DESERTER COMPLIMENTED.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 173, 12 May 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

DESERTER COMPLIMENTED.

A STIRRING HISTORY. Alfred Lavergnc, a deserter, has just been acquitted by court-martial in Paris and congratulated. He deserted to go to the front. When the war broke out he was sent to a depot. In despair he deserted and enlisted ill the Foreign Legion as a Belgian subject, under the name of Leopold van Hout. He then got what h'j wanted, and was sent at once to fight. But as ill-luck would have it, Belgium claimed all Belgians serving with the Foreign Legion, and Van Hout, supposed to be a Belgian, had to obey. He was sent back from th'e front and told off to train Belgian recruits. This spoilt his plans again, but after many endeavours he once more succeeded in being sent to the lighting-line, and was in Somme again. This time with the Belgian troops, ho was mentioned for gallantry by his col onel. General de Castelnau, during a review, presented him with a splendid pipe, and King Albert sent him a box of cigars. '1 lien he was given three, weeks' leave, and had the unlucky idea of going to his native villago in Dordogne, where very soon he was arrested as a deserter last August. At the trial lie made a clean breast of it, but added that he had deserted his depot, not deserted France. He was unanimously found not guilty, and woat back to the firing-line.