[1] Report before the British Association, 1919.
How urgent was the need for these developments? It was vital. Here is a case showing frightful losses sustained by partially or inefficiently protected troops. Between May and July of 1915 the Germans made at least three cloud gas attacks upon the Russians, immediately west of Warsaw. In all these attacks, taken together, gas was discharged for a total time of not more than one hour, and they were all practically from the same position, on a front of about six miles. The affair seems relatively small, yet what was the result? The Russians lost not less than 5000 dead on the field, and their total casualties were of the order of 25,000 officers and men. A Siberian regiment had, before the last attack, a ration strength of about forty officers and 4000 men. This was reduced by a twenty minutes gas discharge to four officers and four hundred men. No other weapon could have reproduced, under the most favourable conditions for its use, in as many days, what gas was able to do in as many minutes.
Although our protection had countered the later German attacks with cloud gas, yet it threatened to fail to meet the situation created by the use of a variety of organic chemicals in shell. In order to counter the use of lachrymatory compounds by the enemy, compounds which penetrated the helmet insufficiently to cause serious casualties but sufficiently to hamper the individual by lachrymation, goggles were introduced in which the eyes were protected by rims of rubber sponge. This remedied the weakness of the P.H. helmet and produced the P.H.G. helmet, of which more than one and a half millions were issued during 1916-1917.
Towards the end of 1915 the standard protection was the P. and P.H. helmet, but the use of lachrymators compelled us to use the P.H.G. Even this helmet was not satisfactory against the high concentrations of phosgene or lachrymators, and after much research the opinion gained ground that further development must be on other lines. In addition, the need for a more general form of protection was emphasised by the German adoption of a mask of cartridge design. In other words, the fabric of the helmet, or facial portion of the mask, was made impermeable, and the filtration of the poisoned air occurred through a cartridge, or filtering box, attached to the fabric in the form of a snout. The cartridge provided a much greater protective range and capacity. It was clear that such German protection was evidence of their plans for the further use of gas. The new German cartridge mask appeared in the autumn of 1915. Doctor H. Pick, reviewing German protective measures in Schwarte's book, enumerates the various desiderata of the ideal mask and explains, "It was only our early recognition of these requirements which gave us an advantage over the enemy from the first in the sphere of defensive measures against gas, and which spared us from having to undertake radical alterations in the apparatus as the English, French, and Russians had to do more than once." This early adoption of a comprehensive view on protection by Germany is a testimony to both German thoroughness and their definite intention to proceed with a vigorous chemical war. The latter is not mere inference, for it is borne out by the dates at which they commenced production in their dye factories. Further, even if the German cartridge mask was only decided upon after Loos, which is not probable, our feeble reply in that battle would hardly have justified such a radical advance in protection.
It was thus forecasted that not only would new ranges of compounds be employed which it would be most difficult to counter individually, but aggressive methods would arise, either entirely new or modifications of the cloud method, which would enable much higher concentrations to be obtained than those in evidence hitherto. Accordingly the first type of the well-known British Box Respirator was designed, giving a big capacity of highly efficient filtering material, or granule, contained in a canister, with an improved face-piece and breathing arrangements. Without going into details, it may be said that Colonel Harrison and Major Lambert were associated with a number of other enthusiastic workers in developing the Box Respirator.
Here again the question of chemical supply threatened to influence our retention of the initiative. Without going into the development of the granule in the respirator, the supply of potassium permanganate was of prime importance, and the country was woefully deficient in the production of this substance. The determined efforts of British manufacturers overcame this difficulty. It was now possible to work on general lines for the improvement of this canister to increase its protective range, and to modify the canister specifically in accordance with intelligence as to what the enemy had recently done or was about to do. In this way, and successively, the army was successfully protected against the higher concentrations employed and the newer substances introduced. The issue of the large Box Respirator commenced in February, 1916. It was replaced by the small Box Respirator which came out in August, 1916, and of which over sixteen millions had been issued before the signing of the Armistice. At one time over a quarter of a million small Box Respirators were produced weekly. The chief modifications were the use of a smaller box or canister, the margin of protection being unnecessarily large in the former type.
It became necessary in the spring of 1917 to provide more efficient protection against irritating smokes which tended to penetrate the respirator as minute particles, and the first form consisted in the use of two layers of cotton wadding in the canister of the small Box Respirator. The use of Blue Cross compounds by Germany in the summer of 1917 rendered this matter more urgent, and a special filter jacket was designed which fitted round the Small Box Respirator. A million were made and sent to France. Developments proceeded on these lines. Altogether, more than fifty million masks and respirators of different kinds were manufactured by the British Anti-Gas Department for our own and Allied armies.
We thus have some idea of the importance of protection in chemical warfare and of the absolutely imperative need of deciding whether or no work on protection must go on. There can be no doubt as to the answer to this question. It is not only in the interest of the army, whether a League of Nations or a national army, but also in those of the civil population.
The Tense Protective Struggle.—Few people realise how the development of Allied and enemy gas masks and protective measures was forced upon each side in a number of critical steps. At each of these, had research and production been unequal to the task, the armies would have found themselves more uncovered and exposed than if the whole trench and dug-out system had been suddenly rendered unusable in some peculiar way, thus removing cover from high explosive and shrapnel, rifle, and machine-gun fire. The army has an apt expression. An officer or man parading incompletely equipped is dubbed "half naked." To be within reach of enemy gas without a mask was true nakedness. A modern army without a gas mask is much more helpless and beaten than one without boots. More than this, it must be clearly understood that a gas mask of efficient design and production will remain of very little use unless, supported by comprehensive research which, itself, gains enormously in efficiency if related to enemy offensive activities.
The German Mask.—Consider the German mask for a moment. We have seen how Germany adopted the canister drum or cartridge form before any of the other belligerents, and in good time to protect her own men against their own use of phosgene, at the end of 1915. Indeed, Germany probably held up the use of phosgene until her own protection against it was developed, although Schwarte's book claims that the German mask issue in 1915 was mainly a protection against chlorine. The filling consisted of some such material as powdered pumice-stone saturated with a solution of potash, and powdered over with fine absorbent charcoal in order to protect against organic irritants and phosgene. These were the familiar one-layer drums. Then came the British concentrated cloud gas offensive in the summer of 1916, which undoubtedly found the German mask unequal to some of the higher concentrations which were obtained under most favourable conditions. The Gas Officer of the Sixth German Army stated in a document issued in November, 1916: "Considerable losses were caused by the gas attacks which have taken place latterly. The casualties were mainly due to the men being surprised in dugouts, to the neglect of gas discipline, masks not being at hand, to faulty masks, and to the use of old pattern drums *which could not afford protection against the type of gas employed by the enemy. (The italics are our own.—V.L.)