Gas and flame in modern warfare

by Samuel James Manson Auld

“It may be weeks before the right time comes, but all the time the pioneer officers and Unteroffiziere make observations of the wind and report back to somebody at headquarters. On the night fixed for the attack all the infantry are warned beforehand. If the wind continues favourable the sandbags are taken off, the domes removed from the cylinders, and to each cylinder is attached a lead pipe which is bent over the top of the parapet into No Man’s Land, with the end slightly bent up, so that if any liquid comes out it is not wasted in the ground but evaporates in the air. The end of the lead pipe is weighted with a sandbag, so that it will not kick when the gas is turned on and blow the gas back into our own trenches, as happened in one or two of the earlier attacks. It is this kind of thing that makes gas unpopular in the German Army.

“Eventually the time really does arrive for the attack, and the pioneers stand by the cylinders, of which twenty form a battery; and to each battery there are two pioneers and one noncommissioned officer waiting to unscrew the taps. A signal is given by means of a rocket. All the infantry have been eagerly waiting for this signal, which means that they have five minutes to clear out of the front-line trenches before the gas is turned on; and I can tell you they do not waste any time. Everybody makes a rush to the support trench and leaves the front line entirely to the pioneers.

“We all keep our masks ready to put on at a moment’s notice, because in the earlier attack the wind on two occasions blew the gas back again into our own trenches and killed a lot of the infantry who were unprepared for its return. According to the length of time the attack is to last the cylinders are turned on, from one up to five at a time, in each battery.

“As soon as the taps are turned on the pioneers make for cover, but they have a good many losses from bursting cylinders, from leaks, and from the shrapnel and high-explosive shells which invariably greet the start of an attack. The promptness with which this happened at the time I was in the line made us believe that your people had known all about our gas preparations for some time. The infantry are all very glad to be away from the front-line trench when the cloud is sent over.”

This method has been practically unaltered throughout the time the Germans have made gas attacks. In the first attack they probably had one gas cylinder on every yard of front on which gas was installed, but the number was increased in subsequent attacks.

CHAPTER II

The first respirators—First-aid devices—the smoke helmet—Anti-gas sprayers—Their use and delicacy—The English chemists set to work—The task of training the whole army.

There is no need to dwell on the execration with which the use of gas was met by the whole civilised world, and I will merely try to recount how it was taken by the men in the trenches.

The British Tommy is a difficult man to terrify, and the moral effect on the men, though quite unprotected, was remarkably small considering the terrors of the game. For two or three days all we heard about were the things we should do in the event of being similarly attacked. It appeared that great chemists from England had immediately taken up the question of providing efficient respirators, and until they came out were advising people as to emergency measures. Some of these methods seemed to us very funny. We were told, for example, that a respirator could “easily” be made by knocking the bottom off a bottle, filling the bottle with earth, and then learning to breathe with the neck of the bottle stuck in the mouth. The breath was to be taken in through the bottle and let out through the nose; but as bottles were scarce and few of them survived the attempt to get the bottom broken off there was not much doing.

However, we learned that handkerchiefs filled with earth and kept moist would keep some of the gas out, and by the time the first novelty had worn off we were receiving private respirators from England. These had all been made in response to an appeal by Lord Kitchener to the women of England to make respirators for the troops out of cotton wool wrapped up in muslin or veiling. The result of this was that the War Office was absolutely swamped with millions of these respirators within a few days, and most fellows in the trenches had one or two sent out by post straightaway.