Evening star., 1915-10-10
Will Irwin Tells National Press
Club of European
= Conflict.
GREAT BRITAIN IS LAGGING
IN MAKING MUNITIONS
Bulgarian Participation in Contro'
versy Regarded as Blow to Allies.
No Prophet Of Result.

The women Of France are urging
their men to fght-not to defeat Ger
many. SO much as to put an end to
war forever.
This Is the opinion Of Will Irwin,
war correspondent and promoter of
the Belgian relief commission, who
talked for nearly three hours at the
National Press Club last night.
Mr.. Irwin ranged over all the battle
fields of Europe. He took his audience
into the condolences of the war office
of England. revealed many unprintable
secrets Of British war politics, and told
first-hand tales of the capture Of Ger
man submarines. Newspaper men and
their guests who heard him gave their
French women.
Bribe offered to France.
TN the beginning of this war;" said
Mr.. Irwin, Germany offered Alsace-
right there. 1t was not talked Of much.
was pretty big bribe.
sons at the front, and it was the same
way with the chamber of deputies. The
army could not settle it, of course, and
SO the men of France determined to
leave it to the women. And they said:
No. Let us fight this thing out here.
We have been supporting a military
machine for years. We will let our
sons die, and we will all die ourselves,
but we want to fight it out so that
war can end forever and we will not
nave this thing on us again in another
twenty years."
Mr.. Irwin began his talk by telling
In confidence to a representative gath
er1ng of correspondents many things
about the way the British mishandled
the ammunition and munitions problem
in the beginning of the war Much of
1t has been printed here; and under the
direction of Lord Northcliffe, in Lon
don, the London Mail and the London
Times have effected a revolution in the
One of the remarkable statements
made by Mr.. Irwin was that. with all
the experience that England has had
In lack of shells at the front, the
out only eight times as much ammuni-
tion as they did before the war.
:. And England is a steel and manu-
featuring country" he said.
Contrasted with that small increase.
the war correspondent said that France
nitions as before the opening Of the
conflict.
He told how Kitchener has raised
an army Of 100000 volunteers. and
contrasted the British army with that
of France. Most striking was his de-
scription Of the class feeling In the
British army:
THE enlisted men Of the lower
classes will not follow an officer unless
the officer be of the upper class. For
that reason the better class Of young
Englishman is being killed off,
1T Is almost impossible to make a
good British officer Of a man not in
that class. He may be a good soldier
an elegant soldier-but he has been
brought up to take. not to give. orders.
In the French army every soldier
has a marshars baton in his knapsack.
There are instances of men being pri-
Yates a year ago who today are
First Gas Attack.
An incident of the first gas attack,
related by Mr. Irwin, was as follows:
THE British. near Ypres, heard a
noise one night out in the no mans
land'-the zone where the dead were
lying-and turned on the searchlights.
They saw a German there prowling
around and brought him in.
They scared him by saying they
were to shoot him as a spy. although
they weren't going to do any such
thing. as he was in full uniform. He
told them. in return for the life they
would grant him, that his army was
generating poisonous gases to be used
on the English.
THE officers thought 1t pipe dream.
They simply locked him up with other
prisoners, and didn't think about 1t un-
til two weeks later, when the first gas
attack came.
ALSO, British officers got hold Of a
LHaan pi S1it o.au III 1890
that thhe British had used poisonous
gases in gaining a German position.
The British officers didn't know what
it meant, but it is now clear that the
Germans disseminated the news that
the English had first used the gas so
that the blame for introducing it
would lay in the British army"
He gave great praise for the eff
cheney of the English individual soldier.
and described in interesting detail the
fine work done in establishing hos