GRAVES OF THEIR DEAD.
AUSTRALIAN PILGRIMS.
VISIT TO BATTLEFIELDS.
AN UNPLEASANT INCIDENT.
Australian and N.Z. Press Association. (Received August 1, 7.45 p.m.) LONDON. Aug. 1
In connection with the Australian Pilgrims' inspection of the battlefields one incident caused some annoyance. The pilgrims were detained for 90 minutes in the rain by French customs officials, who minutely searched them at the frontier between Belgium and France. Workers who were leaving the Menin factories congregated and made insulting references to " money-making foreigners " who had prospered as a result of French sacrifices.
A formor Australian soldier thereupon replied: " Then it is a pity wo ever fought."
The scene which followed was unprecedented. The pilgrims toured tho battlefields and saw the graves of millions of tho slaughtered soldiers. Ono delegate rornarked: "If tho delegates to tho League ol Nations were to see this sight they would give up petty bickering." Ono mother who saw tho graves of her two sons at the Somme and Ypres fervently declared that " only fiends could favour wars after seeing those cemeteries."
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New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20323, 2 August 1929, Page 13
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173GRAVES OF THEIR DEAD. New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20323, 2 August 1929, Page 13
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