WHEN FRANCE WAS FIRST "GASSED"
At the stations these days we found numbers of poilus who were "done in"
by the German explosive bullets, many of them breathing their last. Poor
devils, writhing in pain and agony! It was bad enough to have their
flesh penetrated by the capsule of lead and steel, but to have added to
it the excruciating torture of having the bullet explode or expand after
it got inside, was fiendish.
But such was the German's idea of "military necessity." They had thrust
aside every consideration of humanity, and every ideal of morality, and
were employing ruthless and frightful methods to gain their military
goal, which as they said "must be attained at all costs."
And cost it did.
It cost innocent life and untold agony.
It was daily costing conscience and character.
It was costing Germany that standing among the nations which is so
necessary to the future, and she was sacrificing her national honor for
transitory dreams of power and wealth.
The Germans had employed the most fearful implements that the genius of
their fertile brains could devise.
Liquid fire which seared the flesh, and electric currents which burned
most dreadfully, were among the lighter forms of their torturous
warfare.
The poison gases capped the climax.
One afternoon, at the second battle of Ypres, they let loose this demon
of the devil.
From a distance of two miles the ambulance men had been watching the
engagement, waiting for the signal to come forward to transport the
wounded men.
The field glasses betrayed every movement on the battle line.
Suddenly, and without any apparent cause, the Allied lines seemed to
break, and the fields were alive with running figures.
Astonishment took hold of the spectators.
The impossible had happened, and the French Army was in wild retreat.
Figures were seen tottering and stumbling across the meadow, soldiers
were reeling to and fro, staggering like drunken men. Falling down upon
the ground, waving their arms frantically, they kicked their legs in the
air, agonized and groaning. Some of them came into the Red Cross
dressing station, coughing, choking, and strangling. Their faces were
green and their chests were heaving. Between gasps, they related an
incredible tale.
The Germans had opened up a bombardment of our trenches with some new,
but hellish, weapon. A greenish, gray gas had appeared above them, and
hung low, instead of rising. It seemed to be heavier than air, and soon
it made its way down into the trenches, choking our men and throwing
them into a state of terror.
They tried to fan it away with their blankets. But no use, it only
spread the gas, which got into their throats and lungs and tortured them
beyond all description.
"God knows we will fight like men," they said, "but to be smothered like
rats is different. No human being could endure such suffocation. God
never meant a man to breathe that stuff and we'll make those hell-hounds
pay for it."
But hundreds of poor poilus had already "gone West," and those who
escaped were in such a condition of permanent disability and weakness
that there was no danger of their making the Germans pay. Many
Canadians, too, brave fellows, died that day, but on that day also they
became immortal.
The stretcher bearers had seen it all, and now upon the signal, plunged
into the work of lifting the sufferers into the ambulances and carrying
them back to be treated and cared for. For days this thing endured,
until at last the Allies devised a gas mask or respirator which
completely nullified the effects of the deadly chlorine, but they paid
an awful price before they got it. It is a very simple device,
consisting of a long cap of light canvas or similar material, soaked in
a chemical solution which absorbs or neutralizes the poison of the
gases. The cap has large eye holes with glass windows. The air from the
lungs is expelled through a tube which has an outward opening valve, so
that you must breathe in through the treated gauze. One's coat is
buttoned tightly around the lower end of this cap or "smoke helmet," so
that no gas can enter from below. It is put on in twenty seconds and can
withstand five hours of the poison gas.
Poison gas! Had the nation of _Kultur_ descended to such fiendish
methods of torture? Yes, and to worse ones. It angered me. I had already
pulled off my frock coat. I now shed my vest also. I was in process of
preparation for the supreme battle--the moral struggle--to decide when a
man's a man; to determine what attitude and inward action I should take
in regard to this kind of thing. I could see that I must settle that
problem sooner or later.