OCR Text |
Show ACCUSEFRENCH OF USING GAS FIST SEMI-OFFICIAL STATEMENT ISSUED IS-SUED DEFENDING GERMAN WARFARE METHODS. Compares Use of Gas With the Inundation Inun-dation of Fighting Areas, and Argues Ar-gues That Both Methods Are Equally humane. Berlin. A semi-official statement .has been issued here explaining and defending the German use of asphyxiating asphyx-iating gases. The first point made is that the British and French employed such gases before the Germans, and in addition ad-dition to the earlier statements of the German official war reports concerning concern-ing such alleged use, the statement now cites the text of a communication communica-tion said to have been issued by the French ministry of war describing two sorts of projectiles designed to produce a stifling gas and the mode of their usage. This communication is said to have been dated February 21, before the Germans employed gas in their attack upon Ypres. The German statement refers to alleged al-leged reports published in American newspapers that the Lusitania carried 250,000 pounds of tetrachloride of tin, consigned to the French government and intended for the production of asphyxiating gases. Speaking of her use of gas, the statement says the proviso against the use of gas in the Hague convention, adopted against the votes of the American delegates, was added to the protocol of the meeting and that it had not been proven that shells with asphyxiating gases were an inhuman or unnecessarily unneces-sarily cruel method of war. The German Ger-man statement finally compares the use of gas with the inundation of fighting areas, instancing the flooding of the region of Nieuport by the Belgians Bel-gians some time ago, and argues that both methods are equally humane and that an enemy merely needs to withdraw with-draw to escape their effects. |