2. Tear-producing gases. The next step was to find some means of nullifying as much as possible the protection of respiratory apparatus, so the good Germans invented the tear-producing gases which, in spite of the special glasses that have been added to the masks, rapidly interfere with vision and place the victim hors de combat.
The Allies were forced, in self-defence, to resort to similar means.
3. “Gaz-vésicant.” A new gas invented also by the Germans has made its apparition on the Western Front. It is known in France under the name of gaz-vésicant; it acts after a few hours only; it is colourless and inodorous; it destroys all the tissues as thoroughly as they would be under the action of sulphuric acid.
We have mentioned the preponderant use of asphyxiating shells in neutralization fire. All our armies are now provided with a variety of gas-generating apparatus, some of which have given excellent results as regards accuracy and rapidity of discharge.
There is another reason why the Germans should be unable to congratulate themselves on this invention. Westerly and north-westerly winds are more frequent in France than easterly winds, so that gas attacks can be made oftener by the Allies than by their enemies.
4. Liquid fire (flammenwerfer). When neither guns nor gases fulfilled their expectations and they saw that the “furor Teutonica” embodied in the mass-attacks of the best soldiers of the Kaiser was powerless to break through the Franco-British lines, the Germans resorted to the use of liquid fire.
In favourable weather before the attacks are launched, men in heavy bullet-proof steel breastplates are sent forward, carrying on their backs reservoirs very similar to those used on farms to sprinkle sulphate on the crops. Through nozzles connected with these reservoirs they throw by the force of compressed air streams of burning liquid to a distance of fifty to sixty yards. The dense clouds of black smoke produced by the liquid fire mask its bearers from the sight of the enemy.
Liquid fire, especially at the beginning, when the Allies were unprepared for this mode of attack, rendered good service to the Germans by enabling them to take some advanced trenches at small cost to themselves.
The present results are less brilliant. Grenades have done the work against the mail-clad bearers of flammenwerfer that rifles or machine-guns could not. When a bearer falls, the masterless nozzle does not always continue to spit its flames in the direction of the enemy, but is often turned against the other bearers, and even against the very troops whose advance it is intended to protect, thus spreading great disorder in their ranks.
Recently, in order to compensate for the decreasing morale of their troops the Germans have resorted more and more to the use of flammenwerfer.