The Beginning of German Gas Warfare, WWI
22 April 1915, Ypres and Germany’s First Gas Attack
Oct 14, 2008
On 22 April, 1915, German launched the first successful gas attack of World War One at the Battle of Ypres. The German High Command hoped that the initial use of gas would catch the Allied troops unprepared to counter the effects of the new weapon. Another added benefit would be the panic induced by the deployment of such a weapon.
Preparation of the Gas Attack
In January of 1915 the German High Command settled on the use of chlorine gas as a weapon to be employed against enemy troops. By April 1915, after several set backs due to weather, the German High Command decided upon the area of Ypres, defended by French Colonial and Territorial troops as well as Belgian and Canadian elements. The German Pioneer unit in charge of the gas prepared, according to Simon Jones in his World War I Gas Warfare Tactics and Equipment, some 4,130 small and 1,600 large cylinders – nearly 340 tons of chlorine all together – for the attack against the Allied lines.
Reaction to the Attack
The first German gas attack occurred at 5:00 PM on 22 April, 1915. The French lines, against which the gas was released, were thinly held and lacked a defense in depth trench structure as well as the necessary artillery support to repulse an attack. The French units, completely unprepared for any sort of chemical attack, watched as the chlorine – in the form of a greenish-yellow cloud – approached them.
As the gas cloud rolled into the trenches and settled there, the French troops were brutally introduced to the nature of the weapon. Not surprisingly the center of the French Territorial and Colonial units broke, racing for the presumed safety of the rear areas. The Belgian and Canadian troops flanked the abandoned French positions, however. Canadian troops employed makeshift masks made from wool socks soaked in urine (the alkaline in the human urine counteracting the chlorine in the gas). Both Belgian and Canadian troops spread out into the French trenches and were able to throwback the German infantry attack which followed the gas.
The Effects of Chlorine Gas
The French troops who first suffered the gas and fled had every reason to react as they had to the new weapon. Upon inhalation of the chlorine the chemical immediately affected the victim’s lungs, irritating the tissue so that the lungs rapidly filled with fluid. Men would vomit the fluid, but the fluid in turn was already causing the lungs to cease functioning properly. With the lungs irritated and damaged the body was denied oxygen, giving gas victims a bluish tint to their skin.
Gas victims, then, essentially drowned from the fluid produced by the lungs in an attempt to clear the membranes of the chlorine. While early gas attacks did a great deal of psychological damage, the delivery system – which required favorable weather conditions – allowed too much to chance, and would soon focus on the eventual employment of artillery rounds especially developed for the delivery of chemical weapons.
Sources
Jones, Simon. World War I Gas Warfare Tactics and Equipment. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2007.
