FRIGHTFUL WAR TRAGEDY

Otago Witness, Issue 3614, 19 June 1923, Page 21

FRIGHTFUL WAR TRAGEDY

HUNDREDS OF SOLDIERS PFJRISH. PARIS, June 14. One of the most frightful tragedies of the war will be revealed by the unveiling next Sunday of a monument to 350 soldiers who perished in the village of St. Michael De Maurienne in Savoie, on December 11, 1917. The facts were censored at the time, and now for the first time are published. Five hundred French soldiers were returning from Italy where they had been aiding the Italians to resist the Austro-German onslaught in the Piave area. When the train reached Modane the driver protested that it was too heavily loaded to negotiate the gradients through the Savoie Alps, but he obeyed orders to continue the journey. The train entered the most dangerous section where the line ran downhill for a considerable distance on a narrow mountain ledge with a deep gorge below. Here, owing to its weight, the train got beyond control and raced to certain death. The excessive speed caused carriage after carriage to take fire, and the men, leaping out, were crushed to death against the rocks bordering Uhe line. When the curve was reached the engine left the metals and the carriages piled up over it became a blazing furnace. Of nearly 300 men who were still imprisoned in the cars when they were wrecked, practically all of them were burned to ashes. Fewer than J. 50 of 500 were brought out or escaped alive, and the greater number of these were so seriously injured that they died.