The 23rd dawned bright and clear, a perfect spring morning. Soon after daybreak word came that the Germans had broken the French line between Bixschoote and Langemarck. The 1st Cavalry Division was ordered to concentrate between Ecke and Godawaersvelde, preparatory to being sent up in support.
The Germans had sprung their first gas attack in the grey of dawn, launching the asphyxiating fumes at a portion of the allied line held by the 78th French Reservist Division.
The success of the new manœuvre had been extraordinary. That it far exceeded the most sanguine hopes of the Germans was clear from the fact that very few troops were available to take advantage of so great a hole in the allied line. No German cavalry was sufficiently near at hand to be utilised. That this point was brought well home to the Huns was made clear to us within very few hours afterward, for before the second gas attack the Germans had moved up a couple of corps of cavalry to a point within call.
But the opportunity had passed. Gas, when its use was unexpected, its effect multiplied by ignorance as to what it really was, and vague conjecture as to what it might be, and gas when our troops were expecting it and had been warned as to its objects and dangers, were very different propositions.
That the German gas attacks were for some time most demoralising, and often locally successful, was not to be denied; but some part of the line invariably held, and made the local enemy gain of less importance. Respirators assisted men to stay in their trenches in spite of the coming of the noxious fumes. Of far more value was the gradual realisation on the part of the men that gas could be withstood, and might or might not envelope them in sufficient quantity to produce a deadly effect.
Those French reservists who first were wrapped in the strange greenish-yellow mist that left them gasping for air and dying of strangulation, were not to be too greatly condemned for the general scamper that ensued. Under the circumstances, the indefinable and inexplicable horror would very likely have torn the line from the grasp of the most seasoned troops of either the French or British armies. Later I saw battalions of English veterans in utter demoralization by the coming of the gas, and it was many a day before the sight of a gas cloud failed to bring great terror to many a soldier who had to face it.
By ten o'clock on the morning of the 23rd the situation seemed most serious. Back from the Bixschoote-Langemarck line the French had come to the line of the canal that leads south from Steenstraate to Ypres. At a point not far from Boesinghe the Huns had actually crossed to the west bank of the canal, were at the very doors of Boesinghe, and had taken Het-Sas and Lizerne to the north. Lizerne was well to the west of the canal, and on the main Dixmude-Ypres road.
Messages that reached the 1st Cavalry Division, explaining the situation, were addressed to the Cavalry Corps, Indian Cavalry, 2nd Army, and the new Northumbrian Territorial Division. All these units were to be engaged on that front before many days had passed.
General De Lisle ran to 5th Corps Headquarters in Poperinghe before eleven o'clock. We passed battalion after battalion of the North Country Terriers along the road, trudging sturdily Ypreswards, or lying in the fields for a breather.
Ambulances were continually arriving in Poperinghe, full of wounded and gassed Tommies.