Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/April 2015/Op-ed


 * By TomStar81

At around 5:00 PM on Thursday, 22 April 1915, the Imperial German Army made preparations to face the forces of the British Empire, the Third French Republic, and Belgium at Ypres, a strategically important Flemish town in Belgium. Ypres had previously been the scene of a major combat operation at the end of the so-called "Race to the Sea" phase of the western front as it had been one of two spots where the Allies and Central Powers had battled in an unsuccessful attempt to outflank the other. As the two sides prepared to initiate another round of combat for control of the town the Imperial German Army, which had already opened the door for introduction of chemical warfare on this front by firing tear gas canisters at the Imperial Russian Army during the Battle of Bolimów, raised the chemical warfare stakes by introducing much more lethal chlorine gas to the front for use against enemy forces.

In order to effect a timely release of the chlorine gas, German troops carried 5,730 gas cylinders - each weighing 90 lb - to the front by hand. The cylinders were opened by hand, releasing approximately 168 LT of chlorine gas over a 6.5 km front, on the part of the line held by French Territorial and colonial Moroccan and Algerian troops of the French 45th and 87th divisions. The German forces involved in the Ypres operation relied on the prevailing winds to carry the gas towards enemy lines, but this method of dispersal caused many German soldiers to be injured or killed.

Those French troops unfortunate enough to be caught in the path of the gas cloud had a choice between two equally unattractive options: stand their ground and risk death or serious injury due to the oncoming gas cloud, or abandon their positions and run for their lives, which could be interpreted by their commanding officers as anything from a necessary action to desertion in the face of the enemy. Reports from the front suggest that approximately 6,000 of the French troops were killed in action as a direct or indirect result of exposure to the gas. Many of those died within ten minutes, primarily from asphyxiation and tissue damage in their lungs, while others were blinded as a result of exposure to hypochlorous acid, a bi-product of the chlorine gas formed when it is combined with water, which destroys moist tissue in the lungs and eyes, leaving the survivors scarred, some undoubtedly for life. Worse still was the fact that chlorine gas is denser than air and was used on the front most identified with trench lines, and as a result the chlorine gas quickly filled the trenches, forcing the troops to climb out into heavy enemy fire.

Given their choice between the aforementioned options, many French troops ran for their lives, while others stood their ground and waited for the cloud to pass by. Eyewitnesses to the attack shared their opinions on the conduct of the French forces so suddenly caught in the path of the chlorine attack. Anthony R. Hossack, of the Queen Victoria's Rifles described the chaos as the French Colonial Corps troops fled from the gas:

As noted in a previous Op-Ed, the success of any new weapon or tactic may be measured not only in its effective use by the side employing it but in the reactions to the new weapon or tactic by the side receiving the attack. For their part, the Germans had badly underestimated how effective their use of the chlorine gas would be. In the aftermath of the chemical attack, a 4 mi gap was left in the front line, but because the German High Command had transferred all available troops to Russia, leaving few reserves in the west, the understrength German forces stationed on the front could not exploit the sudden scattering of the French forces from the trenchlines. The Allies were able to hold the chlorine exposed section of the trench lines with assistance of Canadian troops, who were able to defend the flank of the break-in by urinating into cloths and putting them to their faces, to counter the effects of the gas. Casualties during this military action were especially heavy for the 13th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), which was enveloped on three sides and over-extended by the demands of securing its left flank once the Algerian Division had broken.

The unexpected introduction and extraordinary efficiency of the chlorine gas attack resulted in an urgent need to develop gas masks, and marked a dangerous escalation of military operations on the Western Front of World War I. Within months troops bound for the Western Front were issued various gas masks to defend against chemical agents, one example being the Hypo helmet employed by the British, which appeared in June of 1915. The effectiveness of the chlorine gas as a weapon against enemy forces would result in its ongoing use well after the end of World War I. Most recently, it has allegedly been used by Syrian forces in 2014, according to report by Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The ongoing use of chlorine gas and other chemical agents in the field has caused problems for armed forces exposed to such agents, and has created serious problems for non-combatants caught up in these attacks, a grim reminder of the toll these weapons took on the men in the trench lines of 1915-18.