"BRIGANDS" IN FRANCE.

Taihape Daily Times, 3 September 1919, Page 2

"BRIGANDS" IN FRANCE.

.____o.__.._ I INCIDENT," .-Yl‘ A£>'Bl‘l\7ll;l;E. ’ LI-BEI,I‘.I'NG- TI-lb‘ ;\‘e='S'l‘l3A];‘lANS. Bishop ~l..olxg_. who was with the lforres as Chaplain-en:.>ral, told a big; audience in Illt‘ l3etl2nr--'-t School of ,_\:-t_»lllall that .~.'onle e.\'traur(.linal'y libels hm} been levelled at the .v\.I.F. on the other side, and that there was a class of poo. ple in .\.ust'ralie were only too ready to believe them. “One tla_\_j_" he Said, “the ;‘ircll- - I); (.£::ll:‘;">yl2'_y told ‘mg t‘~~~" hz-ad llearzl that :1 lot of ;\.i:::§:*rilZ.:i:l isoldiers had If"c-lten 11\\‘:1}'. uml h:1~:l formed :1. big band ot.’ bl'lgand.~: in :1 French forest, where t.h'e;.' wwre stick‘ing up «>\'l~r')'l.><‘>fT}'. I prom].-’;-:'d to investigate when l went over to Franer: the following da}',""<llltl did s-o. finding :1 certain amount. of truth in the vztory. DESER'i‘EP.b‘ INTP.ENC.H§'JI), “A number of deserters got aw.-a_\' and entrenclied tlieniselves in a forest near Abbeville. and got, hold of 1: supply of ‘Wills bombs and rifles, so we sent a party of Austl'alian.~s to hunt them out. “One fellow in en A.I.F_ uniform came -out, and the ‘twelve attackers‘ fired. ‘He was picked up with eleven bullet wounds ‘in him-, which slrowl just what the. real Australians thought I of him_ The others were also in Ans-I tralian dre.<s, which had been Stolen. Exmnination showed the party con-! sisted of one Alistxzalian. one French-, man, and five deserting Tommies, but I the incident was magnified until th're ‘ were 500 Austr.ali:ms_ 7 l The Tl3ishop recounted that he once: came across 3. party of English troops : in e. Gr(“."1)1{1}W town much aggrieved ’rl.ll'()ug‘l\., the shortage of rations, due, they were told. to the Aus_tl'alians having pillaged the trains, whereas the .:‘x.lir,'tx-al'ialll“troops were {never near them. STORY OF MISSING BOOTS. I “But, what was :1 fact,” he added, “was that we sent 500 pairs of new boots for the men abdut to come home, ‘but only 2000 pémls reached them. The Tonnnies had pillnged the rest andsold 'l:em.” ‘ I “I. do hope,” concluded Bishop Long, "t‘::z:l' the Little Australians that one t:«e;-ts n:>r:(-asioiially will not continue to 5;p1'(\:1(l_ the rntrue. things that people who don’t know the Al.lst.l'alians say about them. Some people seemed to th§nk that the .-’\nst<r.:llian soldier was nothing but 9, drunken rebel, and there are Inany in Australia that believe any sort. of slander. I was once occupied in going through the field punishment I records, and there was evidence that We certainly had our proportion of bad Clinracters. But the records show that ‘ not five per cent -of these men had been I born in Australia. We had withns a. mrtain number of international blackguards who joined up in ‘Aust.ra.lia after leaving their own countries. But I those men never did cla_v"s fighting.” [