WILD ENTHUSIASM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 166, 17 July 1939, Page 7

WILD ENTHUSIASM

PARADE IN PARIS 150th. Anniversary Of Fall of Bastille I EMOTIONAL CROWDS BRITISH TROOPS LIONISED i [By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) PARIS, July 14. A million spectators in the Champs Elysees alone, thousands of whom hid slept on the pavements all night, witnessed a niili--1 tary parade on the 150« h. anniversary of the fall of the Bastile. Thp parade captured the popular imagination mere than any similar display since the vict ry march at the close of the Great War. ' President Lebrun took the salute. I It took three hours for a ten-mile column of 30,000 troops, 15,000 cavalry, a thousand tanks, armoured 1 cars, and mechanised artillery to pass. 1 The city was lavishly decorated with the British and French colours. There was great enthusiasm at the arrival overnight of a large detachment from the British Brigade of Guards and another from the Royal Navy. These units had an honoured . place at the head of the column, at I which the crowd went mad with delight. ; President Lebrun was surrounded 1 on a dais by the Prime Minister, M. Daladier, the Sultan of Morocco, mem--1 bers of the Cabinet and of the French 1 staff, the British Minister of War, Mr. : Hore-Belisha, Mr. Winston Churchill, Viscount Gort, Chief of the Imperial i General Staff, Air Chief Marshall Sir Cyril Newell, Admiral Sir Edward Evans, and attaches of nearly every nation in the world, including the Axis Powers. Before the march, 52 of Britain’s ' fastest fighters and bombers flew over. ■ but they failed to drown the roar of cheering. Three hundred and fifty French warplanes followed. ’ Paris was gripped with a fever of patriotism, and hailed the presence of the British as being symbolic of Anglo-French unity and renewed strength.

BllCHglH. The sight of the British Guardsmen was too much for thousands of people, who broke the cordons and held up the march for twenty minutes shouting “Long Live England” and ‘‘God bless our friends.” The guardsmen were obliged to hold their lifles above their heads to avoid injuring frantically emotional men and women. The President sent a cable message to King George praising “the magnificent appearance” of the British participants in the parade.