Popular terror of gas--Necessity for drilling and early personal
experience--Sure defence from gas possible--The first gas
alarms--The prussic acid scare a myth--The phosgene scare a
reality--The helmet made to combat it--Necessity for renovating
the helmet.
The final object in the training of men in defence against gas is
that troops shall be able to protect themselves completely and as
quickly as possible in all the multitudinous circumstances in which
they may encounter the poisonous gas in the field. To attain this
it is necessary to inspire confidence by letting them in as far as
possible on the principles underlying the use of gas and the tactics
which are adopted by the enemy; and, secondly, to bring their practical
proficiency and discipline up to such a standard that they make the
very best use of the apparatus that is given to them.
It must be remembered that one of the greatest difficulties in talking
to people about gas is the mystery of it. Even educated people hardly
understand the word “gas” in connection with war and are apt to think
of coal gas and dentists’ gas in consequence. The result is that the
gas of the Germans was sometimes credited with all sorts of impossible
qualities of movement and deadliness, and it can hardly be realised
what alarm and distrust may exist in the raw recruit with regard to
gas until he has been given some instruction. This is even as great a
danger as the over-confidence of the veteran soldier, who may know just
as little about it.
Mere drilling and assertion are not sufficient to inspire confidence
and acquire proportion, and it was realised very early that personal
experience was needed. To gain this arrangements were made for every
man to see and smell gas in concentrations that would at any rate
produce severe discomfort if dwelt in for any length of time, and for
each soldier subsequently to be exposed to gas while wearing a gas
helmet in such a concentration that negligence in obeying orders or in
using the smoke helmet correctly would lead to real danger to life. By
this means confidence could be inspired in everybody, though there is
always a certain danger due to recklessness among the more adventurous
types.
Besides this it was necessary to give as many men as possible some
idea of the common sense of the operations in which the army was being
drilled. This could only be done by giving a clear idea of how the
gas is used; how gas travels; where it accumulates; how it can be
removed, and so on; and under what conditions a respirator or smoke
helmet protects or ceases to protect its wearer. It was on these lines
that instruction was built up; and to do it thoroughly it was found
that a large number of instructors were required in order to train the
officers and noncommissioned officers and to get them to treat their
respirators with as great respect as their rifles and to learn to carry
them through a gas-defence drill in just as smart a manner as the
ordinary arms.
For this purpose special schools of instruction were started at each
army headquarters, and as many regimental officers and noncommissioned
officers as possible were given a four or five days’ course of gas
training, so that they in their turn could go back to their regiments
and spread the gospel, as the responsibility for getting things done
must eventually fall upon them. Not only was it found impossible to
provide specialist officers for each regiment or battalion, but it
was recognised that such a procedure would have a bad effect on the
gas-defence measures.
Gas defence was a matter which affected everybody and was in no way
to be regarded as a specialist’s job; battalions were already full
of specialists. Indeed the colonels were apt to complain that they
had nobody but specialists to command. There were bombers, snipers,
signalers, machine gunners and sanitary men; and at that time the
trench-mortar personnel was also a part of the infantry battalion. With
all these things the feeling was that if a job could be looked on as
being a specialty it should be put on the specialist officer concerned,
and nobody else worried about it much. Now if gas defence was to become
Lieutenant Snook’s job, it meant that it was going to be nobody else’s
job, and it was essential that the idea should grow up in the army that
gas defence was a purely military matter and affected everybody.
What was said then is just as true to-day--that the defensive appliance
is a certain protection if it is used properly and in time. Defence
against gas is thus on an entirely different footing from defence
against shells and bullets, where protection cannot be assured; and, to
quote instructions on the subject: “For destructive effects gas must
depend on surprise, on poor discipline or on defective appliances.
Consequently gas casualties are preventable if the soldier is trained
continually to exercise vigilance and is well drilled in the use and
care of his respirator.”
The basis of the whole thing, therefore, was that every officer
should see that the men under his command were properly instructed in
defensive measures against gas attacks, and that all orders on the
subject were thoroughly understood. It was then up to the officers to
see that their men could get their helmets on properly in the minimum
time, and this involved considerable amount of drill practice. It was
pointed out to the officers that since protection had been provided,
those battalions which had been carefully instructed had come through
practically unharmed, while those battalions in which instructions had
been neglected suffered severely.
It was also up to the officers to explain to their men as much as they
themselves had learned about gas clouds, and to impress on them, for
example, that by moving to the rear they would move with the gas, and
that if they got flurried they would breathe more deeply and would run
much more risk of being gassed.
Besides these questions of instruction and drilling a lot of other
arrangements had to be made, so that warning of German gas attacks
should be spread in the quickest possible time. Arrangements were
made to install alarms of various kinds in the trenches. Of course no
reliance could be placed on any method of communication which involved
the use of the lungs. A man cannot blow a bugle or a whistle while he
has a helmet on, and if he waited to give a signal by such a method
before protecting himself he would be almost certain to be gassed. What
was done was to place bells and gongs made from shell cases up and
down the trenches.
At first these were rather futile things, the bells generally being
much too small--some of them merely cow bells. The shell cases were a
bit better and are still used for local alarms; but the arrangements
for giving warning were not really very good at that time. The best
devices were a number of motor horns, which were obtained locally, but
the supply was insufficient and there was no general issue. Later on
the alarm arrangements were tremendously improved. In some cases signal
lights were used, but so many different kinds of rockets were already
employed for signalling to the rear that there was great difficulty in
finding a light sufficiently distinctive. There was also the danger
that it could be quickly copied by the boche, who would thus amuse
himself by giving us all kinds of shocks from false alarms.
Quite as important as the provision of signals was the making of
observations to see when the wind was in a dangerous quarter. This was
done partly at the meteorological stations at headquarters and partly
on the front line itself. The latter was regarded at the time as the
most important, and orders were given that each unit in the front
line should rig up some kind of wind vane and learn to ascertain the
strength of the wind, so that they should be immediately prepared for
an attack whenever the wind was in a dangerous quarter.
Wind vanes in the trenches were of the simplest types and a great deal
of ingenuity was displayed in fitting up weathercocks that would be
capable of turning in really low wind--say, one with a speed of only
two miles an hour. The bearings for the central rod were the greatest
difficulty, but it was found that by boring out a rifle bullet a sharp
pointed stick or a thick piece of wire could be got to revolve in the
hollow bullet quite easily, what remained of the lead core acting as a
kind of lubrication.
The greatest nuisance of these wind vanes at first was that they were
made so generally obtrusive that they could be seen from the enemy’s
lines, and they nearly always drew fire from snipers, and sometimes
actually from the artillery. Presumably the enemy thought that where
the wind vanes were installed company headquarters were probably
situated. The position of the wind vanes consequently had to be chosen
so that the direction and speed of the wind would be measured several
feet above the ground without the apparatus being too obvious. One
of the simplest types of vane adopted, and one which could hardly be
seen from any distance, was a bit of a stick to the end of which was
tied ten to twelve inches of thin thread with a tiny bit of cotton
wool at the end. When the wind is blowing the direction taken by the
thread shows the line of the wind fairly exactly, and the behaviour of
the cotton wool in rising and falling indicates the strength of the
wind. The latter, however, was supposed to be measured by reference
to Beaufort’s scale, which depends on the movement in wind of natural
objects. Beaufort’s scale, which was devised long ago by an English
admiral of that name, is as follows:
Smoke moves straight up, speed of wind is _nil_; smoke slants, speed
is two miles an hour; the wind is felt on the face, speed is five
miles; paper, etc., move about, speed is ten miles; bushes are seen to
sway, speed is fifteen miles; tree tops sway and wavelets are formed
on water, speed is twenty miles; tree tops sway and whistle, speed is
thirty miles.
All of these arrangements for training and equipment of the troops were
hurried on as quickly as possible, but at the same time sight was not
lost of the probability of the German’s using gases different from the
chlorine which had originally formed their stand-by. It was felt that
a good all-round protection should be capable of keeping out not only
chlorine and similar gases but also others which were quite likely to
come into use.
During the whole of this time we were getting a lot of information from
the intelligence branch as to materials which the Germans were making
for use against us in their next gas attacks. Some of this information
was really farcical, but on the other hand some of it was very good
and helped to confirm the conclusions to which our own scientists were
coming as to the likelihood or unlikelihood of particular gases. In the
former category may be classed one story which came to us containing
a very circumstantial description of some experiments which were
stated to have been carried out in Berlin. These trials were stated
to have been made in what we considered a very proper place, namely,
Hagenbeck’s menagerie, where, in the presence of a large number of
military representatives, a new gas was tried out.
A noncommissioned officer appeared with a tank of the gas on his back,
the spraying nozzle coming out under his arm. A camel and an elephant
were brought out. The noncommissioned officer advanced toward them,
and at twenty paces’ distance he pressed down the lever on the tank
and out came some small black bubbles of gas, which floated down the
wind toward the faded animals. The bubbles burst, giving off a yellow
vapour, and the minute this vapour came in contact with the camel and
the elephant the beasts dropped down dead!
This sounded very terrible, but even in the conditions we were at the
time it was not taken too seriously, and of course nothing of this kind
has ever made its appearance.
Another story which commenced to make its appearance at that time
and which we have heard a great deal about ever since was that the
Germans were busy making prussic acid in enormous quantities for a huge
offensive which was to finish the war. It was stated that the Kaiser
had at last been persuaded to use this terrible weapon in order by its
use to finish the war at once and prevent needless suffering.
When they first made their appearance stories with regard to prussic
acid had to be taken a great deal more seriously than those like the
“little black bubbles.” For one thing we were unprotected against
prussic acid, and for another it was known of course to be an extremely
deadly poison. Indeed before the war it was regarded as the most
poisonous vapour known, so a great deal of weight was attached to these
statements, and experiments were at once put on foot to find protection
against prussic acid and to see exactly how poisonous it was compared
with other gases.
As a matter of fact prussic acid has not been used by the Germans
simply because it is not poisonous enough. It is not so poisonous, for
example, as phosgene, and a lot of captured German documents showing
the relative toxicity of different vapours always put it on a rather
low basis. It was this and not a desire to avoid utter barbarity which
decided the Germans not to use it. The ordinary German soldiers, just
like ourselves, still consider prussic acid as the most dangerous
possible material, and whenever they have a story to tell of a new gas
being invented or being got ready to use against us they will tell you
in awestruck tones that it is prussic acid.
The most valuable piece of information which we got was a complete
set of notes of some very secret lectures given to specially selected
senior officers at a conference in Germany. We gathered that this
conference was held behind closed doors and triple lines of sentries,
and all that kind of thing, and I cannot of course indicate how the
information came into our hands, but there it was. It described a lot
of new gases which had been considered, and stated among other things
that they intended to make a big gas attack against either the French
or ourselves in Flanders in December, 1915, some time before Christmas
when the wind was favourable. For this purpose they were going to
use a mixture of chlorine with another gas, phosgene--the amount of
phosgene to be twenty per cent of the whole.
Now phosgene had been realised by our own chemists as a very likely
gas to be used. I cannot say that it is more poisonous than chlorine,
but it is infinitely more deadly because it is much more difficult to
protect against and is more insidious in its nature. For one thing,
though it is an asphyxiant like chlorine it is possible for a man to be
only slightly gassed and think he is all right, and then, especially if
he takes any exercise in between, to fall dead several hours later from
heart failure.
The information was so complete that our arrangements to provide a
helmet which would protect against phosgene were hastened as much as
possible; and it was as well that they were, for the attack actually
did come off just about the time and place mentioned, in the Ypres
salient.
It was realised of course that any change in protection would have
to include both prussic acid and phosgene; and this is not nearly so
easy as it sounds. Phosgene is peculiarly chemically inert for such an
active poison, and it was some time before a reasonable protection
was found which could be incorporated in a smoke helmet. The substance
actually decided upon was a solution of sodium phenate--that is,
carbolic acid dissolved in caustic soda, the mixture containing an
excess of caustic. This solution is quite capable of dealing with
reasonable concentrations of phosgene and would successfully protect
against three parts of phosgene to ten thousand of the air, which in
the circumstances was quite good enough. The French also altered their
protection at the same time and used sodium sulphanilate as the basis
of protection against phosgene. The objections against the sodium
phenate were that it could not be absorbed into a flannel helmet owing
to its destruction of the fabric, and on account of its being strongly
caustic it would tend to burn the faces of the men it came in contact
with. These difficulties were overcome by making the helmet of two
layers of flannelette instead of one layer of flannel, and by mixing
with the sodium phenate a large quantity of glycerin. This kept the
fabric moist and prevented the caustic from exerting its corrosive
action.
It was realised from the start that a smoke helmet containing free
alkali would deteriorate considerably on exposure to air, and it was
found advantageous to provide a breathing tube in the mask so that
a man would breathe in through the helmet and out through an outlet
valve; in this way the breath, which contains a lot of carbonic acid,
would have no bad effect on the chemicals. The use of an outlet valve
was also found to have the advantage of keeping the air purer inside
the helmet and preventing the stuffy feeling which accompanied the
older types of helmet.
This additional complication to the helmet was not looked upon
favourably at first by the troops, but it was very quickly realised
that only a little practice was required to make a man breathe quite
normally in the way mentioned above, and that the advantages accruing
from the alteration were very great indeed. We found that we could
carry on for much longer stretches of time without being fagged
out, and more exact trials by the scientists showed that a man’s
temperature, pulse and rate of breathing did not increase nearly so
rapidly if he used an outlet valve as when breathing out and in
through the same material. This is largely due to what is called “dead
space,” which means the volume of air in between the lungs and the
atmosphere and in which the air is largely composed of breath exhaled
from the lungs. The smaller this space the easier it is to breathe.
This principle of using an outlet valve has been retained in all the
British respirators which have been invented since and is regarded as
one of the very highest importance.
Another thing which had to be taken care of was that the new helmets,
which were called “tube” or “P” helmets, would gradually deteriorate
on exposure to air, and would consequently have to be withdrawn from
the troops in the line from time to time in order to redip them in
chemicals and make them as effective as before. For this purpose large
repair factories were started at the bases and were placed in charge
of Englishwomen who were brought over for the purpose. These factories
were organised with local labour, helped out by a little military
personnel, and were capable of washing the helmets returned from the
line, redipping them in new solution, and sending them back in good
condition again.
This was no small job, as the smoke helmets which were sent in were
generally filthy dirty, sometimes soaked in mud and sodden with water,
and requiring very careful handling to be brought back into good
condition. All sorts of things got back with these helmets to the
repair stations, and it was not an uncommon thing for the satchels
containing the helmets to be found to hold anything from a live hand
grenade to the photograph of some girl, which had been stored there for
safe keeping. Both then and later we always had considerable difficulty
in preventing Tommy from using his helmet satchel, and later on his box
respirator satchel, for these illicit purposes. He seemed to consider
that if he had to carry another haversack he had a perfect right to put
in it whatever he liked--rations, knives and forks, ammunition, private
knickknacks of all kinds. This of course had to be stopped, owing to
the damage these things might do to the respirator and the difficulty
they might make in getting it out quickly.
During September and October, 1915, there were several scares as to the
imminence of gas attacks by the Germans, and on one or two occasions
it was definitely stated that the cylinders were actually in position
in their trenches. This helped to hasten things up, and the factories
in England and the repair stations in France kept themselves busy in
producing the new type of helmet. A large number of them were actually
issued to the troops by the time the Battle of Loos was started, and
were consequently employed by our men when the first gas attacks were
made, in September of that year.
It was these helmets which appeared in so many of the picture papers
showing the charge of some British Territorial infantry through the gas
cloud at the beginning of the battle, and there is no question about
it that the men had a very fearsome appearance. With the hood over
the head and the two big goggle eyes, and the outlet valve sticking
out where the nose should be, it is small wonder that the Germans
described them as “devils,” and were so terrified as not to be able to
put up much fight on the front where the particular charge was made.