TRIBUTE TO ANZACS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20656, 30 August 1930, Page 11

TRIBUTE TO ANZACS.

TURKS APPRECIATE LABOUR, GRAVES TREATED AS SACRED. "OUR DEAD SLEEP IN PEACE." [t'ROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] PARIS, July 2. General Gouraud, Hie one-armed "Lion of the Argonne," who commanded the French troops in Gallipoli, has returned to Paris from a visit to the Peninsula to unveil a monument to the French dead. In an interview with your correspondent he said:— "I should like the Australian and New Zealand people to know that my visit confirmed my impression that the soil sacred to the memory of such valour is treated as sacred by the Turks who were our foemen. Your dead and our dead on the peninsula sleep their last sleep in peace, and infidel though he be no Turk would disturb their sleep. On my recent visit to India I talked over this point with Sir William Birdwood, my old friend and comrade-in-arms, and I promised him that I would investigate myself the truth about the hallowed ground sacred to the heroic Anzacs. I am glad to be able to report favourably to the general and to the Australian and New Zealand people.

"One of the facts of which I found evidence everywhere was tho profound respect which the average Turk has for the Anzac fighters. In the Turkish Army to-day the highest praise thev can bestow on a regiment is to say that it was one of those who held the Anzacs in check, and veterans who have fought against the Anzacs are rated higher in Turkey than men whoso fighting was against other sections of the Allied forces. From Mustapha Kemal Pasha down to the youngest officers of his staff I found nothing but admiration for the Anzacs and a profound regret that chance had brought us into opposing camps in the world conflict. Sentiment in Turkey. "I do not think that there is ever again the slightest likelihood of Turkey ranging herself on the side of Germany or any other Power likely to be involved in conflict with France and England. The prevailing feeling throughout Turkey today is that if another war should come Turkey must be on the same side as the* Anzacs, so you see that the prowess of tho Anzac fighters has done good missionary work for the cause of the two nations on whom rests the responsibility for saving Europe from barbarism in the futurs. Officers and men of the Turkish Army who had fought against, us insisted on joining with us around the monument we have erected to the memory of the French dead in that terrible conflict, and one and all lamented the fact that there was no official move to pay similar tribute to the Anzac heroes.

"It was from the Turkish side that there came to us the suggestion that we should alter the characters of our monument by making it a monument not only to our French dead but also to the Anzacs. Much as we appreciate the spirit animating that suggestion it was, of course, impossible for us to fall in with it, but I am sure that the absence of any similar official tribute to the Anzacs was a source of regret to the Turkish veterans who had met them in battle, and even to the younger generation of Turks, who know only of the prowess of the Anzacs from what their elders have told them. Good Judges ol Valour.

"It is the greatest tribute that could he paid to the men of Anzac that they should thus have gained a place in the hearts of an enemy people who are good judges of valour and are really slow to give praise unless it has been truly earned. All I could do was to make it clear in my address in unveiling the monument that though technicalities made it necessary that the monument should be dedicated solely to the French dead, we in France could never forget the deeds of our English comrades, and particularly of the men of Anzac. "Mustapha Kenial Pasha told me that he also had been struck by the widespread feeling of respect among Turkish ex-servicemen for the Anzacs as fighters and he assured me that if at any time the Australian and New Zealand Governments felt disposed to render official homage to their dead the Turkish would he ready to co-operate in every way, and the Turkish ex-service organisations would esteem it an honour to he allowed to take part in such ceremonies.

"In deploring the misguided policy that ranged Turkey against the Entente Powers, a member of the staff of Kemal Pasha said to me: 'The only compensation for that folly is that without it we should never have got to know the merits of the Anzacs as fighters and I believe there are those among us who think that it was worth while taking the wrong side in the war for that alone.' That was a spontaneous tribute to the Anzacs that means much, coming from the quarter it did. Sir William Birdwoocl's Idea.

"I have the hope that when my friend Sir William Bird wood retires from the command of the Indian Army in the autumn of this year he will be able to join mo in a pilgrimage to the scenes of our former conflicts and that he may be in a position to take the initiative in arranging for fitting permanent official tributes to the men of Anzac on the soil that was the scene of their heroic valour. I know that he has always had an idea of this sort in his head and that only the fact that ho was in an official position far removed from Australia or Gallipoli has prevented liim moving in the matter sooner. Perhaps we shall lie able to arrange ovir visit for next Anzac Day and perhaps also by then the Commonwealth and New Zealand Governments will have made arrangements for the visit to bo of an official character and to mark the beginning of a regular tribute to your heroes.

"The question is one for the people of Australia and New Zealand and I do not want anyone to imagine that 1 am trying fo interfere in their domestic affairs. I merely state wlnt was (he impression 1 found among the late foes of the An/.acs and how far it is thought desirable to move in the matter officially concerns only those who have the government of Australia and New Zealand in their hands.''