THE FRENCH MISSION.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 January 1919, Page 2

THE FRENCH MISSION.

The French mission, which has spent the past few months in Australia, consists of General Pau, head of the mission, Commandant D'Andre, attache to General Pan, M. Marcel Mathieu, M. Leclerq-Motte, of Wattrelos, woollen manufacturer, M. Corbiere, of Nonant-le-Pin, agricultural engineer and stockbreeder, M. Georges Bader, secretary, and accountant, and Dr. Siegfried, general secretary of the mission. Accompanying them is Mr Meadows Smith, delegated by the British Government. He was formerly secretary of the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris. When the mission left France it was headed by M. Albert Metin, a Labor member of the Chamber of Deputies, and former Minister for Blockade. He, however, died in San Francisco while the mission was on the way to Australia, and the leadership was assumed by General Pau. General Pau, who loat his right arm in tho Franco-German war, in 1870, was a youth when the 1870 war broke out.. He was terribly wounded three times in the battle of Woerth, but managed to struggle home with the loss of an arm. When his ann was scarcely healed he heard M. Bourbaki was organising an army in order to fight on after France ■was defeated. He insisted on rejoining and fighting with it on the Swiss frontier. When Bourbaki's army was forced over the border into Switzerland, General Pau refused to cross the border. He made his way by night with a party of his men through the German lines back to France. During the next forty years he served a good part of his time in the French colonies. Finally, he reached a position on the superior war council 01 France. Realising the manner in which the Germans were increasing their army, General Pau insisted on the law of three years' service in the French army. When told it was very unpopular, he still insisted he knew, it was necessary. That law was passed just in time to save France. At the outbreak of war, General Pau was already on the retired list, but asked to rejoin. He was sent to Alsace, when the French were beaten back there, and he drove back the Germans to the Rhine. By that time the condition of affairs in Belgium was serious. General Pau's last service consisted of bringing the Belgium army down from Antwerp to the French border. Later ho was sent on important missions to Switzerland and Russia. He speaks only a little English. Dr. Siegfried is a professor in the School of Political Science, Paris. He visited Australia and New Zealand in 1899, and is the author of "Democracy in New Zealand," and "Edward Gibbon Wakefield on the Theory of Colonisation in South Australia." He has also written of Canada and the political parties in France. Dr. Siegfried is a son of a former Minister for Commerce. He was with the British army for three years during the war, and won the Military Medal. Commandant D'Andre is a professional soldier. He played a brilliant part in the Battle of the Marne, was wounded, and wa,s awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor. He was a prisoner of war in Germany for two years, M. Louis Leclercq-Motte is a wool-. manufacture, of Roubaix, one 'of the towns held by the -Germans from 1014 up to the successful British advance in Flanders, just prior to the determination of hostilities. During the war he acted as an interpreter with the British Army. Ho holds the D.C.M. and Croix do' Guerre. M. Henri Corbiere is a well-known cattle and horse breeder, of Normandy, and is an agricultural expert. Though over military age, he enlisted at the outbreak of war, and won the Cross of the Legion of Honor. M. Bader, secretary an<J accountant of the mission, spent 14 years of his life in Australia, "being formerly attached to 'the French Bank in Melbourne, and was [also in a wool merchant's employ in Sydney.