French tricolour presentation sash

Blue, white and red silk tricolour sash with cut, angled ends. Originally tied in a large bow around the stem of a bronze palm leaf, RELAWM01422.001. The sash is faded and marked from many years of display.

On 29 December 1922, Admiral Gilly, head of a French trade mission to Australia, presented to the Australian Prime Minister, Mr W M Hughes, on behalf of the French President, a bronze palm leaf tied with a tricolour sash. It was, Gilly said, at the public luncheon where he presented the palm, 'a tribute to the memory of Australia's fallen soldiers...a symbol of undestroyable remembrance to peretuate the memory of the heroic children of a noble country who fought in the great war and met death on the battlefields'. The palm leaf and sash were transferred to the Australian War Museum in Melbourne on 3 January 1923 and placed on display the following day. Newspaper advertisements encouraged the public to come and see the French tribute.