Trench Warfare

Trench Warfare — page 3 — DULCE ET DECORUM EST Gas Gas Quick boys An ecstasy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound ring like a man in fire or lime Din through the misty panes and thick green light As under a green sea I saw him drowning In all my dreams before my helpless sight It was technically spring but the weather had been slow to warm up in Ypres This meant the temperature quickly dropped in the late afternoon There was only a slight breeze when the men noticed a mist forming along the German trenches The greenish yellow cloud seemed to rise up out of the ground It grew taller and slowly blotted out the sunlight as it rolled toward the French line The vapor followed the ground closely filling shell holes and other indentations while continuing forward with the breeze It was like nothing these soldiers had ever seen before and they watched it He plunges at me guttering choking drowning Many soldiers used poetry to describe what they experienced throughout the war This excerpt of Dulce et Decorum Est written by British soldier Wilfred Owen followed a gas attack similar to the one at Ypres His Latin title is part of a saying from a poem that was written by the ancient Roman author Horace Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori Translated it means It is sweet and right to die for your country curiously As it enveloped the first few men the trapped soldiers choked and fought to breathe Their fellows watched as the vapor's victims staggered out of the cloud blinded and coughing Their chests

Trench Warfare — page 4 — GAS FRIGHT heaved as their lungs fought to pull in air their faces purple with the strain Curiosity turned to panic The men still didn't know what the cloud contained but they broke ranks and ran As they struggled to stay ahead of this mysterious threat they abandoned their posts in the Allied trenches The panic caused by chemical weapons was almost more damaging than the weapons themselves Many soldiers developed what became known as gas fright the delusion they were under gas attack Often several times throughout the night someone would sound a horn or beat on an empty shell casing to sound the alarm of a gas attack Men would scramble into their gas masks waking their neighbors and the panic would travel down the trench Eventually someone would send an all clear Depending on the type of chemical gas could be released from canisters or delivered in artillery shells This meant men often suspected any explosion was a gas attack and showed symptoms including stomachaches and vomiting whether they had been gassed or not As the war and gas attacks continued it became increasingly difficult for doctors to tell who had been gassed and who had not WARNING On April 22 1915 Ypres became the site of the first successful chlorine gas attack in World War I Chlorine is a chemical that when in gas form reacts with the water in airways and eyes to create an Soldiers who were exposed to it choked as their throats and lungs swelled and they fought to breathe coughing and vomiting The attack at Ypres took both the French and British commands completely by surprise even though it was not the first chemical attack Both the Allies and the Germans had used tear gas earlier in the war Tear gas is a nerve gas that acts

Trench Warfare — page 5 — against the body's pain sensors especially in the eyes nose and lungs People who are gassed cry and cough and may vomit Military leaders had hoped tear gas would cause enough havoc in enemy trenches to allow an attacking force to sweep through and break into open countryside When this failed the Germans looked for a more effective agent and found it in chlorine gas In 1907 Germany the United Kingdom France Russia and other countries had signed the Hague Treaty which banned THE HAGUE TREATY certain weapons including poisonous In 1899 and 1907 Russia's Czar Nicholas ll called gases Perhaps it was because of this the major global powers together to negotiate agreement the Allied leaders ignored both rules for future wars The nations met in the the precedent for using chemical weapons Netherlands and discussed what kinds of weapons they would not produce Among these and the warnings from intelligence weapons were shells or other ways to deliver something new was about to happen The poisonous or suffocating gases Because the British had signed the treaty they limited their result was Allied troops had neither the researchers attempts at the Imperial College protective equipment nor the training of Science to develop a gas weapon Germany saw poisonous gases as one way to leave the needed to face this new weapon and trenches but they didn't want to be the first to because of this the gas took a heavy toll break the treaty In August 1914 the French used chemical grenades which gave the Germans the excuse they needed to develop and use chlorine DEAD AND DAMAGED gas now that the treaty had been violated It is hard to say just how many men were affected by the chlorine gas at Ypres Many

Trench Warfare — page 6 — An ot telling it as in pri A MANFre German Red Cross workers bring liquids to those affected by chlorine

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