"Considering its power, it has no equal. Physical vigour is one of the greatest assets in any army. Gas, used properly and in quantities that will be easily obtainable in future wars, will make the wearing of the mask a continuous affair for all troops within two to five miles of the front line, and in certain places for many miles beyond. If it never killed a man, the reduction in physical vigour, and, therefore, in efficiency of an army forced at all times to wear masks, would amount to at least 25 per cent., equivalent to disabling a quarter of a million men out of an army of a million."
The Gas Cloud Inescapable.—He goes on to explain some of the more specific military needs which can be met by chemical means, and refers independently to a point which the Germans have mentioned repeatedly in their memoirs. "One great reason why chemical warfare will continue is that it fills a long-felt want on the part of the soldier, that of shooting successfully around a stump or rock. The gas cloud is inescapable. It sweeps over and into everything in its path. No trench is too deep for it, no dug-out, unless hermetically sealed, is safe from it. Night and darkness only heighten its effect. It is the only weapon that is as effective in a fog or in the inky blackness of a moonless night as in the most brilliant sunshine. Only the mask and the training that go with it protect. Terror, confusion, lack of discipline and control are fatal."
Importance of Smoke.—General Fries is insistent on the future importance of smoke in warfare:
"Chemical warfare includes gas, smoke, and incendiary materials, and they can't well be subdivided. As before stated, all the early gas attacks were in the form of clouds. The value of that cloud, not only for carrying gas but for screening purposes, began to be realised in the fall of 1917. Clouds of smoke may or may not be poisonous, and they will or will not be poisonous, at the will of the one producing the smoke. For that reason every cloud of smoke in the future must be looked upon as possibly containing some deadly form of gas. When you consider this for a moment, you can realise the tremendous possibilities for ingenuity that gas and smoke afford the attacker.
"The American, trained for 300 years in meeting nature on her great plains and in her vast forests, was early appealed to by this side of chemical warfare. As early as November 3, 1917, the United States was urged, in a cablegram from the Chemical Warfare Service in France, to push the development of a large phosphorous supply for use in smokes. Not only were the early intuitions of the value of gas borne out by later events, but to-day the future of smoke appears greater still. The battle-field of the future will be covered with smoke— not the all-pervading black smoke of the battles of the Civil War and of earlier wars before smokeless powder came into use, but a field covered with dots and patches of smoke, big and little, here and there and everywhere.
"Every man who has hunted ducks and been caught in a dense fog with ducks quacking all round, and who has tried to get ducks by firing at the quack in the fog, can realise the difficulty of hitting a man on the battlefield when you cannot see him, and have only a quack, or less, by which to locate him. The smoke will be generated in candles of two or three-pound cans that can be thrown out in front of trenches; by knapsacks that can be carried and which will give off dense white smoke in large volume for many minutes; by grenades which, while they may be thrown by hand, will generally be fired from rifles; by artillery shells reaching ten, fifteen, twenty miles back of the main battle line; and finally, from aeroplane bombs whose radius of action is limited only by the size of the earth. And thus smoke becomes one of the great elements of war in the future. It is more or less wholly protective in its nature, but as it costs more and takes longer to train a man in the various problems involved in modern war than ever before in this history of the world, it is worth while taking every precaution to protect him, once you have him trained."
Casualty Percentages.—He also brings out very dearly the unique possibility possessed by gas warfare of increasing its military efficiency, while decreasing its relative atrocity:
"The death rate in the first gas attack was probably in the neighbourhood of 35 per cent. of all casualties— and everybody in front of the wave was a casualty. With the development of masks and training in the use of the mask and in taking advantage of the ground, the death rate fell. At the same time the total number of casualties fell, but not at all in the same ratio as the decrease in the death rate. From a probable death rate of 35 per cent. in the first attack it fell to 24 per cent., then to 18 per cent., and, as gas attacks by artillery became general, to 6 per cent., and finally, with the extended use of mustard gas, the rate fell to 2.5 per cent. or less."
Again referring to casualties, he gives us the startling fact that 75,000 out of the 275,000 American casualties were caused by gas, "And yet," he says "the Germans used it in a halting, comparatively feeble manner."
Short Range Projectors.—Very much alive to the future of the short-range projectors developed in connection with gas warfare, he tells us, "The Gas Regiment in the St. Mihiel battle fired on the Cote des Esparges one hundred of these high explosive bombs at the zero hour on the morning of the attack. That hill, famous for its strength through four years of struggle between the French and Germans, dis-appeared completely as an enemy standpoint. Nothing remained but torn and broken barbed wire, bits of concrete pill-boxes, and trenches filled with debris, and a few scattered fragments of clothing.