RHINELAND MEMORIES

Hokitika Guardian, 28 September 1929, Page 7

RHINELAND MEMORIES

(From Auckland Star.) To the lively music of their bands and yet with sadness Uf,farewell British troops have been taking their departure from the Rhineland. Thus towards its close draws the epilogue to the Great War tragedy, which for ten years and more has occupied the international stage. In no part of 'the Empire, save possibly Great Britain, will the cabled news off the evacuation have been read with greater interest than in this Dominion, for of all the Empire’s oversea troops the New Zealanders were chosen to join the Imperial Army and the Allies in establishing the occupation of the Rhine. In ten years the “Tommies ” have won the good will of the people among whom they have dwelt, and also a fervent valediction. The “. Diggers ” achieved both in less than three months. On the heels of a beaten army they went into enemy country and on the eve of Christmas settled down in barracks and billets amidst a people worn and hungry and overshadowed by that nameless something/the spectre of defeat. Notices on every hand proclaimed that there must be “no fraternising.” Many things were strictly “ verboten.” As well try to btem the waters off the rushing Rhine as check the flow of human feelings. Youngsters haunting the Y.M.C.A. canteens with tueir clamorous calls of “Nix chocola!” found their way to the hearts of the hardy “Diggers,” and many a cake slipped unnoticed into juvenile, fingers. Men billeted in private homes, as well as those who otherwise came into close touch with the civilians, soon realised that in its toll war is not one-sided, that enemy homes may be shattered and the hearts of their people crushed as sadly as those of one’s own folk. Over the stumbling block of unknown languages soldiers and civilians came to realise the finer qualities in each other and to communicate freely in the international code df human understanding. So in the natural order it transpired that when the time came for their departure, the New Zealanders had impressed upon them the most friendly of farewells. While they had been in billets and barracks life had flowed along evenly and expressions of good will were matters 'of personal concern. When the first of the six weekly troop trains left Cologne early in Febraury that same good will assumed mass formation. Few of those who were there will have fforgotten how the large central railway station was thronged with people, how groups of men, women and children gathered around the soldiers whom they knew, and how in some instances the tears that sprang unbidden to female eves were not altogether due to the lengthy strain of warfare. Each week the scene was re-enacted and the last was most demonstrative of all. In the crowd that surged around the railway station a fraulein of waxen complexion and clear-cut features stood in contrast of loveliness against her sombre dress of black. “For me, fraulein?” half playfully suggested a departing soldier. “No,” came the quick reply in broken English and with charming hauteur, “for none but my own New Zealand friend.” The perfume of a faded rosebud and the sincere expressions of a kindly peonle still linger in memories of “the lordly lovely Rhine.”