The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-05-17
FIRST ATTACK
BY POISON Gas
DIVIDED LINES
Secret Kept for Three Years
Is Now Made Public for
First Time
GERMAN COMMAND
DID NOT KNOW IT
Hindenburg Sacrifices of
Army Unnecessary-Gas
Was Very Effective

MlSnIler imam 1lnQeQDurS, is the
German chemist.
In his effort to break through the
British lines on the Somme, linden |
burg-in the last four weeks-it is es-
! timated has sacrificed 100000 of his
picked men and failed to achieve
what he set out to do.
At Verdun in 1917, the German
Crown Prince lost 100000 in killed,
| wounded and prisoners in the same
hopeless task-and failed.
That for which military Germany
has paid the tremendous price of
100000 of it's finest troops in these
two titanic efforts without reaching
its goal or receiving any adequate re-
turn, scientific Germany, through
two regiments of German chemists,
accomplished three years ago last
month in one-half hour with scarcely
| the loss of a man-but Germany didn't
know it and the Allies were saved
from what might have proved the
| eliminating coup of the war.
| These two regiments composed of
| 5000 experienced chemists and mete-
biologists opened up an absolute gap
| in the British lines, through which
almost unmolested and turned either
wing Of the British on the Teuton
advance to Paris. Failure to see,
seize and follow up this opportunity
at the psychological moment cost the
Kaiser the only real chance he has
had since his divisions were turned
| back at the Marine to deliver a coup
Z 'd'etat that was fraught with promise
| of victory.
| This startling revelation, which for
| three years has been a treasured Sc
cret of the British military establish
ment, comes out now when it can do
no harm, on the authority of S. J.
] Aud of the British Military Mission
to the United States, who in an ad-
dress to the Washington Academy of
Sciences recently described just how
it happened.
With the first breath of spring in
March, 1915, the British in the Ypres
salient captured a German deserter.
This soldier confided to the British
Intelligence Officers that the Germans
were preparing to project waves of
poisonous gas from their trenches
into the British lines. Such thing
had ever been done before in any
war-it was too barbarous and against
international law-the British didn't
believe the Germans intended to do
anything of the kind. They thought
the deserter was trying to brighten
them with a fairy story. So they dis
missed the warning as vaTueless and
made no preparations to combat or
anticipate the intended attack. A
| Ia
German regiments of chemists moved
up into the trenches and set up row
after row of mysterious looking CYL
inders, resembling those used for the
storage of oxygen or hydrogen. These
tanks which contained chlorine gas
were buried in holes dug in the bot
tom of the trench and covered with
quilt of moss containing a potassium
carbonate solution and then with sand
bags, When the attack was ready,
these coverings were removed and
each cylinder connected with a lead
4 pipe which bent over the top of the
parapet, in the direction of the Brit
ish trenches. The meteorologists
btested the velocity of the air and
when they gave the word that it was
between the desired four and twelve
miles an hour, the valves were turned
open by the chemists and soon clouds
of the deadly chlorine began to creep
toward the British lines. In a few
minutes it reached the unprepared
''Tommies." In half an hour 5000
British troops lay dead in their tracks,
stricken like magic by an unseen
hand. Never before in either modern
or ancient warfare, has such a sight
been witnessed. Thousands of rudy,
strong, able-bodied men grew sud
denly black in the face, reeled in
helpless suffocation and toppled over
on top of each other, writhing in
agony, unwounded and unscratched,
but poisoned to DEATH.
In sheer despair other thousands
threw themselves to the moist ground
and buried their face in the mud For
tunately for them, this saved them
from the death of their companions,
! though they might as well have been
dead. Some of them lost conscious
ness; all of them lay there where they
fell an inert, vomiting, distorted,
. helpless mass of crumpled manhood.
In this condition, the Germans
rushed forward and captured 5000 of
, them-an that was left. There was
not a British soldier standing on his
feet in the whole area. Where those
, 1900 "Tommies'' stood but half an
hour before alert and ready, to give
, shot for shot, not a hand was able to
raise a finger to a gun to oppose them.
Before the onrushing Teutons a great
wide gap opened up in the impregna-
BILE British lines. Had the German
Y command realized there and then the
i decimating and overwhelming power
of that initial gas attack and capital
e lied it, their path to Calais and Paris
would have been easier and victory
I perhaps chnched. The fact that they
t did nothing to develop their oppor-
= tunity leads many to believe that they
S themselves never appreciated the tao
r teal value or effect Of what they were
Y doing. After the first half hour the
l gas clouds dispersed and Canadians
= closed the gap never again to be open
/ ed. The Kaiser's chance was gone.
t Before weather conditions were
again favorable for another attack,
British chemists improvised gas
| masks to protect the Tommy" con-
) sisting of respirators with pads of
} cotton and wool wrapped in muslin