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The Terrors of Poison Gas in WWI

Already subjected to constant bombardment by artillery, enemy sniper fire, and the awful living conditions, soldiers fighting in the muddy trenches of the First World War did not imagine their situation could get any worse. Then, from April 1915, a new nightmare began: gas warfare. Lethal poisonous gas was first used by the German Army in the war, but it was soon adopted by all sides. Although there were often terrible and lasting consequences for the individual soldiers who experienced a gas attack, the weapon did not prove strategically decisive since wind and countermeasures like gas masks frequently negated its effects.

First Use of Gas: Ypres

Non-lethal tear gas (lachrymatory) was experimented with in the early part of WWI, but the first major assault using deadly poison gas was undertaken by the German Army against French, Algerian, British, and Canadian troops in the afternoon of 22 April 1915 at the Second Battle of Ypres. This gas attack released 168 tons of poisonous chlorine gas from 500 special canisters. The attack was primitive, since the German Army simply hoped the wind would spread the gas in the right direction: the enemy trenches. The gas killed 5,000 to 6,000 Allied soldiers and injured another 10,000 in just ten minutes, either directly from the effects of the gas or because desperate men climbed out of the trenches trying to escape it and were consequently shot. The German commanders were surprised by the devastating effects of the gas, and so they were unprepared to take full advantage of the 5-mile (8-km) gap caused by the new weapon. In addition, the attackers were understandably reluctant to advance into an area still containing gas, and, in any case, they had insufficient reserves to make a major breakthrough. It was to be the last such opportunity on the Western Front until the final stages of the conflict.

The Allied reaction to the first gas attack was one of horror and outrage. The Hague Convention forbade the use of gas in 'projectiles', a wording which allowed the German authorities to disingenuously claim the release of gas from canisters was, therefore, not a breach of the rules of war. In any case, although widely regarded elsewhere as against the rules and rather cowardly, after Ypres, all sides quickly adopted the weapon. Specialised units were formed to use gas in attacks, such as the Royal Engineers of the British Army.

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