Unfortunately in the next attacks in which this just fury will be in evidence, it will be the unfortunate German soldier who must pay the price at the point of the bayonet, while the cold-blooded wretches who worked it all out will go scot free from the retribution which the Russians intend to administer with cold steel and the butt end of their muskets. In the meantime the Russians have taken steps which will in all probability render future attacks practically innocuous. Every soldier is receiving a respirator, a small mask soaked in some chemical preparation and done up in an air-tight packet ready for use. The preparation, it is believed, will keep out the fumes for at least an hour. It is highly improbable that any such period will elapse before the gases are dissipated by the wind; but in any event extra quantities of the solution will be kept in the trenches to enable the soldiers to freshen their masks if the gases are not cleared up within an hour.
In addition to this, open ditches will be dug in the trenches and filled with water, which will promptly suck up the gas that would otherwise linger on indefinitely. It is also proposed to strew straw in front of the positions and to sprinkle it with water before an attack with the gases in order to take up as much of the poison as possible before it reaches the trenches at all. When one remembers that though the first attack came without any preparations being made to meet it, and was an absolutely new experience to the Russians, it yet failed overwhelmingly, I think one need feel no anxiety as to the results which will follow the next attack when every preparation has been made by the Russians to receive it.
I have dwelt at some length on the subject of the poisoned gases, but as there is available evidence to indicate that the Germans are planning to make this an important feature of their campaign, it seems worth while to bring before the attention of the outside world all of the consequences which the use of this practice involve. I hear now from excellent sources that the Germans are equipping a large plant at Plonsk for the express purpose of making poison gases on a large scale. In what I have written before I have only mentioned the bearing of the gas on strictly military operations, but there is another consideration to be noticed in this new practice, and that is the effect which it has, and will have increasingly, upon the unfortunate peasant and civil population whose miserable fate it is to live behind the lines.
I am not aware of the nature and potency of the gas used in the West, but I read recently in the paper that it was so deadly that its effects were observable a full mile from the line of battle. Over here they were noticeable 25 miles from the line, and individuals were overcome as far away as 14 versts from the positions. The General commanding the — Siberian Corps told me that the sentry before his gate fell to the ground from inhaling the poisoned air, though his head-quarters is more than 10 miles away from the point where the Germans turned loose their fiendish invention. The General commanding the —th Division of this same Siberian Corps, against whom the attack was made, told me that the gases reached his head-quarters exactly 1½ hours after it passed the positions which he told me were between 5 and 6 versts from the house in which he lived. In the morning the fumes lay like a mist on the grass, and later in the day they were felt with sufficient potency to cause nausea and headaches at Grodisk, 30 versts from the trenches. Everywhere I was told of the suffering and panic among the peasants, who came staggering in from every direction to the Russian Red Cross stations and head-quarters. These, of course, were not as severely stricken as the troops in the front lines, and as far as I know none of them have died, but hundreds were being cared for by the Russian authorities, and among these I am told were many women and children.
Siberians returning from the trenches.
In fact it is but logical to expect the greatest suffering in the future to be among children, for the gas hangs very low, and where a six foot man might keep his nose clear of the fumes, a child of two or three years old would be almost sure to perish. The live stock suffered more or less, but there seems to have been a great difference in the effects of the gases upon different kinds of animals. Horses were driven almost frantic, cows felt it much less, and pigs are said not to have been bothered appreciably. In its effects on plants and flowers one notices a great range of results among different varieties. Pansies were slightly wilted, snapdragons absolutely, while certain little blue flowers whose name I do not know were scarcely affected at all. Some of the tips of the grasses were coloured brown, while leaves on some trees were completely destitute of any colour at all. I cannot explain the varying effects. I have in my pocket a leaf two-thirds of which is as white as a piece of writing paper while the remaining third is as green as grass. On the same tree some leaves were killed and others not affected at all. The effects also vary greatly in different parts of the country. From what I could observe the gas had flowed to all the low places where it hung for hours. In the woods it is said to have drifted about with bad effects that lasted for several days.
What I have described above is the first effect on the country, but if the Germans are to continue this practice for the rest of the summer I think there must be effects which in the end will result in far more injury to the peasants who are not prepared, than to the soldiers who are taught how to combat the gases. In the first place it seems extremely probable that this gas flowing to the low places will almost invariably settle in the lakes, marshes and all bodies of still water within 20 to 30 versts of the line. I am not sufficiently well grounded in chemistry to speak authoritatively, but it seems not improbable that the effect of this will be gradually to transform every small body of water in this vicinity into a diluted solution of hydrochloric acid, a solution which will become more and more concentrated with every wave of gas that passes over the country-side. If this be the case Poland may perhaps see huge numbers of its horses, cows and other live stock slowly poisoned by chloral while the inhabitants may experience a similar fate. With wet weather and moist soil will come a period when the chloral will go into the earth in large quantities. I do not know what effect this will have on the future of the crops, but I imagine that it will not help the harvest this year, while its deleterious effects may extend over many to come. In other words it seems as though the Germans in order to inflict a possible military damage on the Russians are planning a campaign, the terrible effects of which will fall for the most part not on the soldiers at all but on the harmless non-combatants who live in the rear of the lines. This practice is as absolutely unjustifiable as that of setting floating mines loose at sea on the possible chance of sinking an enemy ship, the probability being ten to one that the victim will prove an innocent one.
We are now facing over here, and I suppose in the West as well, a campaign of poisoned air, the effect of which upon the military situation will be neutralized by reprisals; but at the same time this campaign is going to increase the suffering and misery of the soldiers a hundred per cent., and in its ultimate results bring more misery to the populations in the various regions near the lines than has ever been experienced in any previous war. It must be reasonably clear to the Germans by now that their scheme to terrorize has failed, and that their aim of inflicting vast damage has fallen to the ground. When reprisals come, as they must if Germany continues this inhuman policy, she will, without having gained anything whatsoever from her experiment, cause needlessly the deaths of thousands of her own soldiers, as well as suffering and devastation among the rural classes. It does seem as though, when the German policy is so clearly unfruitful, it should be possible through the medium of some neutral country to reach an agreement providing for the entire discontinuance on all fronts of this horrible practice. Certainly, when there are so many thousands of innocents who must suffer by its continuance, it would be well worth the while of the authorities in the different countries to consider the possibility mentioned before resorting to the use of this deadly weapon, which often proves as dangerous to the users as to the enemy against whom it is directed.
THE BZURA FRONT IN JUNE