The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-06-07

l ing is more prosperous, more popular, nor
 more patronized.
 Today the great dailies of New York
 give long reviews to the new feature films" just as they once did to the new plays, but I believe more attention Is paid to the pictures now than to the Legitimate" theatrical productions
 And this brings us to the two latest and greatest of motion picture undertakings, each of which had it's premiere on Broad way just a few days ago. They are: "Civilization,'' a Thomas H. Ince peace propaganda, and "The Fall of a Nation," Thomas Dixon preparedness lesson. Doubtless they will soon be given to the country at large-see them, each is worth 1t.
 "Civiliza tionr is one of the most pre- tentious pictures ever filmed. It may not be put on elsewhere as it is here, how ever At the Criterion, where I saw it Sunday evening, the opening scene had many real people in it, and was com plete stage set. It is a farm scene of peace, then comes war, and in a mo- ment the stage is full of dead and dying. Thus the picture was introduced. The
  Just come home from service as British agent in Egypt, had accepted an earldom from King George, and was being talked of as vlceroy of India. Within few hours after England's declaration of war, Kitchener was appointed secretary of state tor war and immediately took full charge at the war office where he worked day and night to overcome the handicap which the central powers had over Eng land in the matter of fighting strength. lie grimly told the British people they had a bigger war on their hands than they realized, and one that might last longer than they expected, but 1t was to be faced with entire confidence and he, unsmilingly, almost like a dehumanized machine, set about to make things hum. He had scarcely moved into Whitehall street when he made numerous changes Tn the personnel of the war office, winch was said to be honeycombed with so- cial and political favoritism.
 After dispatching a few hundred thou sand regulars to France and Belgium to help check the onrushing Germans, the war secretary began recruiting and or ganizing his army of millions. The Brit isll Isles were covered with signs and posters urging young men to join the colorS. Kitchener went through the coun- try experimenting the drilling of the army. From time to time were reports indicating his failure to get the number of men he wanted, but within year aft l eI luC war OpGH6u G'T6t1lleF ASQuIlIl OI- Ficially announced in Parliament that about 100000 men had enlisted in the I United Kingdom alone, and almost an other 100000 in the overseas dominions. OBJECT OF CRITICISM
 Kitchener, however, was the object of no little criticism. There was much grumbling because of the strict censor | ship he imposed on newspapers and his | utter disregard for war correspondents. Notwithstanding this, the British newspa- l pers gave him active support prior to May, 1915. During the winter months | the war secretary had announced the | 'big drive would begin about the first l of May. The battle of Neuve Chapelle occurred in May, and England believed
 this was the beginning of the big drive. l Shortly afterward, reports reached Eng
 tand thatJthe drive had halted owing to II a shortage of munitions. especially high exrlosives shells. "A, St m Of tfel London press tken declaredN atf Kitchener hac Idnade serious mistake in providing large Iquantities sof shrapnel and insufficient high explosives. Newspaper attacks went
 so far as to suggest his being displaced as war secretary, but the majority of the papers defended him. It was agreed that the raising of a big army and supplying munitions at the same time ! too great a task for one man. The discussion de- l FciOpco tuo lOTIIldllOI1 OI cOdlIlOn CdDl- | net and the creation of the new port folio of minister of munitions, of which
 David Lloyd-George took charge while 1 Kitchener remained as war munster. | Without his crowning achievements as | the great organizer of the British cam
 paign in the European war, Kitchener
 had already won wide and lasting fame
 by his many campaigns in Egypt, South l Africa and in India.
 |
 BORN IN IRELAND
 1 He was born June A, 1S50 in County
 Kerry, Ireland, a fact that gave rise to
 a general belief that he was of Irish l blood, but his parents were of French | and English descent. His father was a
 soldier but of no very high rank. He
 had managed to climb to the lieutenant
 colonelcy of a dragoon regiment, when he retired to the estate in Ireland, where Horatio Herbert Kitchener, the to-be-dis- | tinguished son, was born. Young Kitch- | ener received his fundamental military education at Woolwch, where he dis played only ordinary bril,iancy, with the
 exception of his liking for mathematics. On graduating he received a commission l in the Royal Engineers, but when not yet 21 years of age he attached himself
 to a French army in the Franco Prussian war He had been in the service only a
 short time when he contracted pneumonia during a balloon flight, and had such a prolonged and serious illness that he had | to give up further service for France.
 Kitcheners experience in European war l fare-prior to his direction of the great
 war of 1914-therefore, had been limited
 only to few balloon flights in France. 1 In 1874 when British expedition was sent out to survey western Palestine, | Kitchener was one of the eager volun- l teers accepted for this service. For months he travelled over the hills and valleys of this peaceable Bible land with | his theodoilte and surveying tape, and with this life in the open he grew to be a tall, gaunt subaltern with hard face
 well burned. His contribution to the typographical knowledge of the Holy
 Land completed. young Kitchener was
 sent to Cyprus, which Great Britain had
 just acquired, to organize a system of courts a work in which he displayed ad-
 ministrative ability and tact.
 TROUBLE IN SUDAN
 l It was while there. in 1882, that he took
 his first step on the path that was to
 lead him eventually to knartum. Trouble was already brewing in the Sudan. Hear ing that the Egyptian army was being
 organized by Sir Evelyn Wood, young Kitchener saw his opportunity with un- erring instinct and lost no time in of- | fering his services. The military au- thorities. recognizing at once lhis insight
 into the native character, put him in the l intelligence department. and from the
 very outset of his Egyptian career nego-
 tions of the utmost importance were en- trusted to him and carried out with in- Iva ria ble success. As an intelligence off