WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER BY POISONOUS GASES
CANADIAN VICTIMS -- TRENCH GAS AT YPRES -- AWFUL FORM OF SCIENTIFIC
TORTURE -- REPORT OF MEDICAL EXPERT -- KIND OF GAS EMPLOYED -- ALLIES
FORCED TO USE SIMILAR METHODS.
Killing by noxious gases may be, as the Germans claim, no more barbarous
than slaughter by shrapnel, but it has been denounced in America as a
violation of all written and unwritten codes and as a backward step
toward savagery. Certainly the descriptions of responsible persons who
have witnessed the pernicious work of the gas only deepens the horror
with which all peace-loving citizens look upon “civilized” warfare.
The following description of the effect is told by a responsible British
officer who visited some Canadians who were disabled by gas:
“The whole of England and the civilized world ought to have the truth
fully brought before them in vivid detail, and not wrapped up as at
present. When we got to the hospital we had no difficulty in finding out
in which ward the men were, as the noise of the poor devils trying to
get breath was sufficient to direct us.
CANADIAN VICTIMS
“There were about twenty of the worst cases in the ward, on mattresses,
all more or less in a sitting position, strapped up against the walls.
Their faces, arms, and hands were of a shiny, gray-black color. With
their mouths open and leaden-glazed eyes, all were swaying slightly
backward and forward trying to get breath. It was a most appalling
sight. All these poor black faces struggling for life, the groaning and
the noise of the efforts for breath was awful.
“There was practically nothing to be done for them except to give them
salt and water and try to make them sick. The effect the gas has is to
fill the lungs with a watery frothy matter, which gradually increases
and rises until it fills up the whole lungs and comes to the mouth--then
they die. It is suffocation, slow drowning, taking in most cases one or
two days. Eight died last night out of twenty I saw, and the most of the
others I saw will die, while those who get over the gas invariably
develop acute pneumonia.
“It is without doubt the most awful form of scientific torture. Not one
of the men I saw in the hospital had a scratch or wound. The Germans
have given out that it is a rapid, painless death--the liars. No torture
could be worse than to give them a dose of their own gas.”
“TRENCH GAS” AT YPRES
Asphyxiating gases seem to have been first used by the Germans in the
fighting around Ypres in April, 1915. The strong northeast wind, which
was blowing from the German lines across the French trenches, became
charged with a sickening, suffocating odor which was recognized as
proceeding from some form of poisonous gas. The smoke moved like a vivid
green wall some four feet in height for several hundred yards, extending
to within two hundred yards of the extreme left of the Allies’ lines.
Gradually it rose higher and obscured the view from the level.
Soon strange cries were heard, and through the green mist, now growing
thinner and patchy, there came a mass of dazed, reeling men who fell as
they passed through the ranks. The greater number were unwounded, but
they bore upon their faces the marks of agony.
The retiring men were among the first soldiers of the world whose
sang-froid and courage have been proverbial throughout the war. All were
reeling like drunken men.
AWFUL FORM OF SCIENTIFIC TORTURE
“The work of sending out the vapor was done from the advanced German
trenches. Men garbed in a dress resembling the harness of a diver and
armed with retorts or generators about three feet high and connected
with ordinary hose-pipe turned the vapor loose toward the French lines.
Some witnesses maintain that the Germans sprayed the earth before the
trenches with a fluid which, being ignited, sent up the fumes. The
German troops, who followed up this advantage with a direct attack, held
inspirators in their mouths, these preventing them from being overcome
by the fumes.
In addition to this, the Germans appear to have fired ordinary
explosive shells loaded with some chemical which had a paralyzing effect
on all the men in the region of the explosion. Some chemical in the
composition of these shells produced violent watering of the eyes, so
that the men overcome by them were practically blinded for some hours.
[Illustration:
_Right-hand figure: British soldier wearing respirator with air valve on
top_.
_Left-hand figure: German with respirator and goggles armed with
burning-oil-distributor_.
USING DEADLY GAS AS A WEAPON IN WAR.
The German use of poisonous gases that asphyxiate soldiers of the enemy
against whom they are directed, has made it necessary to devise a new
defense. The pictures show the devices used by those who direct the use
of the gases and those who have to meet their deadly vapors.]
The effect of the noxious trench-gas seems to be slow in wearing away.
The men come out of their violent nausea in a state of utter collapse.
How many of the men left unconscious in the trenches when the French
broke died from the fumes it is impossible to say, since those trenches
were at once occupied by the Germans.
REPORT OF MEDICAL EXPERT
Dr. John S. Haldane, an authority on the physiology of respiration, who
was sent by the British government to France to observe the effect of
the gases, examined several Canadians who had been incapacitated by the
gases.
“These men,” he said, “were lying struggling for breath, and blue in the
face. On examining their blood with a spectroscope and by other means I
ascertained that the blueness was not due to the presence of any
abnormal pigment. There was nothing to account for the blueness and
their struggles for air but one fact, and that was that they were
suffering from acute bronchitis, such as is caused by the inhalation of
an irritant gas. Their statements were to the effect that when in the
trenches they had been overwhelmed by an irritant gas produced in front
of the German trenches and carried toward them by a gentle breeze.
“One of the men died shortly after our arrival. A post-mortem
examination showed that death was due to acute bronchitis and its
secondary effect. There was no doubt that the bronchitis and
accompanying slow asphyxiation was due to irritant gas.
“Captain Bertram, of the eighth Canadian battalion, who is suffering
from the effects of gas and from wounds, says that from a support
trench about six hundred yards from the German lines he observed the
gas. He saw first of all white smoke rising from the German trenches to
a height of about three feet. Then in front of the white smoke appeared
a green cloud which drifted along the ground to our trenches, not rising
more than about seven feet from the ground.
“When it reached our first trenches, the men in these trenches were
obliged to leave, and a number of them were killed by the effects of the
gas. We made a counter-attack about fifteen minutes after the gas came
over, and saw twenty-four men lying dead from the effects of the gas on
a small stretch of road leading from the advanced trenches to the
supports. He, himself, was much affected by the gas, and felt as though
he could not breathe.
“These symptoms and other facts so far ascertained point to the use by
the German troops of chlorine or bromide for the purpose of
asphyxiation. There also are facts pointing to the use in German shells
of other irritant substances. Still, the last of these agents are not of
the same brutality and barbarous character as was the gas used in the
attack on the Canadians.
“The effects are not those of any of the ordinary products of combustion
of explosives. On this point the symptoms described left not the
slightest doubt in my mind.”
KIND OF GAS EMPLOYED
Various have been the opinions of chemists as to the kind of gas
employed. Sir James Dewar, President of the Royal Institution, was of
the opinion that it was liquid chlorine. Dr. F. A. Mason, of the Royal
College of Science, considered it to have been bromine. Dr. Crocker, of
the South-Western Polytechnic, said it may have been either carbon
monoxide or liquid peroxide. Dr. W. J. Pope, Professor of Chemistry,
Cambridge, and Sir E. Rutherford, Professor of Physics, Manchester
University, agreed in thinking the gas to have been phosgene, a compound
of carbon monoxide and chlorine, largely used in dye production in
Germany.
“For some years,” stated Sir James Dewar, “Germany has been
manufacturing chlorine in tremendous quantities. . . . The Germans
undoubtedly have hundreds of tons available. If several tons of liquid
are allowed to escape into the atmosphere, where it immediately
evaporates and forms a yellow gas, and if the wind is blowing in a
favorable direction, it is the easiest thing for the Germans to inundate
the country with poison for miles ahead of them.
“The fact that the gas is three times heavier than air makes escape from
its disastrous effects almost impossible, for it drifts like a thick
fog-cloud along the surface of the ground, overwhelming all whom it
overtakes.”
ALLIES FORCED TO USE SIMILAR METHODS
Of the German attack on the allied front near Ypres, Secretary of War,
Earl Kitchener, speaking in the House of Lords on May 18, said:
“In this attack the enemy employed vast quantities of poisonous gases,
and our soldiers and our French allies were utterly unprepared for this
diabolical method of attack, which undoubtedly had been long and
carefully prepared.”
It was at this point that Earl Kitchener announced the determination of
the Allies to resort to similar methods of warfare.
“The Germans,” said Earl Kitchener, “have persisted in the use of these
asphyxiating gases whenever the wind favored or other opportunity
occurred, and His Majesty’s government, no less than the French
government, feel that our troops must be adequately protected by the
employment of similar methods, so as to remove the enormous and
unjustifiable disadvantage which must exist for them if we take no steps
to meet on his own ground the enemy who is responsible for the
introduction of this pernicious practice.”