HOW THE RUSSIANS MET THE FIRST GAS ATTACK
Dated:
ZYRARDOW, POLAND,
_June 5, 1915_.
One of the finest stories of fortitude and heroism that the war on this
front has produced is of how the Siberian troops met the first large
scale attack upon their lines in which the enemy made use of the gas
horror, that latest product of the ingenuity of the Germans who boast
so loudly and so continuously of their _kultur_ and the standards of
civilization and humanity which they declare it is their sacred duty to
force upon the world.
There has been a lull in the fighting on this immediate front for some
time, due to the fact that the Germans have diverted all the troops
that they could safely spare to strengthen their concentration in
Galicia. Only an occasional spasm of fighting with bursts of artillery
firing, first in one point and then another, have created sufficient
incident to mark one day from another. During this time the reports
of the use of poisoned gases and shells containing deadly fumes have
drifted over to this side, and it has been expected that sooner or
later something of the same sort would be experienced on the Bzura
front. Many times we have had shells containing formaline fumes and
other noxious poisons sent screaming over our trenches, but their use
heretofore seemed rather in the nature of an experiment than of a
serious innovation. Enough, however, has been said about them here,
and when the effort on a wholesale scale was made, it found our troops
prepared morally, if not yet with actual equipment in the way of
respirators.
The first battle of the gases occurred early on the morning of Sunday,
the 30th of May. The days are very long here now, and the first pale
streaks of grey were just tinging the western horizon, when the
look-outs in the Russian trenches on the Bzura discovered signs of
activity in the trenches of the enemy which at this point are not very
far away from our lines. War has become such an every-day business that
an impending attack creates no more excitement in the trenches than a
doctor feels when he is called out at night to visit a patient. Word
was passed down the trenches to the sleeping soldiers, who at once
crawled out of their shelters and dug-outs, and rubbing their sleepy
eyes took their places at the loopholes and laid out, ready for use,
their piles of cartridge clips. The machine gun operators uncovered
their guns and looked to them to see that all was well oiled and
working smoothly, while the officers strolled about the trenches with
words of advice and encouragement to their men.
Back in the reserve trenches the soldiers were turning out more
leisurely in response to the alarm telephoned back. Regimental,
brigade, division and army corps head-quarters were notified, and
within ten minutes of the first sign of a movement, the entire position
threatened was on the _qui vive_ without excitement or confusion. But
this was to be no ordinary attack; while preparations were still going
forward, new symptoms never hitherto observed, were noticeable on the
German line. Straw was thrown out beyond the trenches and was being
sprinkled with a kind of white powder which the soldiers say resembled
salt. While the Russians were still puzzling about the meaning of
it all, fire was put to the straw in a dozen places. Instantly from
the little spots of red flame spreading in both directions until the
line of twinkling fire was continuous, huge clouds of fleecy white
smoke rolled up. The officers were quick to realize what was coming,
and instantly the word was passed to the soldiers that they must be
prepared to meet a new kind of attack. After a rapid consultation and
advice from head-quarters over the telephone, it was decided that
it would be best for our men to remain absolutely quiet in their
trenches, holding their fire until the enemy were at their barbed wire
entanglements, in order to beguile the Germans into the belief that
their gases were effective, and that they were going to be able to
occupy the Russian trenches without losing a man.
Officers and non-commissioned officers went through the trenches
telling the soldiers what they must expect, and imposing silence on
all, and prohibiting the firing of a gun until the enemy were almost
upon them when they were to open up with all the rapidity of fire that
they could command. In the meantime the wind of early morning air was
rolling the cloud gently toward the waiting Russians.
I have been able through certain channels, which I cannot at present
mention, to secure a considerable amount of information as to the
German side of this attack. When it became known in the trenches of
the enemy that these gases were to be used, there is reason to believe
that there was a protest from the soldiers against it. Many of the
Russians are charitable enough to take the point of view that the
common soldier resorts to these methods because he is forced to do so,
and they say that the German private rebelled at the idea of using so
hideous a method of conducting warfare. Others, while they accept the
story of the soldiers’ opposition, declare they only feared the effects
of the gas upon themselves. In any event there is evidence that their
officers told them that the gas was a harmless one, and would simply
result in putting the Russians into a state of unconsciousness from
which they would recover in a few hours, and by that time the Germans
would have been able to take their trenches without the loss of a man.
It was at first believed that the white powder placed on the straw was
the element of the poison gas, but it later appeared that this was
merely to produce a screen of heavy and harmless smoke behind which the
real operations could be conducted. The actual source of the gas was in
the trenches themselves.
Steel cylinders or tanks measuring a metre in length by perhaps 6
inches in width were let in end downwards into the floor of the trench,
with perhaps half of the tanks firmly bedded in the ground. At the head
of the cylinder was a valve, and from this ran a lead pipe over the
top of the parapet and then bent downwards with the opening pointed
to the ground. These tanks were arranged in groups of batteries the
unit of which was ten or twelve, each tank being perhaps two feet from
its neighbour. Between each group was a space of twenty paces. I have
not been able to learn the exact length of the prepared trenches, but
it was perhaps nearly a kilometre long. As soon as their line was
masked by the volumes of the screening smoke, these taps were turned
on simultaneously and instantly the thick greenish yellow fumes of the
chloral gas poured in expanding clouds upon the ground, spreading like
a mist upon the face of the earth.
There was a drift of air in the direction of the Russian trenches,
and borne before this the poison rolled like a wave slowly away from
the German line toward the positions of the Russians, the gas itself
seeking out and filling each small hollow or declivity in the ground
as surely as water, so heavy and thick was its composition. When it
was fairly clear of their own line the Germans began to move, all the
men having first been provided with respirators that they might not
experience the effects of the “harmless and painless” gas prepared for
the enemy. Ahead of the attacking columns went groups of sappers with
shears to cut the Russian entanglements; and behind them followed the
masses of the German infantry, while the rear was brought up, with
characteristic foresight, by soldiers bearing tanks of oxygen to
assist any of their own men who became unconscious from the fumes.
The advance started somewhat gingerly, for the soldiers do not seem
to have had the same confidence in the effects of the gas as their
officers. But as they moved forward there was not a sound from the
Russian trench, and the word ran up and down the German line that
there would be no defence, and that for once they would take a Russian
position without the loss of a man. One can fancy the state of mind of
the German troops in these few minutes. No doubt they felt that this
new “painless” gas was going to be a humane way of ending the war,
that their chemists had solved the great problem, and that in a few
days they would be marching into Warsaw. Then they reached the Russian
entanglements, and without warning were swept into heaps and mounds of
collapsing bodies by the torrent of rifle and machine gun fire which
came upon them from every loophole and cranny of the Russian position.
The Russian version of the story is one that must inspire the troops
of the Allies, as it has inspired the rest of the army over here. Some
time before the Germans actually approached, the green yellow cloud
rolled into the trenches and poured itself in almost like a column
of water; so heavy was it that it almost fell to the floor of the
trenches. The patient Siberians stood without a tremor as it eddied
around their feet and swept over their faces in constantly increasing
volumes. Thus for some minutes they stood wrapping hand-kerchiefs about
their faces, stifling their sounds, and uttering not a word while
dozens fell suffocating into the trench. Then at last in the faint
morning light could be seen the shadowy figures of the Germans through
the mist; then at last discipline and self-control were released, and
every soldier opened fire pumping out his cartridges from his rifle as
fast as he could shoot. The stories of heroism and fortitude that one
hears from the survivors of this trench are exceptional. One Siberian
who was working a machine gun had asked his comrade to stand beside
him with wet rags and a bucket of water. The two bodies were found
together, the soldier collapsed over the machine gun, whose empty
cartridge belt told the story of the man’s last effort having gone to
work his gun, while sprawling over the upset bucket was the dead body
of the friend who had stood by and made his last task possible.
[Illustration: The colours of the Siberians.]
Officers in the head-quarters of regiment and divisions tell of the
operators at the telephones clinging to their instruments until only
the sounds of their choking efforts to speak came over the wire, and
then silence. Some were found dead with the receivers in their
hands, while others were discovered clutching muskets fallen from the
hands of the infantry that had succumbed. In this trying ordeal not
a man, soldier or officer budged from his position. To a man they
remained firm, some overcome, some dying, and others already dead. So
faithful were they to their duty, that before the reserves reached
them the Germans were already extricating themselves from their own
dead and wounded, and hurriedly beating a retreat toward their own
lines. From the rear trenches now came, leaping with hoarse shouts of
fury, the columns of the Siberian reserves. Through the poisoned mist
that curled and circled at their feet, they ran, many stumbling and
falling from the effect of the noxious vapours. When they reached the
first line trench, the enemy was already straggling back in retreat, a
retreat that probably cost them more dearly than their attack; for the
reserves, maddened with fury poured over their own trenches, pursued
the Germans, and with clubbed rifle and bayonet took heavy vengeance
for comrades poisoned and dying in the first line trench. So furiously
did the Siberians fall upon the Germans that several positions in the
German line were occupied, numbers of the enemy who chose to remain
dying under the bayonet or else falling on their knees with prayers
for mercy. Somewhat to the south of the main gas attack there came a
change in the wind, and the poisoned fumes blew back into the trenches
of the Germans, trenches in which it is believed the occupants were
not equipped with respirators. The Russians in opposite lines say that
the cries of the Germans attacked by their own fumes were something
horrible to listen to, and their shrieks could have been heard half a
mile away.
Thus ended the first German effort to turn the Russians out of their
positions by the use of a method which their rulers had pledged
themselves in treaty never to adopt. The net results were an absolute
defeat of the Germans, with the loss of several of their own positions,
and a loss in dead and wounded probably three times greater than
was suffered by the Russians. Even although it was unexpected and
unprepared for, this first attempt was an absolute failure; the only
result being an increase of fury on the part of the Russian soldiers
that makes it difficult to keep them in their trenches, so eager are
they to go over and bayonet their enemies.
SOME DETAILS REGARDING THE GAS HORROR