of Le Quesnoy. Without intense bombardment, which would destroy historic monuments and material wealth, and cause casualaties to the civil population, 1 a frontal assault on the fortress town was impossible. It was arranged, therefore, to envelop it from the flanks. Seven brigades of field artillery and three batteries of heavy howitzers carried out a complicated barrage of varying rates coordinated with the movements of the troops on either flank, whose operations fell into five phases. '

SCALING THE RAMPARTS. The attack opened at 5.30 a.m. on November 4, and despite the vigorous resistance of the enemy, who was aided by the diversified nature of the heavily-wooded country, the New Zealanders gained all their objectives and Le Quesnoy was completely surrounded. Shortly before 11 a.m.. some captured Germans were sent into the town to explain the situation, and later an, aeroplane dropped a message to the commander of the garrison calling upon him to but without result. Finally, Lieut. L. C. L. Averill (son of Archbishop Averill), with Lieut. H. W. Kerr and several men of the 4th Battalion, Rifle Brigade, scaled the inner wall of the. rampart, followed, shortly after 4 p.ni., by the . remainder of the battalion, which, thus had the honour to claim the town’s capture. The Germans gave in, and a few minutes later the 2nd Rifles marched in through the Valenciennes Jhfl civilians gave the New Zea-

landers a wildly ‘enthusiastic welcome, and in the process of clearing up the town eagerly assisted the riflemen by indicating the hiding places of their late masters. On November 10 President Poincare paid an official visit to Le Quesnoy, the New Zealanders forming a guard of honour, and four days later General Hart and the Rifle Battalion commanders went back to Le Quesnoy to receive a flag from the : town and present in turn a New Zealand flag. The delivery of Le Quesnoy has since been commemorated by the townspeople by a memorial tablet on the rampart at the spot where the wall was scaled, and the planting of a New Zealand garden in the moat. On November 4 the New Zealanders advanced six miles, capturing Le Quesnoy, Herbignie; Villereau, Potelle, and Herbignies, with nearly 2000 prisoners and 60 field guns, including batteries complete with personnel and horses. The passage of the great Mormal Forest on the following day under conditions of aggravated difficulty was a! notable performance, and set tne seal of final and complete success on the work of the New Zealanders in the Great War.

VERDUN HERO DEAD.

LIEUT.-COL. DE FONTrREAULX.

PARIS, September 7. France has just lost one of the heroes of Verdun by the death oi Lieut.-Colonel de Font-Reaulx. Lieut.Colonel de Font-Reaulx was 60 years This officer, who for the last three and a-half years has patiently suffered the pangs of a malady which he knew must kill him, has inspired more than one story and picture of the great Verdun struggle. On February 26, 1916, the German heavy artillery plastered the French lines with shells, and ploughed up the whole ground so that shell-holes were nowhere more than 2J yards apart. Under this insufferable bbmbardment the French troops crawled back gradually from the front line, without, however, actually abandoning the position. De Font-Reaulx, then a major, seized, a spare rifle and, walking calmly over No Man’s Land through a storm of fire, reached the sheltered position which his men had taken up. With his rifle slung on his shoulder he called out: “Debout, mes enfants” (Up, my lads!) He then made them number as though on a peaceful parade ground before giving the order to advance. Then, in column of fours, they marched straight back through a hurricane of artillery and machine-gun fire to their old firing line, their rifles at the slope, and their commander, also carrying a rifle, at their head. He saved the French line at this point by his cool courage and his determination not to yield one inch of ground. LEIPZIG REDOUBT. IN 1916 Ai\D TO-DAY. Just over thirteen years ago the offensive of the Somme battle raged around the Leipzig Redoubt, south of Thiepval . The rain came down in torrents all day; trenches were flooded, and the troops slithered miserably on the chalk. In the morning Contalmaison was captured and a number of Northumberland Fusiliers, who had' earlier fallen into the hands of the enemy, were released. But in the afternoon the “Cbckchafers” —the Third Prussian Guard Division —by a counter-attack, regained the village (wrote B. S. Townroe in the London “Sunday limes,” on September 8 last). To-day, on the same ground, it is difficult to imagine the scenes that too'fc place only 13 years ago. Close by the mine crater at La Boisselle there are several small farm-houses, and chickens run over the ground where the Somme attack started. Strands of wire prevent the casual tourist from examining the mine crater, except. by one narrow path, where he is harassed by small children selling picture postcards.

Along the main road to Bapamne, where the British Armies had in 1916 to fight every yard of the way, in 1929 every Sunday pass motor-bus parties, conveying one-day excursionists, who travel from London to Tilbury, Dunkirk, Amiens, round the Somme Battlefields, and back again, for three guineas, and are only away thirty-six hours from London.

There are few signs of the war along the road from Albert to Bapaume, except the cemeteries and war memorials at La Boisselle, Pozieres, Coisircelette, Warlencourt, and other places. The beauty, the peacefulness, and the solidity of these memorials must make an impression upon every pilgrim and deepen their sense of gratitude to. the Imperial War Graves Commission and its founders. Five men in particular realised early in the war the need of a common form of expression to commemorate the fallen—Sir John French, who originated the organisation in 1915, Sir George Macdonogh, Lord Derby, Lord Milner, and the present Vice-Chairman of the Commission, Sir Fabian Ware, who has steadily overcome endless obstacles, formed an endowment fund, and has been responsible for the creation of over 1,400 separate cemeteries and monuments. On the topmost point of Thiepval the scene to-day resembles the start of a new colliery. In a field which fifteen years ago was burrowed with trenches and dug-outs, pitted with shell-holes, burdened by tons of barbed wire sandbags, duckboards,, rum-jars, bullyhnfh ammunition, buried soldiers, both British and German, and where the suffering troops endured hell there are now. 'cranes, stonemasons’ huts, temporary railway lines, and a very deep hole in . the ground 13 to be erected the memorial to comt haThPAn 0 -! 70,000 missing men, .which yens d6si gned by Sir Edwin LutThe country away from < the main thoroughfares is still very rough “nd bodies of the missing are being’ con-

stantly discovered. A. reward of tefi francs for every body which they find is given to the Polish workmen who are engaged by the French Government to level the scarred'ground. Enclosures may still be seen in our cemeteries, surrounded by canvas, screens, where burial parties are at work, so that we recall John’ Oxenham’s lines: — Tread softly here! Go reverently and slow! Yea, let your soul go down upon its, knees, And with bowed head and heart abased, strive hard To grasp the future gain in the sore loss. BETWEEN BOMBS. SOME HUMOROUS MEMORIES. (By “Digger.”) It was on a “one-way only” road in France. A typical Aussie was inconspicuously on duty somewhere near his post to see that the edict of the “brass-hats” be not flouted. Somehow he failed to see a flashy body of English guardsmen swing into the forbidden pathway from the wrong end until they had got some way along it. His initial “Cooee” had no effect upon the very martial Lieutenant in charge. His subsequent Australian lingo however, had the effect of causing the English Guardsmen to be called to a halt. Haughtily the Lieutenant replied to the uncomplimentary challenge: “Do you know what I am? I am a guard bound for Poperinghe.” The telling response was, “I don’t a damn if you are a engine-drivei 1 bound for Hell. You bring those guardsmen back off that road.” And the Guardsman Lieutenant did.

A Sergeant-major in the Grenadier Guards Machine-gun battalion told me this. He was a flash joker himself; had been a British Commissioner in the Congo pre-war. Therefore it was not surprising that he was orderly to a king-pin in the Grenadiers at the stage when the Aussies first lobbed onto Salisbury Plain; of muddy memory! Shortly after the Antipodeans had made themselves comfortable, the Guards Pooh-bah official and his orderly galloped up to the Australian camp. A loose-limbed'son of the South showed what he had learned at that early stage by casually signifying to the Imperial Army Colonel that he must hasten slowly at that particular point, which Australians would probably have recognised as a sentry beat. The Colonel reined in and said: “Sentry, can you direct me —ah —to your O’C.’s headquarters, what?” The Aussie looked at him, spat a quid, and called over his shoulder, “Hey, Serg., here’s a cove wants to see our boss. What’ll I tell ’im?” The orderly told me that the-Colonel nearly burst, and that his own horse did a back step, otherwise he believed he would have added to the confusion by falling off his mount.

After a' few weeks of Fray-Bentos, dug-outs, and chats, there were not many really haughty officers amongst those on Gallipoli; not even down by the beach. Dinkum, it wasn’t much of a win even to be put on the uninteresting job of sentry ovei’ food dumps. The Aussies were like the res t—they took a rest when they were on the job. One day a big fellow from the bush leaned against the dump rolling “Arf a Mo” into a fag, when one of the rare pompous Majors happened along. He got in the first chip. “And what do you think you are?” he asked. “Me,” said,the digger, “Oh, I reckon I’m a bit of a sentry.” “Well,” responded the officer, “I’d have you know that I’m a bit of a Major.” The Aussie reached for his rifle as he said, “Streuth, are yer? Well if yer vrait till I gets me tunic buttoned, I suppose I’d better sling yer a bit of a salute.” The Major ’opped it.

It was July 4, tw-elve years ago. Some “Canuck” woodsmen were making their way down the line through Doullens to start work in another forest. They had been-paid, and they were the Canadian type, foreign-born, who liked to kid themselves they were Yanks. When they entered an estaminet and produced rolls of francs and chits of lesser value, two, Maori pioneers who w’ere stiff saw prospects of buckshee Bock or even Malaga, so one put in the gentle feeler. “You have te pirthday, ehoa, eh?” he asked with ah ingratiating grin. “Birthday? Wai, I guess not, guy,” was' the unpromising rejoinder. Glancing at the booze already ordered, the Maori spokesman toed the mark again with: “By korry, ehoa, you have te pirthday all ri.’” The pseudo-Yank replied: “Gee, boy, birthday hell. Don’t you know we’re celebratin’ the Fourth of July?” Enlightenment shone on the Maori visage: “You te fellah, you have te pirthday te fourth July, eh?” The Canadian came at the rough stuff and said, “No, bo, I reckon we’re celebratin’ the day the Americans turned the darned English out of America. Get that, and hike.” The spar for booze was up, but so was Hori’s patriotic spirit. It. was kindled to fever heat by the insult which he would stand from none any more than would his fathers of old. “Gee,” he fumed, while his comrade did an impromptu haka, “I get you. Te fourth of July te day, eh, when te dam Yank put te British out o’ America. By crikey, I tell you what, te fourth July te day te Maori put the ha-pie Canadian out tis plurry estaminet.” A Donnybrook ensued, but two Maori soldiers insulted were too much for four men who wore the uniform of one nation and tried to kid allegiance to another, and they were outed.

YPRES SALIENT TO-DAY. FIELDS OF WAVING CORN. Reapers have been busy in the fields of Flanders. Where the God of War for more than four years gathered his awful harvest the fields stood yellow with corn. The stolid Belgian peasant silently gathers the fruits of the earth with scythe and hook, erects his little groiip of sheaves, and ploughs afresh the cleared ground in preparation for a new sowing, writes F. Bluett in the “Daily Telegraph.” Even the soil is not allowed to lie idle for long in this frugal country. . . / And while the men and women labour a,t the more arduous tasks of their fields the children lead grazing cattle along narrow strips of herbage. A picture of simple rural life receives its finishing touch from the character of the implements of husbandry in use. Modern machinery is a thing unknown; Everything is done by hand or horses, the latter harnessed .to the most primitive contrivances by means of rope. . Perhaps it is because of the ceaselees industry of the people and the fertility of the soil, which enables a rapid succession of crops to be grown, that the traces of war have been so ef-

fectually removed. Except at Hill 60 and in the ruins of the Cloth Hall at Ypres there is not to be found over the whole of the Ypres salient to-day a trace of the devastation of 1914-1918. A truly wonderful recovery. HILL 60. Trim cottages stand where there were blackened ruins; gone are the shell holes; German dug-outs, built to resist the fury of shell-fire and equally impervious to the ravages of time, peep here and there from the yellow corn as it waves in the summer breeze, and 100k —and are —as innocent as sheep shelters. There is not even anything sinister in the appearance of Hill 60 on a bright summer’s day. It might be the annexe of an English fairground—a bit of Riddiesdown on a Bank holiday. Stalls have been set up for the sale of war souvdnirs, and, on the crest of the hill, No Man’s Land canteen blazons the announcement that here may be obtained those bottled beverages which are peculiar to the English taste. The newly-built square at Ypres on a popular holiday was a typical fairground with roundabouts, swing-boats, shooting galleries, and a conglomeration of stalls. Shadows from the shattered walls of the old Cloth Hall fell impartially upon the pleasureseeker and the say-eyed pilgrim to the Menin Gate. There seemed nothing incongruous on the companionship; this blending, rather than clashing, of the lights and shades of a Great Adventure in which all, old alike, more or less shared.

LONG MAX. One of the last of the show-places in the salient is Lengenboom, whence in 1917 the Germans shelled Dunkirk. The giant gun and its massive concrete bed, decaying slowly in a lovely rustic setting, are now a two-franc sight for tourists. English boys and girls on tour sit astride its long barrel and are photographed by their companions. The concret chambers underground in which the gun crew had their quarters and the shells were stored stand as firmly as in the days of the war. As the roofs are of solid concrete 10ft. thick, they will serve as a show-place for generations yet unborn. A onelegged Belgian ex-soldier lights the visitor with a candle through the dark chambers, and when the light is extinguished, to give realism to his narrative the English schoolgirls pretend to be scared, and force tiny screams of mock horror.

1 Long Max was made by Krupp’s in 1914 and transported to Belgium in sections. A small army of men working through many months built the emplacement. As enduring as some great Roman work, it stands amidst whispering leaves an eloquent monument alike to the ingenuity of man and the 1 uncertainty of human hopes and schemes. Long Max a two-franc show of school-girls! , The Belgian peasant, his day’s work done, cycles homeward along avenues of tall trees through which the setting sun glints, and is inscrutable. There is nothing of the bearing of the proud victor about him; nothing that suggests the deep and settled gloom of long suffering. ,Like Kaspar of old, he knows it was a “glorious victory.” Yet . perhaps, looking through the vista of years,! he wonders what it was all about—why

ho had to go through those years 1 of agony to regain the peaceful if frugal existence which was his and is now his portion once again. . ■