Gas and flame in modern warfare

by Samuel James Manson Auld

A fire was then placed in the dugout to clear it. In the meantime the medical sergeant secured another dugout by clearing out some infantrymen. In the evening the infantry felt soul-sick and wanted somewhere to sleep, so they went into the original gassed dugout and slept there. In the morning they all went down, gassed.

Where there has been no direct hit and the mustard-gas vapour gets into the dugout, it can be cleared out just like ordinary gas, by ventilation either with fans or by means of fires. For clearing dugouts a great deal of reliance is placed nowadays on building small fires inside. A dugout with two entrances can be very quickly cleared by means of fires, as a through draft is produced, which carries the gas away with it; but difficulty is frequently found in getting the necessary fuel for the fire and in keeping the stuff handy. Bundles of firewood and kindling material are supposed to be kept in the dugouts ready for use; but, as has already been explained, the Tommies are always on the lookout for combustible materials for their own fires, and continual inspection has to be made to see that the special supplies for ventilation are kept available. One officer told me that he always had the supplies of wood, paper and kerosene kept in an army-biscuit tin which was closed and sealed; because, as he said, no Tommy would ever investigate the contents of a biscuit tin unless absolutely forced to do so for lack of other food.

It should be realised, however, that properly protected dugouts have given perfect immunity from the mustard gas as long as the protection has remained intact, and a great deal of attention is being paid to increasing the number of the protected shelters in order to give the men the necessary rest from wearing their respirators occasioned by the extensive use by the boche of his Yellow Cross Shell. In Nieuport a special gas patrol was instituted for going the round of the town to see that blanket protection of cellars and shelters was kept in good condition, as there was always a chance that they would not be well looked after or that the blankets had been taken down by some enterprising Tommy for his own personal use.

Round about battery positions the most annoying feature of the mustard gas is the length of time it persists. In the shell holes it can at any rate be partly destroyed by sprinkling with chloride of lime. It is rather interesting to find that in some captured German instructions great secrecy was laid on the use of chloride of lime for getting rid of the effects of mustard gas. The boche kept boxes of chloride of lime in all positions where the gas shell were stored, and issued instructions to his own troops that “the use of chloride of lime for the protection of our own troops against Yellow Cross liquid must not become known to the enemy. Observation of the strictest secrecy is a matter of duty just as much now as it was previously. The troops will be thoroughly instructed in these precautionary measures, but nothing will be taught them as regards the nature or composition of the antidote employed.”

During the present offensive the Germans have used very large quantities of mustard gas, generally for holding purposes and against our rear lines, battery positions, communications and reserves. This is kept up for many hours in order to wear out the patience of our fellows and weaken them for the coming assault.

Strong points that the boche does not wish to attack are also swamped with the gas, and when Armentières were evacuated by the British, Yellow Cross liquid was actually running down the gutters. But in places that he intends to assault he will complete the mustard-gas bombardment against our troops some considerable time before he advances; otherwise his own troops would run into it and be forced to don their respirators.

The quantities of shell used in this preparation are enormous and supplies of the mustard gas must have been accumulated during the winter to an unexpected extent and their manufacture proceeded with to full capacity.

Take it altogether, Yellow Cross gas is very much more than an annoyance, but there is no question that good discipline and thorough appreciation and carrying out of the orders laid down for the protection of troops have reduced the losses in very much the same way that the screwed-up discipline reduced the losses after the first introduction of Green Cross Shell. One of the most objectionable features of the mustard gas is the continual care that has to be exercised to prevent casualties. It is so easy for a man whose clothing is slightly contaminated with gas to enter a dugout and contaminate the whole of the interior and all its occupants. Sentries also have to be posted to warn troops passing through or into an area that has been bombarded with mustard gas, so that respirators can be put on. After a cold night the officers must be continually on the watch to see whether the vapours that rise from the warming of the earth by the morning sun are charged with mustard gas, and to take the necessary precautions on the slightest detection of the characteristic smell. This smell to my mind is much more like garlic than mustard, and the use of the term “mustard gas” is purely the origination of the Tommies themselves. As a matter of fact, so as not to confuse the Yellow Cross liquid with true mustard oil, efforts were made at first to prevent the stuff from being called mustard gas. But once the British Tommy decides on a name for anything, that name it is bound to have, and as he adopted the name “mustard gas” for it mustard gas it will remain for all time.

The other new material that was introduced by the Germans in the summer of 1917 and which, like mustard gas, has been in use ever since is the German “sneezing gas.” For a long time high-explosive bombardments were reported on many occasions to be accompanied with violent sneezing, which at the time was laid down to the presence in the air of undecomposed explosive from the shell. As a matter of fact the sneezing was due to the presence inside the high-explosive shell of bottles containing chemicals the chief effect of which is to cause violent sneezing when small quantities get into the air. This sneezing material, or sternutator, to give it its scientific name, in this case was a solid which is atomised into tiny particles when the shell bursts. Chemically speaking, it is called diphenylchlorarsine. This material is used embedded in the trinitrotoluene of the explosive shell in most cases, and such shells are called Blue Cross Shell, and are marked accordingly. This is the third of the present trilogy of the German coloured-cross gas shell. The sneezing gas is also sometimes mixed in with the contents of the Green Cross Shell in considerable proportions.

The idea underlying the use of this sneezing gas by the Germans was apparently partly that of getting a gas which they thought might go through our masks. In this of course they were disappointed, as the respirator keeps out sneezing gas perfectly well. The other idea underlying its use was apparently to cause such violent sneezing as to prevent men from getting their masks quickly adjusted or to cause them to sneeze them off if they had been put on.