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spectators stampede in panic, as if being warned of danger, and simultaneously the soldiers got their arms from the slope, cocked rifles and the first shots rang out. Bullets were flying
all over where I was standing, and I leaped for safety in through the hotel window, where I had to take cover behind pillars against the rain of bullets aimed at the hotel. The fire was immediately returned by the British and French naval machine-gun units posted along Shameen, followed by the Shameen's Police force in the Police Station and hotel, and was aimed entirely at the attacking military forces across the creek, which were said to be the Whampoa cadets under their Russian leaders, The procession proper had, when the firing started, reached the English bridge, and was therefore out of the danger zone. The actual firing took place between the French and the English bridges and was kept up by the Shameen defenders for about 10 minutes, while the troops on Shakee kept up intermittent sniping from the house tops for about an hour and a half after Shameen had ceased firing. The French gunboat stationed off the French Concession participated with about 8 shots from their heavy artillery, but these I was later told were blank rounds. The casualties on the Shameen side numbered one French civilian killed outright and two British civilians wounded. As to the casualties on the other side the figures are very conflicting, but must have been heavy.
Later in the afternoon, when firing had ceased, I observed from the Shameen Police Station how the Chinese collected a large number of dead bodies, stripped off their clothes in a small side street just opposite and brought a photographer along to photograph the scene. It is, of course, superfluous to enlarge on the purpose for this action.
In view of the fact that the Canton Government im- mediately after the incident saw fit to notify the Consular
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to a state of mind that they did not know what they were doing. Suddenly a shot was fired from Shakee Street, followed by a couple of others, and then a volley of shots, which was answered from Shameen. The first shots were unquestionably fired by the Chinese from Shakee Street and there was some delay in answering fire from Shameen.
The Bolsheviks had arranged the procession with both civilians and troops in order to create an "incident". The troops had to create the "incident" and civilians were used in order to present photographs of a peaceful procession and to give the Bolsheviks occasion to point out that there was no reason whatever to fire on an unarmed procession when the Shameen creek lay between the procession and Shameen.
As another proof of preparations by the Canton Govern- ment for the attack on Shameen, I may add that the machine guns used by the Chinese were in position on the tops of the houses opposite Shameen the day before the "incident” took place, and I have myself seen the marks of their machine-gun fire in the French Concession. As a matter of fact, the body of Mons. Pasquier contained no less than eight bullets, obviously from machine-gun fire.
CANTON, 25th June, 1925.
(Sd.) C. J. B. HELLSTROM.
APPENDIX I.
Reuters' Telegram dated the 25th June, 1925, reporting the French Minister's note of protest.
Peking, June 25.-The French Minister last evening handed in a Note to the Waichiaopu stating: The Minister regrets to bring to the knowledge of the Chinese Government
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