FRANCE RE-VISITED

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 13 August 1929, Page 6

FRANCE RE-VISITED

TOUR OF THE BATTLEFIELDS ADDRESS BY MISS CORRIGAN.

The popularity of the social after neons given by St. Mary’s Ladies Guild, field on the first Friday in everj month, waisi once more evidenced by tin large number of ladies present on tin last meeting day, when more than fifty listenedi to Miss I). Corrigan, who gave an interesting address on her travels The patron, Mrs J. Young, declarer the afternoon open, and the president (Mrs A. E. Wills) introduced Miss Corrigan, thanking, her for sparing the time out of her well filled philanthropic life to give the members and then friends a little of the joy she herself had experienced. lipon rising, Miss Corrigan was warmly greeted. The French port ot Marseilles, the laughing jolly city ol ’ Southern Frajice was first described. ! It is the meeting place for all; nations. ! By walking down the broad G'amiebuere, 1 an avenue of plaue trees, th at cuts from the docks straight through the town, one feels the spirit of Marseilles is no hidden recluse. The animated exuberant existence of its population, its beautiful suburban homes, mostly done in red, the proud bearing of its natives ; the market-place so crowded, where one is often asked to taste their “boniLlabafse,” tlie native dish, a hotchpotch of iitutfli ga-rlic aiiicl many fLslios. Marseilllles seems to have retained nothing of her iiigitated past, neither Ancients —Middle Ages—nor Ponaiscence, leaving one trace, and of the revolution nothing remains: but tlio song, “The Marseillaise.” In romantic mood the lecturer took the boat to the island of I the “Chateau d’lf, ” immortalised by Alexandre Dumas in Iris “Count of I Monte Crista.” She: also inspected its beauty points and its more famous dun- j geons, whose latest occupants were| German prisoners during the war. She! took train to Avignor, then on through I most verdant beautiful country to I Pauls. “I halve not seen any country! so green, not; even Ireland.” ' . An interjector: “What about Tara-1 naki “Well Taranaki might be if we could J get beneath the water to see.” “Arriving afc Paris one felt its atmosphere immediately, its clear air, everybody so ga.y and joyous. One got the impression of space and light. Paris is wonderful, its great historic buildings, the: glitter of its boulevards and avenues. The main boulevards are crowded and throngs on their way to the beautiful Opera House, the largest in the world. I tasted the joy and excitement of one night’s sight-seeing in the Latin Quarter of the famous Boulevard St. Michel. The gaiety, the restaurants filler! with rihn.tteriu.fr ,

ists of all nations and cme could easily see to what country they belonged by what they ate. Sausage and. sour kraufs for the German; sphaghetti for the Italian; wine and hard-boiled eggs for the French, who seem to eat hardboiled eggs with everything, and so on. The amazing part was the fact that these people could remain up until 2 and 3 o’clock each morning and still he smart and smiling for business during the day and this went on indefinitely. “Next day I went sight-seeing at the Louvre. It is hare one wants a definite .map of campaign, as there is so mw’ch of interest that is sq scattered that one wastes time hunting unless you have a, set programme. Among 1 the most thrilling relics in its vast galleries are “Leonardo d© Vince's Monnaliisiai,” the armless “Venus de Milo,” crown jewels, Egyptian antiques, specimens of the most famous sculptors and painterg of the world. Then on to visit the churches, foremost for grandeur is the Cathedral Notre Dame, with its beautiful ironwork and its grotesque carvings on all its buttresses. The most beautiful of all! churches’ I have ever seen is the “Saintc Ciiapelle,” just a ■ miniature church, of glorious colouring, done in tomato red and Byzantine blue, • with countless numbers of gold stars, and over all a. dim religions light. Then on from the Pastille to the Church of Mndeilaiine and back again toi the Hotel des Invalides, were I stayed and were

is housed the “Museum of Wat Trophies.” “I then travelled on' to Amiens to see the first battlefield in the Somme. At Amiens, that landmark for Gorman guns, where destruction was (great, { especii-ailily to its {glorious {gothic masterpiece, the Amiens’ Cathedral, studded with its innumerable statues, l't has I almost been completely restored. I j then followed the road out through Chmgny. Here stands the bag German gun which bombarded Amiens and was! captured by the Australians in 1918. ! proceeded to Delvillo Wood, so wellj remembered through the war, passing i on the way the site of the South, African memorial. Thii, s stands opposite the largo British Cemetery, where, | after searching about I thought I would j ask the gardener for directions, and in my best French asked him the way to, the New Zealand graves, repeating my-j self several times and wondering why' he looked puzzled. He turned away and called out: ‘Hey Jock, I think this | lady is looking for New Zealand! graves.” . ’ I 1 DEBRIS OF WAR. “1. then journeyed on erossimr the* j valley 'between the Somme River and the Ancre to the Newfoundland memorial area, passing on the way the' New Zealand memorial at Flers. It! stands a good way hack in very broken country, and there i:s no road in vet. ! The Newfoundland memorial is a beautiful structure of stone surmounted by a stag, surrounded by an immense stretch of battlefield left in the condition it was at the close of the war, i\ ith all the debris that goes with war its trenches, dugouts, big guns, and its mud, just as it was 11 years ago. “Then on to Albert, following the Ancre down, the completeness of restoration is amazing, Albert boro the brunt of the war and was a ruin at its close. It was quite an important industrial town. Its cathedral alone remains incomplete. It was on the cathedral at Albert that the figure of t-ne \ irgin liiing so perilously for some years, the prophecy being that the figure would tall only at the termination iof hostilities, which, strange to say, it ditl a few days’ before' the end! Then back once more, to Amiens, going through this time green fields every" where that were a mass of red poppies: and ox eye daisies. Just to see these rod poppies growing as they grow there! {one can understand the impression I {they left on so many of our soldiers’* ! ’minds, and it was difficult to picture the hardships ol those same soldiers in such glorious sunshine and surroundings, and it was only when some .months later I visited the Ypres salient in Belgium, and, going over the 'same ground, realised how rough, wet. cold and muddy it was, 1 felt a shudder thinking of those war days. From Ypres T proceeded to Courtrai, making this the starting point for the West Flanders battlefields, driving along the famous Morn'll Road, the scene of so much fierce engagement, passing on the way the district known as the tank cemetery, because it was here that whole companies of tanks, together

with their crews, were lost in the mud never to bo recovered.

“The approach to Ypres is through the* Menin (into, another war memorial, a beautiful structure resembling a stone arch and extending about two chains down the road, on either side of which, is a terraced loggia. It is completely frescoed with fallen British soldiers’ names. This stands out in my memory as the most impressive moment of my travels. Ypres is completely re-built, except the Cloth Hall, which is a total ruin. The Cloth Rail was Belgium’is grandest monument. The great belfry, the Church of St. Martin with its wondrous spire, all are reduced l to a heap of stones. Its cathedral is now re-built, and one can hardly believe it is of iso recent work, because all the old bricks were used and t hose were mellow with age

H I M i (JO. '' I journeyed on to Mill 00. tliai place this generation will ever associ ate with jjillar l>oxes and wire entanglements, the surrounds of which is now a scene ol peaceful agricultural labours. From Hill 60 one conic look across to Me.ssines Ridge and Mt. Kominel. Standing there I seemed to live those four years over again; history seemed so vivid. British, German and French dead lie there in battalions. Nothing can undo the terrible triumph of death, and Ypres remains a holy place of pilgrimage. Hill 30 was a mass of great holes, and I inquired if they were shell holes, only io be told they were still digging for bodies, and these were being recovered and taken to Tyne Cot Cemetery at Passchendaele. So I journeyed there to find it the largest and most beautifully kept of any I had seen. There are 11,000 odd graves and 34,900 names remembered. At one end is a wall in the form of stone terraces with numerous aspes, each asp a memorial to its particular country. The New Zealand asp lias a central slab bearing the inscription thus: ‘Here are recorded the names of the officers and men of New Zealand who fell at the battle j of Broodseinde and the first battle of I Passchendaele in October, 1917, and whose graves are known only to God’ —-and all around are inscribed the names. “The flowers everywhere were glorious, as though they also were giving forth of their best in honour of the glorious dead. I picked a rose. The gardener, noticing, said he could give something better, and gave me some beautiful lavender and a bunch of roses as well. J then returned to Courtrai, and the next week journeyed hack once more to Paris and the Hotel dcs Invalid os, and as I gazed on tin’s great and wonderful tomb of Napoleon, and remembering what I bad so rocently seen and keenly felt, I thought of IngensoM’s soliloquy, ‘That great soldier and great murderer,’ and marvelled how, in barely a century, we had allowed a- second great autocrat to butcher the world for the sake of ambition. My thoughts fled to the League of Nations at Geneva, and a prayer went up from my heart that its power would become so- great .as to prevent a third ‘lmpersonator of Force and Murder’ from giving rein to bis selfish ambition.” Miss Corrigan was warmly applauded 1 and M rs. A. R. Wills expressed her | thanks and paid a deserved tribute to I Miss Corrigan’s memory. j