Days to Remember: The British Empire in the Great War

by John Buchan; Sir Henry John Newbolt

The evening of Thursday, the 22nd, was calm and pleasant, with a light, steady wind blowing from the north-east. About 6.30 our artillery observers reported that a strange green vapour was moving over the French trenches. Then, as the April night closed in and the great shells still rained upon Ypres, there were strange and ghastly scenes on the left between the canal and the Pilkem road. Back through the dusk came a stream of French soldiers, blinded and coughing, and wild with terror. Some black horror had come upon them, and they had broken before a more than human fear. Behind them they had left hundreds of their comrades stricken or dead, with horrible blue faces and froth on their lips.

The rout surged over the canal, and the roads to the west were choked with broken infantry and galloping gun teams lacking their guns. Most of the French were coloured troops from Africa, and in the early darkness they stumbled upon the Canadian reserve battalions. With amazement the Canadians saw the wild dark faces, the heaving chests, and the lips speechless with agony. Then they too sniffed something in the breeze—something which caught at their throats and affected them with a deadly sickness.

The Second Battle of Ypres.

The immediate result of the stampede was a 5-mile breach in the Allied line. The remnants of the French troops were thrown back on the canal, where they were being pushed across by the German attack, and between them and the left of the Canadians were five miles of undefended country. Through this gap the enemy was pouring, preceded by the poisonous fumes of the gas, and supported by heavy artillery fire.

The Canadian front was held at the moment by the 3rd Brigade under General Turner on the left and the 2nd Brigade under General Currie on the right. The 1st Brigade was in reserve. The 3rd Brigade, on which the chief blow fell, had suffered from the gas, but to a less degree than the French. With his flank exposed General Turner was forced to draw back his left wing. Under the pressure of the four German divisions the brigade bent backwards till its left rested on the wood east of the hamlet of St. Julien. Beyond it, however, there was still a gap, and the Germans were working round its flank.

In that wood there was a battery of British guns, and the Canadians counter-attacked to save the guns and find some point of defence for their endangered flank. Assisted by two battalions from the 1st Brigade they carried the wood. A wilder struggle has rarely been seen than the battle of that April night. The British reserves at Ypres, shelled out of the town, marched to the sound of the firing, with the strange sickly odour of the gas blowing down upon them. The roads were congested with the usual supply trains for our troops in the Salient. All along our front the cannonade was severe, while the Canadian left, bent back almost at right angles, was struggling to entrench itself under cover of counter-attacks. In some cases they found French reserve trenches to occupy, but more often they had to dig themselves in where they could. The right of the German assault was already in several places beyond the canal.

The Canadians were for the most part citizen soldiers without previous experience of battle. Among their officers were men from every kind of occupation—lawyers, professors, lumbermen, ranchers, merchants. To their eternal honour they did not break. Overwhelmed by superior numbers of men and guns, and sick to death with the poisonous fumes, they did all that men could do to stem the tide. All night long with an exposed flank they maintained the gossamer line of the British front.

Very early in the small hours of Friday morning the first British reinforcements arrived in the gap. They were a strange mixture of units, commanded by Colonel Geddes of the Buffs—to be ever afterwards gloriously known as Geddes's Detachment. But our concern for the moment is with the Canadians. The reinforcements from the 1st Brigade counter-attacked, along with Geddes's Detachment, early on the Friday morning. Meantime the Canadian 3rd Brigade was in desperate straits. Its losses had been huge, and its survivors were still weak from the effects of the gas. No food could reach it for twenty-four hours. Holding an acute salient, it was under fire from three sides, and by evening was driven to a new line through St. Julien. The enemy had succeeded in working round its left, and even getting their machine-guns behind it.

About 3 o'clock on the morning of Saturday, the 24th, a violent bombardment began. At 3.30 there came a second gas attack. The gas, pumped from cylinders, rose in a cloud which at its greatest was 7 feet high. It was thickest close to the ground, and filled every cranny of the trenches. Instinct taught some of the men what to do. A wet handkerchief wrapped round the mouth gave a little relief, and it was obviously fatal to run back, for in that case a man followed the gas zone. Its effect was to produce acute bronchitis. Those smitten by it suffered horribly, gasping and struggling for breath, and in many cases becoming temporarily blind. Even 1,000 yards from the place of emission troops were afflicted with violent sickness and giddiness. Beyond that distance it dissipated itself, and only the blanched herbage marked its track.