HOSTILITY TO BRITISH

Hokitika Guardian, 20 February 1920, Page 4

HOSTILITY TO BRITISH

BOULOGNE TENSION

' SEQUEL TO HUN PROPAGANDA

| (London “Daily Mail”, Deo. 19th.) I For some time past persistent reports have been current in Boulogne regarding outrages alleged to have been committed by British officers and men. The latest story was a circumstantial ' report that the bodies of two girls wearing British uniform had been found: covered with knife wounds at Honvault, near Boulogne. To get at the bottom of these disturbing rumours the Daily Mail recently sent two spes- ; ial correspondents—the one British, the other French—to Boulogne in succession. Their reports, while showing j these stories to be utterly devoid of j foundation, none the less reveal a most regrettable state of things. They ■show that these stories arise out of a feeling of hostility which at present exists on the part of some of the French civilian population of the .Pas de Calaifi, and particularly of Boulogne and district, towards the British troops in Northern France. These strained relations seem to be due to a number of causes. Uniformed people in France are apt to attribute the present want of coal and the j high rate of exchange to deliberate action by the British Government; some ; irritation exists at the way in which the German merchant fleet has been allocated ; there is great resentment at the continued employment of Chinese, and Annamite labour by the British in Northern France; while the slackening of discipline noticeable among the British troops in France since the armistice has led to a' certain amount of drunkenness and one or two c a fc brawls. Lastly, there is good reason to suspect that propaganda work by German or Bolshevik agents has something to do with the mysterious and sedulous spreading of these stories.

BOGUS MURDER STORIES

MYSTERY OF TWO W.A.A.C.S

With regard to the Honvault murder, story, investigations, both in French, and British quarters, wholly bear out the official denial already issued by the British military authorities. It is noteworthy that the Boulogne newspa er which gave currency to the story lias declined to print the denial. The report, it has been ascertained, originated with a conductor on the BoulogneWimereux route, who stated to some unknown person that, three women got into his tramway-car on the Wimereux road in an agitated state and declared that two khaki-clad English girls had. just been found dead in the neighbourhood of the W.A.A.C. camp at Honvault, a' suburb of Wimereux. The* news spread like wild-fire, and; soon everybody in Boulogne and Wimereux was talking of the murder of two English girls by two Scottish soldiers!

As the result of the most searching inquiry the three British Assistant Pro-vost-Marshals in Boulogne, also General Gibb, the Deputy-Adjutant and Quartermaster-General, and General Diebold, the French military governor of Boulogne, dismiss the story as idle gossip. Miss Davy, Chief Comptroller for France of the W.A.A.C.s, and Miss Betts, who is in charge of the Navy and Army Canteen Board, declare that none of their girls is missing. On the other hand, there seems to be ground for the complaints of disorderly conduct by British troops in Boulogne. The detachment of Military Foot Police is stated to be too small for the number of the British troops stationed at Boulogne and environs, and for the large numbers of men from the East, who are passing through on demobilisation.