The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-10-18
Tells of Warlike Preparations He Saw in France and England Be- fore the Declaration
 of War

both these, but incidentally he d1d many other things he hadn't counted on when he left home. For instance. he stayed in Dublin longer than he intended be- cause he couldn't get away and he left France a whole lot sooner than he ex-
 pected, because-well, because he didn't
 want to stay.
 Father Turner, a big, jolly, kind-eyed
 Irishman, apparently in the prime of
 life, has convictions about the war. They
 don't agree with what might appear to be the prevailing sentiments of the Amer ican public, but Father Turner isn't the least abashed on that account and made them known with the greatest alacrity. Some of His Assertions For instance, he says:
 The Car of Russia caused the war. England and France were preparing for war Just as much as Germany. The English and French soldiers men are not the equals of the Ger mans.
 The German campaign, since the war begun, in general has been continuous series of victories. The French and Eng fish has not.
 The English newspapers not only sup press the truth. but attempt to deny it. The home rule trouble in Ireland Is not buried in the interest of the "com- mon cause against Germany. The Irish people are not enlisting In the army to go to the continent and fight the Germans.
 Home rule in Ireland is foregone con- clusion and there will be little if any bloodshed.
 .'The eucharistic congress adjourned on July 26'' said Father Turner yesterday, al his home in West End, when seen by reporter He has been back about two weeks. .I and others in the same party then left for Gevernee in the Pyre- nees mountains, on sightseeing and pleasure trip on our way back home. When we came back to the hotel on the Tuesday evening before the saturday upon which France and Germany de- clared war, we found newspapers an nouncing the declaration of war between Servia and Austria and the possibility of France being drawn into the con f1ct.
 Saw Many Soldiers Er Route We immediately left for Bordeaux end en route there saw many soldiers on the trains, although saw no regular troop trains And there our first and principal trouble of the trip began-we couldn't get any money. All the banks refused to cash travellers checks or checks or paper money issued by the banks of France or England
 "Wednesday morning we got to Paris. Nowhere could we turn any of our paper into money. I went into the Credit Lyon naise at S:30 o'clock in the morning. and as every man went in he was handed little check with a number on 1t. Mine was 143. There had been 142 persons ahead | of me already. There was a run on all , the banks.
 "The hotef at which we were stopping l however was one at which have stayed several times during visits to Paris and I was rather well acquainted with the proprietor, who at last consented to change some of our paper into gold and | silver which was the only legal tender l accepted, and we left that night for Lon I don. Before we got the money, however, l I went into little lunch stand to get q sandwich and cup of coffee Have you | got any money?' asked the waiter. Oh. i yes' I told him.. and showed him paper worth dozens of times what I had or dered. He shook his head. Nothing but 1 gold or silver, he said, and walked out
 without my lunch and my coffee Looked Warlike Even Then When we left Paris, which was four days before war was declared, mind you, all the railway stations were guarded with soldiers and the railway lines through city and country were likew.se guarded. Things began to look pretty warlike. When we crossed the channel and landed | in England, it was the same way. The troops were being mobilized in the south of England and all trains were loaded with soldiers bound south, while every l mile of the railroads and all of the sta tions were under close military guard. l "I finally arrived at Dublin and there IT stayed for over three weeks because I couldn't get away. The government had seized all of the railway lines, all the au- /, tomobiles and all of the gasoline Every body was safe enough. but they simply had to stay where they were So we l stayed and waited But never a word did we get of the war.
 'The English papers did not print a word of the troop movement and even denied that large armies had been taken across to the continent until three weeks after such had really occurred. Then they began to tell of German defeats, the first report coming out following the battle of Liege, in which they reported thou, sands and thousands of Germans slaugh- tered. Soon after that they began to pub. fish stories of the 'masterly retreat of the English and a day or two later were stories of the English dead, at first given as 2000, then coco and then 5000. And of those 5000 only few were ever accounted for. It seems the Germans simply scat tered them all over Belgium and they never have been heard from since. Began to Come Home Not long after, worn out soldiers be- gan to come home in small punches. They could not stand the pace set by the , Germans. Some of them told stories of retreating for five days and five nights. and just soon as they would lie down in the road to attempt to get some sleep the Germans would be upon them. The newspapers printed stories with great headlines about the atrocities of the Ger man soldiers, but none of their informa- tion ever came direct. It always came through someone who had heard someone else say so My sympathy is with the Germans. The Czar of Russia, think, caused the war. England was jealous Of , Germany's trade with foreign countries and took advantage of the opportunity to try to help crush her hated industrial
 rival. The .Czar of Russia entered the