ARMISTICE DAY AT THE FRONT.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume 30, Issue 12, 1 February 1940, Page 8

ARMISTICE DAY AT THE FRONT.

Simple Ceremony Held On Hallowed Ground tinder a grey sky and m chilling rairr the French and British Armies observed the twenty-second Armistice Day and honoured the dead whose task it is for us to complete. Allied ceremonies were held on three great battlefields of the last wat, while the rest of the two Armies stood watchful m their lines, waiting for the onset of the enemy, who, beaten once, has risen m arms to trouble the world again. .Every now and then our faces turned to the heavy blanket of grey cloud hanging low over the countryside. It was our assurance that the day's rites would not be disturbed by the enemy attack which some had thought likely. Nevertheless, precautions were taken. Cars were parked well away from each other, and there were guns inconspicuously posted to deal with any attack. The ceremony which I watched was short and simple. It was held m a French cemetery on a low hill, once the scene of a battle which filled all France with pride and sorrow. The fine flower of a generation fell on its slopes and now lie m their ordered thousands, rank by rank, on the plateau which they died to win. Today a British guard of honour m steel helmets and battle dress stood m

rigid ranks before the cemetery's central shrine, and near them another guard of French chasseurs m dark blue. A little procession arrived — the British Commander-in-Chief and some of his officers (including the Duke of Gloucester), the chief of the French Military Mission and several of his staff, a French priest m black cassock, and one other civilian, the prefect of the department. Lovely Call Unrolled Itself. A guard of honour presented arms and British buglers blew the "Last Post." While the lovely call unrolled itself on the heavy air a little group of the living stood as silent as the vast company of the dead around them. One's eyes strayed to the noble verse graven on the monument near by and settled on its last line, the call of the dead soldier to the living, "Peuples soyez unis, hommes soyez humains." When the last note of the buglers had died away and released us from our thoughts, Lord Gort, the head of the French Mission, and the Prefect of the Department stepped forward to lay their wreaths at the shrine. Lord Gort signalled to the Prefect to go first,, and himself went last of the three. The British wreath was of poppies with the inscription "L'Armee Britannique aux glorieux morts de la guerre." arid the French military wreath was identical with it apart from the difference of name on the inscription. As soon as the three men emerged from the shrine the buglers blew the "Reveille" and the ceremony was over. It had taken no more than a few minutes.— E. A. Montague, "Manchester Guardian."